JPM25: Takeda spotlights 6 pipeline assets that could pull down up to $20B in collective peak sales

Among the myriad drugmakers laying out their plans for the future at this year’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Takeda said it's laser-focused on six pipeline assets that could each reel in blockbuster-level sales down the line.

The emphasis on the half-dozen future medicines will be essential for Takeda as the company’s lead product, Entyvio, inches toward expected biosimilar competition in 2031.

As it stands, Takeda is banking on the success of six main mid- and late-stage candidates: oveporexton, zasocitinib, rusfertide, fazirsiran, mezagitamab and elritercept.

Assuming they all win approval, the clutch of potential new drugs could collectively generate peak sales between $10 billion and $20 billion—representative of roughly one-third to two-thirds of Takeda’s current annual revenue—CEO Christophe Weber said during the company’s conference presentation Tuesday.

Of those assets, Weber put the most emphasis on the narcolepsy type 1 candidate oveporexton, the psoriasis asset zasocitinib and the company’s potential polycythemia vera treatment rusfertide, all of which are expected to deliver phase 3 data this year.

Takeda’s oral orexin receptor 2 agonist oveporexton could eventually hit peak sales between $2 billion and $3 billion, Takeda noted in its presentation.

The “key” to the narcolepsy type 1 asset, according to Weber, is its ability to mimic the body’s natural orexin cycle. Orexin is a neuropeptide lacking in patients with narcolepsy that helps regulate waking, wakefulness, appetite and energy.

In terms of the med’s commercialization potential, Weber described narcolepsy type 1 as a rare disease that’s “not so rare,” noting that there are about 100,000 patients living with the condition in the U.S. The challenge in attempting to market a narcolepsy treatment is that many patients remain undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, Weber explained.

“The treatment rate is about 75%, so we think that if you bring a very innovative medicine like oveporexton, you can really change the diagnosis level and really help these patients who don’t have a very good solution right now to treat narcolepsy,” the CEO said.

Looking ahead to the projected launch, Weber noted that Takeda is exploring whether to wed the medication with a digital companion for monitoring patients' sleep. The company is also looking into artificial-intelligence-based algorithms to diagnose narcolepsy type 1 faster, he said.

As for Takeda’s psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis candidate zasocitinib, the company expects its drug “will have a much higher efficacy" than the current TYK2 inhibitor on the market, Weber said. If approved, the drug would challenge Bristol Myers Squibb’s Sotyktu, the first-in-class TYK2 inhibitor.

Takeda will plot out a “tactical” launch for the drug should it pass muster with regulators, Weber said, noting that his company has “learned a lot from BMS’ experience” with marketing Sotyktu.

Takeda expects that zasocitinib, if approved, could generated peak sales in a range of $3 billion to $6 billion.

Meanwhile, the hepcidin mimetic peptide rusfertide, being developed in the blood cancer polycythemia vera, could go on to generate $1 billion to $2 billion at peak if it passes muster with regulators, according to Weber's presentation.

As it stands, patients living with the serious form of cancer are limited to treatment options like phlebotomy, which is inconvenient and often insufficient, Weber pointed out. The CEO expects that an approval of rusfertide “could change the paradigm of treatment of this disease.”

As for the remaining assets in Takeda’s class of expected near-term approvals, the company is developing fazirsiran in alpha-1 antitrypsin related liver disease, mezagitamab in immune thrombocytopenia and immunoglobulin A nephropathy, and elritercept in myelodysplastic syndromes. If approved, the company expects those drugs to generate peak sales between $1 billion and $3 billion each.

Takeda certainly needs to pad out its pipeline given that the company’s lead product, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis med Entyvio, is set to face biosimilar competition starting in 2031, according to Weber. By then, the drug is expected to reach peak sales of about $7.5 billion to $9 billion.

Meanwhile, Takeda will “not sit idle” when it spotlights promising external innovation, Weber added, highlighting the potential for business development in the form of in-licensing moves.

From now until 2031, Weber said he expects Takeda to thrive thanks to the waning impact of Vyvanse generics. The drugmaker has been weathering copycat competition to its flagship attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder med for about two years now, Weber pointed out.

But with those pressures fading and Entyvio competition not expected until the start of the next decade, Takeda is looking forward to about five years of “limited generic exposure,” Weber said.