Drug candidates in pipeline offer potential for Parkinson's disease market, says Frost & Sullivan

The Parkinson's disease therapeutics market in 2008 amounted to over $1 billion in the European Union, which includes total sales of carbidopa/levodopa, dopamine agonists, MAO-B inhibitors, COMT inhibitors and anticholinergics used for disease symptom relief. With the introduction of newer dopamine agonists, as well as fresh recommendations and treatment guidelines that call for using dopamine agonists as first-line therapy, the market is experiencing a shift away from the use of carbidopa/levodopa.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan), European Markets for Parkinson's Disease Therapeutics, finds that the market earned revenues of over $1.28 billion in 2008 and estimates this to reach $2.28 billion in 2015.

"Although prescriptions for Sinemet and Sinemet (carbidopa-levodopa), controlled release (CR) continue to be written to a large extent, dopamine agonists prescriptions are increasing as well," says F&S program manager Paljit Sohal. "Other drugs account for a relatively small portion of the total prescriptions, while some, such as the catechol-o-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitors are directly linked with Sinemet prescriptions," he added.