Sarepta will rebound strongly from eteplirsen US delay, says analyst

US rare and infectious disease specialist Sarepta Therapeutics (Nasdaq: SRPT) remains a strong contender in the Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) treatment market, despite a delay in the development of its novel, exon-skipping drug eteplirsen from the end of this year, says an analyst.

According to Nikhilesh Sanyal, research and consulting firm GlobalData's analyst covering immunology, the US Food and Drug Administration’s call for additional data in eteplirsen’s New Drug Application appears to be a detrimental setback for Sarepta in the race to develop the first disease-modifying therapy for DMD (The Pharma Letters October 28 and 31).

However, the analyst believes that the company can address the issue by mid-2015, with the drug expected to treat approximately 13% of DMD patients in the US.