Report: Schizophrenia drug sales are shrinking, but growth will return

The market for schizophrenia drugs will shrink over the next couple of years, Decision Resources finds, but will bounce back after that, thanks to new drugs that can be priced at a premium to older treatments.

Antipsychotic drug sales are set to drop to $6.5 billion in 7 leading markets by 2014, the market research firm found. That's down from $7.4 billion in 2011. Newly available generics will erode sales of particular brands--including Eli Lilly's ($LLY) Zyprexa, AstraZeneca's ($AZN) Seroquel and Bristol-Myers Squibb's ($BMY) Abilify--through 2016, the report notes.

But population growth will help push up the number of patients who need antipsychotic therapy, and new drugs are anticipated as well. New formulations of old drugs will be able to command higher prices, with an injectable version of Abilify, for instance, expected to hit $500 million in peak sales. Those formulations will see sales more than double to $3 billion 2021, up from $1.4 billion last year.

- read the story in PharmaTimes

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