LONDON, UK (GlobalData), 6 August 2014 - With the recent approval of Jardiance in the US, Eli Lilly and its partner, Boehringer Ingelheim (BI), have taken another step towards owning the most comprehensive diabetes portfolio in the industry, says an analyst with research and consulting firm GlobalData.
While Jardiance is the third-to-market sodium-glucose transporter-2 (SGLT-2) inhibitor, GlobalData expects it to be competitive in a market set to more than double in value over the next 10 years, driven primarily by the dramatic increase in disease prevalence.
Valentina Gburcik, GlobalData's Senior Analyst covering Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders, asserts: "Although the type 2 diabetes drug classes are currently crowded with 'me-too' drugs, Eli Lilly and BI have already proved themselves experts at successfully marketing such treatments.
"This has been demonstrated by Tradjenta, which continues to perform strongly. Despite its third-to-market status, Tradjenta is still stealing patient share from Merck's Januvia, the first-to-market drug from the same class."
While Eli Lilly has been a leader in the insulin space since 1923, its position in recent years has come under threat on several fronts.
Gburcik explains: "One of the company's main insulin products, Humalog, lost patent protection in 2013, and is about to face stiff competition from biosimilars and ultra-fast formulations of the same drug.
"Eli Lilly's strategy to overcome the forthcoming patent cliff has involved funding a maturing late-stage type 2 diabetes pipeline, and reducing the cost of drug production through extensive partnerships."
Despite the lack of potential blockbusters among its marketed and pipeline diabetes drugs, GlobalData believes that Eli Lilly and BI's partnership is strategically placed to be a future diabetes leader.
"The companies will soon market drugs from every anti-diabetes class, which will strengthen their relationship with buyers," the analyst concludes.