Sales of older antihypertensives may falter

In another market-study report, the New York-based strategic management consulting firm Datamonitor predicted a significant decline in the global antihypertensive market by the year 2010.

Patents for popular calcium channel blockers and ACE inhibitors, which presently account for 40% and 35% of the $24.7 million antihypertensive market, will expire by the beginning of the next century. Increased competition from generics and wider acceptance of newer therapies (such as angiotensin II receptor antagonists) will loosen the familiar products' dominant hold on the market.

Values for popular calcium channel blockers, such as Bayer's Adalat and Hoescht Marion Roussel's Cardizem, for example, may decline drastically, according to the report. Sales for Adalat, currently worth $1.16 billion, may drop to $82 million by 2010; sales of Cardizem, worth $1.79 billion, may dip to $91 million.

Sales of Pfizer's newer Norvasc, on the other hand, will initially grow to $1.9 billion by 2005. But by 2010, when its patent expires, sales will fall to $495 million.

ACE inhibitors will suffer a similar fate. Sales of Merck's Vasotec, currently valued at $2.5 billion, will fall to $514 million by 2005. Bristol-Myers Squibb's Capoten and Zeneca's Zestril also appear to be positioned for a drop in sales, according to the report.

Angiotensin II receptor antagonists, which entered the antihypertensive market in 1995, will benefit from the declining market strength of ACE inhibitors and calcium channel blockers.

Sales in this new category of antihypertensives may reach $3 billion by 2005. For example, as profits from Merck's Vasotec ACE inhibitor fall, profits from the company's angiotensin II receptor antagonist Cozaar/Hyzaar will rise to $1.7 billion by 2005.

Sales from this new drug class alone may make up for the overall decrease in the antihypertensive market, the report concluded. PR