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Neurocrine Will Delay Ongentys Launch, But It Thinks Differentiation Is Clear

 
• By Joseph Haas

Ongentys, now approved as adjunctive therapy in Parkinson’s disease, will offer a convenience advantage over generic COMT inhibitors. The company will delay launch due to pandemic and manufacturing issues.

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Neurocrine's Ongentys will take on entrenched generics, but has differentiating factors

When Ongentys (opicapone) actually reaches the US market, Neurocrine Biosciences Inc. will push its Parkinson’s therapy on price and differentiation, but first it needs to get past both the COVID-19 pandemic and a manufacturing issue in Europe. Neurocrine announced US approval of the once-daily catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitor on 27 April and outlined plans to make the drug broadly affordable by pricing below the Medicare specialty drugs tier.

Ongentys is intended to extend the durability of the gold standard Parkinson’s therapy levodopa/carbidopa by inhibiting an enzyme that breaks down levodopa, thus reducing the “off” periods patients experience. It is the third entrant to the US market from the COMT class. The first two – entacapone and tolcapone – obtained US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in the 1990s

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