Bloomberg Intelligence reports 2015 will be strong year for biotech

NEW YORK — The biotech sector is poised to continue on its sharp growth trajectory, coming off of a year that saw some 34% of growth through 2014 and more than 300% growth over the last five years. Remedies for conditions like hepatitis C, NASH and oncology will all help drive growth in this sector, noted Asthika Goonewardene, senior biotechnology analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence.

 

There is specifically some developmental opportunity around NASH (nonalcoholic steatohepatitis), a nonalcoholic fatty liver disease exasperated by poor diet, which Goonewardene characterized as a "mass market disease." "There's potential there for there to be a lot of people in the developed world with this disease," he said. "It's similar to Hep C in that it effects the liver, [but also], it is one of the silent diseases that affects a lot of people that you don't really know until things start to really go wrong."

 

"I think 2015 is going to be a very interesting year for the biotech space," he added, noting that this is also going to be a "landmark year" for biosimilars.  

 

"The first monoclonal antibody, which is a copy of Johnson & Johnson's mega-blockbuster drug Remicade, that was launched in Eruope last year," Goonewardene said. "But this year is the year that you're going to see it being allowed to launch in the big European countries ... like the U.K, Germany, etc.," he said. On the U.S. side of things, while there hasn't been a single biosimilar approved in the U.S., it's coming, he said, noting that the FDA may be close to approving Sandoz's biosimilar for Amgen's Neopogen. "That received a very strong outcome on the regulatory panel," he said. 

 

The year 2015 will also be a year where the litigation surrounding biosimilars will come to a head. "Recall the litigation hurdle for biosimilars in the U.S. is far steeper than what it is in Europe, so much so that the companies making the biosimilar have to give their entire dossier that they submit to the FDA to the original branded drug maker," Goonewardene noted. "That's one of the other things we're giong to watch and see how the legal battle plays out, one for Sandoz's biosimilar version of Amgen's Neupogen ... and also Celltrion and Hospira's biosimilar version of Remicade. They're both going to be fought in court." 

 

Bloomberg Intelligence, the research division of Bloomberg, on Thursday hosted a special roundtable event with reporters where the team’s senior analysts discussed their 2015 outlook for the health care industry.