Global injectable drug market to reach $225 billion in 2020
The administration of therapeutic drugs via injection is an indispensable delivery method for numerous drugs critical to patient health and well-being. Now this segment is evolving in response to changing patient populations, new classes of powerful therapeutic drugs, and healthcare administration initiatives, developments that will drive the global injectable drug delivery sector to $225 billion by 2020.
As new injectable drugs become available for the treatment of an expanding list of health conditions, drug developers have increasingly pursued packaging and delivery options that simplify the administration process and increase the efficiency and reliability with which the drug can be introduced into the patient. This pursuit has led to an accelerated evolution in injection device design, creating new opportunities and choices for drug marketers and prescribing clinicians.
Changes in the way drugs are designed and developed are most evident in injectable drug therapies for a host of chronic conditions. Because of the ongoing need for repeat dosing posed by these disease indications, they represent significant drug volume and revenue opportunities, while simultaneously challenging the industry to develop products that meet the unique needs of the non-professional user. For drugs designed to be administered by the patient, therapy-specific packaging is improving compliance and treatment outcomes. In the area of delivery, injection devices designed to accept prefilled syringes or drug cartridges are improving ease-of-use and increasing the alternative device share of the growing self-injection market.
A number of companies have embraced the use of visually customized injection devices as a way to build, reinforce and grow their brands in the face of competition from generics and biosimilars. For high cost-per-dose drugs – typically recombinant proteins - the investment in a customized prefilled disposable or cartridge-replaceable pen injector often makes good business sense for drug companies, providing the added benefit of visual product differentiation in the direct-to-consumer marketing era. While there is a certain amount of incremental risk associated with a pen injector strategy, these high-end devices support a level of advanced feature integration that is not currently economical with autoinjectors designed to be used with prefilled syringes.
A new and comprehensive report on global injection device products and markets conducted by Greystone Research Associates is now available. The report – Drug Injection Devices to 2020 – provides analysis and assessments of drug injection devices across all major device categories – syringes, pen injectors, autoinjectors, dual chamber syringes, needle-free injectors and safety syringes, as well as the emerging wearable injector segment – and examines injectable drugs and combination products and their therapeutic markets, while also assessing market factors and market participants.