The report, “Global Protein Therapeutics Market” forecasts that growth of the sector, which expanded 14 per cent in 2008, will be driven by the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts to replace revenue lost as traditional small molecules drugs go off patent.
The authors suggested that although monoclonal antibody type drugs will continue to be the biggest sellers, demand for novel medications like insulin, beta interferon, G-CSF and coagulation factors will grow considerably over the next few years.
Biogenerics market set for growth
RNCOS also highlighted the potential of the biogenerics market, which they predicted will generate annual revenue of $3bn a year driven by growing demand for low cost versions of protein drugs.
They suggested that, while Big Pharma currently dominates “introduction of concepts like intellectual property is expected to encourage the smaller firms to develop and introduce biosimilars in the market whose patents have already expired.”
The authors also predicted that: “much of the growth will be driven by European and Asian countries in near future, as they have already approved the regulatory pathways for biogenerics.”
Bio-generics boon for contracting sector
RNCOS said that, within the pharmaceutical industry as a whole, the contract manufacturing sector is likely to be one of the key beneficiaries of the protein therapeutics and biogenerics markets.
The growth of the outsourced manufacturing sector in the last few decades has been dramatic as pharma firms have increasingly turned to third parties to reduce spending.
The last 18 months has seen a considerable increase in this sort of activity as the global economic downturn has intensified the pressure on pharma firms to reduce costs.
While this has allowed pharmaceutical firms to reduce spending, it has also meant that a considerable amount of in-house manufacturing capacity and expertise has been lost. As a result the drug industry’s reliance on third parties has increased.
RNCOS contention is that a pharmaceutical industry now comfortable with the idea of outsourced manufacture is likely to seek the same sort of service for the production of protein therapeutics and biologics.