Roche's new drug Kadcyla is expected to bridge the patent cliff of Herceptin

August 3, 2013: according to the report released by independent analysis company Datamonitor healthcare, the biosimilars of the breakthrough HER2 positive breast cancer drug Herceptin (generic name: trastuzumab) from Roche, a Swiss pharmaceutical giant, are expected to be launched in 2016 But analysts say the growing success of the sale of the new drug, kadcyla (ADO trastuzumab emtansine), will help ease the decline in sales revenue while keeping Roche in a dominant position in the HER2 positive breast cancer market Roche's Herceptin, which was launched in 1998, is regarded as a major breakthrough in the treatment of HER2 positive breast cancer Since its launch, it has dominated the HER2 positive breast cancer market and become Roche's heavyweight drug, with sales of $3.31 billion in the first half of 2013 Herceptin patent cliff Herceptin's patents in Europe and Japan will expire in 2014 and in the United States in 2015 At present, several Herceptin biosimilars have entered phase III clinical development and are expected to enter the market in 2016 These Herceptin biosimilars are expected to sell at significantly lower prices than Roche's branded drugs, and will compete fiercely with branded drugs in cost conservative markets, such as the UK market According to Aine Slowey, an analyst at Datamonitor, Roche hopes that sales growth of its antibody coupled drug kadcyla will make up for the decline in sales revenue caused by the expiration of Herceptin's patent Early indications were positive, with kadcyla's sales in the United States reaching $87 million in the first quarter of 2013, although the drug was only approved by the FDA in February of this year The patient has started to receive kadcyla According to a survey of American clinicians by Datamonitor healthcare, less than 4 weeks after kadcyla was approved, 9% of stage IV HER2 positive breast cancer patients have used kadcyla in the second-line treatment, and 8% of them have used kadcyla in the third-line treatment This rapid acceptance enables kadcyla to generate significant sales revenue in a short time after listing At the same time, kadcyla is well tolerated in HER2 positive breast cancer patients Only 10% of the patients need to reduce the dose of kadcyla, and these patients receive 89% of the recommended dose.