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More Companies Are Waking Up to Sleeper Diseases
Posted on 2006-02-28 11:15:00
Public attention tends to focus on high-profile, killer diseases such as heart disease and cancer, but there are other disorders that while not fatal, affect a considerable number of otherwise healthy individuals in ways that significantly compromise their quality of life. Such indications, called “sleeper diseases,” are the focus of a new CHA Advances Report titled Sleeper Diseases: Forecast and Assessment of Neglected Disease Market Opportunities.
This study evaluates five such syndromes expected to develop into significant pharmaceutical markets through 2015:
• Autism;
• Compulsions, Phobias, Panic Attacks;
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia Syndrome;
• Eating Disorders; and
• Restless Legs Syndrome
The term “sleeper diseases” refers to the fact that these increasingly recognized conditions hover in the precarious (and constantly redefined) continuum between psychiatry and somatic medicine, or constitute neurological entities that have only very recently been described as separate diseases. Yet several of these emerging sleeper diseases share key properties that make them highly interesting for the pharmaceutical industry, which has already begun to create markets for restless legs syndrome (RLS) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and is gearing up to tackle eating disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia.
The most recent example is GlaxoSmithKline’s selective dopamine D2/D3 receptor agonist Requip (ropinirole), approved for RLS in May 2005, which will see a 10-fold expansion of its potential treatment population until 2015. The degree to which physicians are trained to recognize RLS in patients, who in most cases do not complain about repetitive limb movements but only about sleep disturbances or daytime sleepiness, will determine the dynamics of this emerging market during the next decade.
In the case of autism, expanding diagnostic criteria is creating a significant market for targeted drug therapies. Because autistic spectrum disorders are lifelong chronic disorders and patients are expected to have a normal lifespan, a market of very considerable size—probably comparable to the dementia market—could be created.
“These disorders, many of them primary care conditions, each afflict broad segments of the population," said Mike Goodman, general manager, Advances Reports. "A safe, effective treatment for any of them could open a lucrative market overnight in much the same way that Tagamet opened up the ulcer market or Viagra the market for erectile dysfunction.”
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