Current use of drugs for osteoporosis in Korea

Park, Hyoung Moo

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
Postmenopausal osteoporosis is a common skeletal disease with serious consequences due to fracture, leading to increased morbidity and mortality. This study was carried out to evaluate the changes of national osteoporosis markets during the last 5 years and to estimate the trends of national osteoporosis market in the future.
METHODS
The use of the medications for osteoporosis treatment was evaluated in terms of sales of drugs for osteoporosis treatment. The sales audit of drugs for osteoporosis treatment from Intercontinental Marketing Services (IMS) were used to analyse the sales of specific drugs.
RESULTS
The total national osteoporosis market has been increased progressively and markedly during the last 5 years and was valued at 167.4 billion Korean won (KRW) in 2008. The use of hormone therapy was decreased markedly by 40% after reporting of WHI results and the reduction of hormone therapy has been continuing during the recent 5 years. The market size of the non-hormonal osteoporosis drugs has been grown by 73% during the last 5 years and was valued at 134.5 billion KRW in 2008. This non-hormonal drug market was dominated by bisphosphonates. which account for over 80% of total sales. The use of bisphosphonates and active vitamin D metabolites has been increasing but raloxifene and calcitonin, decreasing.
CONCLUSION
The survery of recent national osteoporosis market using IMS sales audit showed that the use of drugs for osteoporosis treatment has been markedlly increasing during last 5 years from 2004 to 2008. This has been attributed to non-horomonal pharmacological drugs, especially bisphosphonate.