The European Alcohol Addiction Market is Poised For a Treatment Paradigm Shift With the Launch of BioTie/Lundbeck's Selincro
In the Absence of Selincro, Acamprosate and Naltrexone Will Remain Mainstay Therapies in the United States, According to a New Report from Decision Resources
BURLINGTON, Mass., May 9, 2013 -- Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that surveyed U.S. and European psychiatrists and U.S. managed care organization (MCO) pharmacy directors agree that a therapy's ability to support abstinence is one of the attributes that most influences their decisions regarding prescribing and formulary status determinations, respectively, in the treatment of alcohol addiction. Historically, therapies for alcohol addiction have been indicated for the support of abstinence—however, BioTie/Lundbeck's Selincro recently received approval from the European Medicines Agency for reducing alcohol consumption in adult alcohol-dependent patients who have a high level of alcohol consumption, and marketers are hopeful that physicians will accept harm reduction as a meaningful treatment goal in Europe.
The DecisionBase 2013 report entitled Alcohol Addiction: How Would a Harm Reduction Treatment Paradigm Be Received by Physicians? also finds that surveyed U.S. psychiatrists indicated that they would prescribe Alkermes' samidophan to 25 percent of their patients with alcohol addiction, if it were to proceed in development and launch for alcohol addiction in the United States.
The findings also reveal that surveyed U.S. and European psychiatrists and U.S. MCO pharmacy directors indicate that improved abstinence from alcohol is one of greatest unmet needs in alcohol addiction. However, clinical data and the opinions of interviewed thought leaders indicate that no emerging therapy has yet demonstrated the potential to fulfill this unmet need.
"The market for alcohol addiction therapies remains very small despite the relatively high prevalence of the disease because of low diagnosis and drug treatment rates," said Decision Resources Analyst Natalie Taylor, Ph.D. "Psychiatrists perceive current therapies as having limited efficacy, further dissuading them from treating patients with pharmacotherapy. The launch of Selincro may yet change the treatment paradigm of alcohol addiction—at least in Europe—by providing patients with a therapy that can be taken on an as needed basis. European thought-leaders indicate that this harm reduction model, while not representing patient abstinence, is still a meaningful treatment goal."
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