Ophthalmology Industry to See Eye-Watering DME Growth

Thursday 25 October 2012, Amsterdam

The global Diabetic Macular Edema (DME) market will expand massively in the near future as a result of lifestyle changes and the introduction of more effective (and more expensive) treatments, says the latest report from pharmaceutical industry experts.

According to their new research, the business intelligence providers expect the global DME market to climb exponentially in value, from $43m in 2011 to a far greater $985m in 2018, exhibiting a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 57%.

Such dramatic growth is primarily attributed to the entrance of key treatments, including  Novartis’s Lucentis, which gained approval from the European Commission early last year and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this year.

These approval decisions were backed by data from two Novartis-funded clinical trials, RESTORE and RESOLVE, that demonstrated that Lucentis was superior in visual acuity gain versus sham (dummy therapy) or laser therapy – the current standard of care.

Global DME market growth is predicted to be further supported by Alimera’s Iluvien and Allergan’s Ozurdex. The former gained European approval in June, and will be available for commercial launch by the end of the year, but was rejected by the FDA late last year over safety concerns. Ozurdex, a promising biodegradable implant, is expected to receive FDA approval in 2015.

The global ophthalmology market as a whole is expected to perform far less impressively  than its DME portion, primarily due to the impending patent expiries of prostaglandin analogs used in the treatment of glaucoma.

Global industry revenue will climb, however modestly, from $10 bn in 2011 to $12 bn in 2018, at a CAGR of 2.8%.