Roche's tominersen could help Huntington's disease market reach over $1 billion

Swiss pharma giant Roche (ROG: SIX) recently announced that it will initiate a new Phase II trial to reassess its pipeline antisense therapy, tominersen, in the treatment of Huntington's disease (HD).

Partnered with US biotech Ionis Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: IONS), tominersen offers Roche the opportunity to bring one of the first disease-modifying treatments to this market, in a move that could help nudge the HD market from its current forecast of $917.7 million to over $1 billion in sales by 2030, says data and analytics company GlobalData.

Sarah Elsayed, neurology analyst at GlobalData, commented: “Roche’s decision to bring back tominersen in a newly designed trial marks a surprising twist in the drug’s story, as its development was halted in March 2021 due to failure to show evidence of clinical benefit.  However, Roche’s bid to revive tominersen is justifiable, given that the choice of approved treatments is extremely limited across the US, the UK, and Germany. There are only two symptomatic treatments - tetrabenazine and deutetrabenazine - approved for the treatment of HD-associated chorea.”