DAA Daklinza and Sunvepra to be pulled out from Korea

Other DAA competitors pushing down the first DAA in Korea and overall patient size shrunk

‘Daklinza plus Sunvepra,’ the first direct acting antivirals (DAA) in Korea praised to have opened the era of ‘curable hepatitis C,’ would be withdrawn from the Korean market after five years since the launch.

 

Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) Korea, a supplier of the drug in Korea, has recently reported Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) that the supply of Daklinza (daclatasvir) and Sunvepra (asunaprevir) would be halted due to the expanded treatment options of hepatitis C decreasing the demand on the drugs.

 

Apparently, BMS Korea has already ceased supplying Sunvepra.

 

The company projects Daklinza would be supplied until around March next year, considering the 243 cartons of stock confirmed as of Jan.

 

30, 2020.

 

Daklinza plus Sunvepra, or the ‘DakSun combination therapy,’ was approved by the Korean health authority as a first DAA drug in April 2015.

 

Previously, interferon injection or ribavirin were used to treat patients with hepatitis C, but the cure rate was low without directly acting on the virus.

 

Since the release of DAA drug, the hepatitis C treatment has been showing over 90 percent cure rate.

 

Other treatment options with improved administration regimen were released as well.

 

Currently, the combination therapy has been pushed down from the first-line treatment option.

 

Zepatier, Harvoni, Viekira/ Norvir plus Exviera, Daklinza plus Sovaldi and Mavyret are available as the first-line DAA treatment options at the moment.

 

With the change in first-line treatment options, the DakSun combination therapy’s sales in Korea have dropped significantly.

 

As of 2016, UBIST data showed Daklinza generated 36.8 billion won and Sunvepra made 9.3 billion won for outpatient prescription, but their sales plummeted to 300 million won and 100 million won, respectively.

 

With the high cure rate, the overall number of patients fell sharply and halved the DAA market size.

 

The 100 billion-won market in 2016 has shrunk down to 50 billion won last year.

 

Now, the top selling DAA drug in Korea is AbbVie’s Mavyret making 40.3 billion won last year.

 

The drug is leading the Korean market with the advantage of curing the virus within eight weeks.

 

Other DAA options are generating less than 5 billion won a year.

 

The pharmaceutical industry sees that such shift in the market has made withdrawal of Daklinza and Sunvepra in Korea inevitable.