Amgen Inc.’s drug, Enbrel, which lost its status as the top-selling treatment for
rheumatoid arthritis last year, works better against the skin
disease psoriasis in higher doses, according to a study.
“More is not only better, it’s faster, without being more toxic,” said Alice Gottlieb, a researcher who helped Amgen test
the drug and will present the data at the American Academy of
Dermatology Meeting in San Francisco on March 24, in an interview.
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Amgen, the world’s biggest biotechnology company, is trying
to more than triple sales of Enbrel to $3 billion a year by
pursuing new indications for the drug. Enbrel, which had sales of
$802 million in 2002, was approved five years ago as a treatment
for rheumatoid arthritis, a crippling joint disorder.
Supply problems caused Enbrel to lose its No. 1 status to Johnson & Johnson’s Remicade, which had about $1.2 billion in
sales last year. In the psoriasis market, estimated by analysts
to be worth as much as $2 billion a year, Amgen faces competition
from Biogen Inc.’s Amevive, approved in January, and Genentech
Inc.’s and Xoma Ltd.’s Raptiva, now under regulatory review.
Researchers compared patients who received a 50 milligram
dose of Enbrel twice a week with patients who got half that
amount, over a six-month period. They were looking for a
75 percent improvement in the patients’ psoriasis symptoms.
Of the patients who received the bigger dose, almost half
achieved the target level of improvement after three months,
Gottlieb said. After six months, 59 percent met the endpoint.
By comparison, slightly more than third of patients who got the smaller dose achieved a similar improvement after three months
and 44 percent did so after 6 months, she said.
The smaller of the two doses tested, 25 milligrams, is standard for rheumatoid arthritis patients on Enbrel, said Amgen
spokeswoman Rebecca Hamm. Higher doses didn’t show an added
benefit against the joint disease, she said.
About 7 million people in the U.S. suffer from psoriasis, a disease that causes skin to itch, burn and bleed. The biotech
drugs target patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis. Doctors
previously treated the disease with more toxic medicines.
No head-to-head studies have been done to compare the drugs. About 51 percent of patients on Genentech’s and Xoma’s Raptiva had a 75 percent improvement after six months. Biogen’s Amevive eased
psoriasis symptoms in a third of patients after six months.
Johnson & Johnson isn’t as far along with tests of Remicade, which already competes against Enbrel in the rheumatoid-arthritis
market. New Remicade data will be presented at the meeting.
Bloomberg News
