Autoimmune Disease Treatment Adalimumab Market Trends in 10 Seconds
- Adalimumab, a drug used to treat autoimmune diseases in which the body’s immune system is out of balance
- Patent expiration of original drug, intensifying competition in the biosimilar market
- Tension in the domestic adalimumab market worth about 100 billion won
- Daewoong Pharmaceutical challenges the adalimumab biosimilar market
- Launched at the lowest price, reducing the burden on patients and the country’s medical finances
Daewoong Pharmaceutical began selling Adalimumab biosimilar in Korea on July 1. Adalimumab is a drug used to treat ‘autoimmune diseases’ caused by immune system abnormalities, and was launched in 2003 by the American pharmaceutical company AbbVie under the name Hu*ra. Since its launch, this original drug has recorded cumulative sales of 219 billion dollars (about 301.2126 trillion won) as of 2022, ranking it as the ‘world’s best-selling drug no. 1’. However, major patents began to expire in 2016, and in January 2023, its patent in the United States, the largest market, will also expire, and it is facing challenges from biosimilars with identical ingredients.
Biosimilar: A drug product with the same mechanism of action that is released after the patent of the original drug expires. Also called an equivalent biopharmaceutical.
There are differing opinions on whether the original drug will continue to dominate the adalimumab market. Some analysts say that blockbuster drugs will not easily collapse, while others predict that biosimilars will make a full-fledged advance starting in the second half of 2024. The adalimumab market
, which has reached a turning point due to patent expiration and the successive emergence of biosimilars, is examined in the Daewoong Pharmaceutical Newsroom to understand its current status and outlook.