Market Research Reports - Ken Research Asia Rheumatoid Arthritis Market

New Therapies to Bolster Asia-Pacific’s Rheumatoid Arthritis Market - Ken Research
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, progressive and incurable auto-immune disease that
majorly affects the joints in a human body. It is identified by synovial inflammation and gradual
bone erosion over the years. The major symptoms are stiffness, pain in hands and feet and
obstruct a patient’s mobility. Lack of medical help will result in joint destruction and disability.
Any patient suffering from rheumatoid arthritis requires continuous treatment that is relatively
very expensive. Therefore, rheumatoid arthritis therapeutic market is highly competitive due to
increasing number of new drug approvals. Competition is fierce in the therapeutic market
among TNF-α inhibitors for patients who are refractory to traditional disease-modifying anti-
rheumatic drugs (DMARD).
Majority of the rheumatoid arthritis patients do not respond when treated with TNF-α
inhibitors. Therefore, small-molecule DMARDs such as the Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor and
Xeljanz (tofacitinib) replace the ineffective TNF-α inhibitors. Xeljanz is very effective because it
reduces the risk of developing cardiac diseases such as heart attack and stroke in patients.
Xeljanz is an orally administered small-molecule drug which is used as a second-line treatment
for rheumatoid arthritis patients who do not respond to methotrexate, and as a third-line
therapy for rheumatoid arthritis patients who do not respond to biologics.
According to the study “Rheumatoid Arthritis Therapeutics in Asia-Pacific Markets to 2023-
Novel JAK and IL-6 Receptor Inhibitors to Stimulate Moderate Growth Despite Launch of
Biosimilars of Blockbuster Anti-TNFs”, in Asia-Pacific region, there is a need to improve safety
in the therapeutic category. Elevated rates of infection were observed due to frequent
consequences of the immune-suppression involved in treatments. Therefore, biological
therapies are not recommended to patients who are susceptible to any infection. There is a
need to create biologics with more convenient and less invasive drug-delivery methods because
the existing therapies for rheumatoid arthritis are administered subcutaneously or
intravenously. Such drug delivery methods in rheumatoid arthritis patients are frequently
associated with pain, rash, and allergic reactions at the injection or infusion site, in the case of
infusion, flu-like illness, fever, chills, nausea, and headache. There is a need to develop
convenient and safe drug administration procedures for rheumatoid arthritis patients.
Advanced medical technology has witnessed great changes in the field of diagnostic technology
to strengthen the performance of rheumatoid arthritis drug manufacturers in Asia-Pacific
region. The new products in the Asia-Pacific rheumatoid arthritis market are Sirukumab, an
antiIL6 human mAb; Peficitinib, Upadacitinib and Filgotinib, which are JAK1 inhibitors;
Olokizumab, an antiIL6 humanized IgG4 mAb; and RCT18, a recombinant human Blymphocyte
stimulating factor (BLyS) receptor antibody fusion protein.