Decision Resources new special report “Biosimilars 2007-2017: Shifting Payer and Physician Opinion Increases the Hurdles to Uptake” forecasts that sales of biosimilar monoclonal antibody (MAb) Herceptin will approach blockbuster status in 2017 in Europe alone, and biosimilar Rituxan/MabThera will garner $ 940 million dollars in sales by 2017 in the U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K.

The Genentech/Roche drugs current third-quarter sales (reported today in networkmedica.com) are as follows: non Hodgkin’s lymphoma treatment Rituxan at $ 1.91 billion dollars, and HER2+ metastatic breast cancer drug Rituxan/Mabthera at $ 1.045 billion dollars.

Based on the success of these two drugs, near-term opportunity exists for drug manufacturers investing in the development of biosimilar MAbs in oncology states the consultant´s report.

Oncologists will be among the most aggressive users, and the high number of cancer patients will accelerate growth and penetration within the relatively un-crowded biosimilar MAb market.

Although it appears treatments for oncology will be the leaders, the opportunity for biosimilars varies significantly by therapeutic area, according to the report. Owing to an increasingly cautious attitude among neurologists regarding safety and efficacy associated with the use of biosimilars in chronic diseases like multiple sclerosis, the expectations for biosimilar interferon-betas in neurology is not growing, according to the report.

Additionally, the emergence of novel multiple sclerosis therapies will constrain interferon-beta use over the long-term; prior to biosimilar entry, forecasted sales of interferon-betas in the U.S. and the EU will fall to $ 2.3 billion dollars in 2017 - a significant decline from their peak sales of more than $ 4.7 billion dollars in 2010.

"Despite the success of biosimilars in some areas such as cancer treatment, the launches of biosimilar interferon-betas for neurology in Europe in 2010 and in the U.S. in 2014, will not generate significant uptake of these agents," said Nicole Westphal, Ph.D., analyst at Decision Resources. She added that due to the fact that clinical development of these drugs is high, “the conservative prescribing habits of neurologists” and the decline in the use of interferon-betas by 2017, biosimilar developers may look to invest their R&D funds in other classes of biologics.