EULAR 2018 round-up — a golden age for rheumatology?

Conference attendees gathered in the cavernous RAI Amsterdam convention center last week to hear the latest data from a therapy area valued at around $44 billion last year, and  expected to reach over $50 billion by 2022.

Over that time, analysts expect the market leaderboard to change little, although falling revenues for Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE: JNJ) time-worn blockbuster Remicade (stelara) will take a bite out of its position.

Market leader AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) meanwhile looks set to benefit from a long tail in revenues from its anti-TNF superstar Humira (adalimumab), with sales continuing to hold up fairly well despite a crumbling patent edifice. At EULAR (European Congress of Rheumatology), the firm showed off good data to suggest its investigational JAK-1 blocker upadacitinib could help make up the shortfall.