Naperville, IL -- (SBWire) -- 03/05/2013 --Statins Market to 2018 - Weak Product Pipeline and Shift of Focus towards Combination Therapies will Lead to Erosion of Brand Share, forecasts the worldwide statins market to drop from a 2012 valuation of US$19.7 billion to US$12.2 billion just five years later at a negative Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.7%.

Statins, a category of drugs employed to lower cholesterol levels, are increasingly under threat from non-statins and combination therapies (a mixture of statins and non-statins), but the primary threat to global revenue lies with the rise of generic variants. The global statins market declined in 2006 and 2007 due to patent expiries for Merck’s Zocor (simvastatin) and Pravachol (pravastatin), but revenue has remained steady until recently.

However, the expiry of Pfizer’s blockbuster drug Lipitor (atorvastatin calcium) in 2011, followed by the immediate launch of generics, has intensified the competition in the statins market and will restrain the commercial opportunities for upcoming products. The US, the largest single contributor to the global statins market, is expected to demonstrate substantial loss of revenue in the near future and is forecast to slip from a valuation of US$10 billion last year to US$5.8 billion in 2018 – a depreciation of 42% in just six years.

Statins have dominated the global dyslipidemia therapeutics market for the last few decades. The National Cholesterol Education Program (NECP) and European Society of Cardiology/European Atherosclerosis Society (ESC/EAS) guidelines have recommended the use of statins as the first choice of pharmacotherapy for the treatment of dyslipidemia.

The global statins market, valued at $20.5 billion in 2011, is forecast to decline at a negative Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.2% over the next seven years, to reach $12.2 billion by 2018. The highly consolidated statins market is expected to become increasingly competitive in the forecast period, with the patent expiries of (atorvastatin calcium), Vytorin (Ezetimibe/simvastatin), Lescol (fluvastatin) and Crestor (rosuvastatin), followed by severe generic erosion.

It is estimated that the generic sector in the global statins market will grow significantly in the future and will pose tough competition to new molecules.

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