| 1 e-Projection Sales Forecast Report Japanese Hepatitis C Market Forecast: Methodology and Implications This article was originally published in the Japanese journal, International Pharmaceutical Intelligence (国際医薬品情報), on May 9, 2016. Updates to the report as of August 2018 The actual sales of Harvoni and Sovaldi in Japan in the fiscal year 2016 were 1.6 billion yen and 713 hundred million yen, respectively, according to IQVIA Topline Market Data report (2017 figures are not disclosed). There were no significant price cuts to Harvoni and Sovaldi in April 2018. Original (Japanese) published on May 9, 2016 Translation on September 23, 2016 Correspondent author: Tosh Nagate Principal analyst, President e-Projection
[email protected] Executive Summary Hepatitis C is a serious burden to the Japanese society, and the treatment of the disease represents a crucial issue. Recent advances in technology have made highly effective drugs with fewer side effects available to the patients. The development and the commercialization of direct antiviral agents (DAAs) have become a hallmark to the hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment paradigm. These drugs have achieved a sustained virological response (SVR) rate as high as almost 100% in clinical trials, meaning virtually eliminating the virus from most of the patients. Driven by the performance of these drugs, the market for antiviral agents in Japan has almost reached five billion dollars in 2015, representing an astonishing growth rate of 125% per year. To predict the dynamics of the HCV DAA market, we have employed a simple stochastic process model to project the patient population from 2016 to 2025.