Dive Brief:
- Novartis' expectant blockbuster Cosentyx showed rapid-acting promise in psoriatic arthritis, according to a late-stage trial.
- Strikingly, the once-weekly injection maintained its efficacy over the course of a year. That puts it apart from an older class of inflammatory disease drugs whose effectiveness waned over time.
- Cosentyx was approved in January by the FDA for plaque psoriasis. With this new data and earlier trial data released by Novartis, the company is exepcting to win indications for psoriasis, ankylosing spondylitis, and psoriatic arthritis, too.
Dive Insight:
If Novartis eventually nabs the FDA's blessing for all of these indications, the company could rake in as much as $4 billion to $5 billion in sales for the drug by 2020, according to analyst projections.
Even better for Novartis? The failure, so far, of competitors like AstraZeneca and Amgen to develop a comparable IL-17A inhibitor (at least without risky side effects).