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Smoking is the leading cause of COPD and the easiest way to prevent this disease or exacerbating it is to stop smoking. About half of the people who have COPD go undiagnosed due to inadequate diagnostic tools. There is no cure for COPD so as long as people keep smoking there will be a need for more drugs to treat this disease. Worldwide, COPD is the 5th cause of death and it is predicted to be the 4th in 2030 particularly in areas where smoking is still prevalent such as Japan and China.

A possible way to control this disease and ease the burden of cost on the healthcare system is to diagnose patients early and plan an aggressive course of action. Don Sin, a Canadian research from St. Paul's Hospital, Providence Health Care is trying to discover and develop a biomarker blood test to diagnose patients with COPD and predict which patient is likely to experience life-threatening lung attacks. This will help guide physicians to the appropriate therapy.

For more information on the drug trials listed below, feel free to contact me.

Background and Market Data

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the most common lung diseases where it is very difficult to breathe. There are two main forms of COPD but most people have both:

Chronic bronchitis, defined by a long-term cough with mucus

Emphysema, defined by destruction of the lungs over time

Smoking is the leading cause of COPD. The more a person smokes, the higher the risk of developing COPD even though some people who smoked for years never get the disease.

There is no cure for COPD, but the best way to relieve symptoms and retard the progression of this disease is to stop smoking. To retreat symptoms of COPD, inhalers to open airway and inhaled steroid to reduce lung inflammation are used.

An estimated 24 million U.S. adults have COPD: 12 million physician-diagnosed and 12 undiagnosed. Worldwide, COPD affects 210 million people. It was the fifth cause of death in 2002 and it is projected to be the fourth cause of mortality by 2030.

The annual cost to the nation for COPD in 2010 is projected to be $49.9 billion. This includes $29.5 billion in direct health care expenditures, $8.0 billion in indirect morbidity costs and $12.4 billion in indirect mortality costs.

COPD Trials and Updates

Two companies received FDA approval for their COPD drug and the status of several companies' drug programs are as follows:

1) Forest Labs and Switzerland's Nycomed have received a narrow approval of Daliresp (roflumilast) to prevent the exacerbation of COPD.

2) Novartis received FDA approval for their once-daily Arcapta(TM) Neohaler(TM) (indacaterol inhalation powder) 75 mcg for the long-term maintenance bronchodilator treatment of airflow obstruction in patients with COPD.

3) Novartis got impressive late-stage data on NVA237, an experimental COPD treatment. The data demonstrated the treatment was better than a placebo and just as good as Spiriva.

4) GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and partner Theravance announced mixed results for two of their COPD studies with Relovair, but "support the continuation of the Relovair" program.

5) A meta-analysis found that the inhaled mist formulation of Boehringer Ingelheim's Spiriva, used to treat COPD is associated with a 52% higher risk of death among patients using Respimat than the placebo group in an overview of five trials using Spiriva Respimat inhaler.

6) Forest Laboratories and Almirall, S.A. submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the U.S. FDA for aclidinium bromide, a long-acting inhaled antimuscarinic agent developed for the treatment of COPD.

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