The global opioids market is forecast to grow by 2.8 percent per year in 2010-2017, surpassing a 2.4 percent annual growth rate in 2002-2010 and reaching $13.2 billion in sales by 2017, according to a release by Research and Markets.
The market is driven by high incidence of cancer and arthritis as well as the development of extended release formulations and drug combinations.
Opioids continue to be a mainstay in acute and chronic therapy. NSAIDs/Cox-2 inhibitors, the alternative, have cardiovascular and renal side-effects and the older NSAIDs have severe gastrointestinal side effects. However, sales of opioids are hampered by weak pipelines and generic competition.
Read the Research and Markets release on opioids.
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