Biopharma: A new class awakening for sleep disorders

Research evidence excerpt

M

North America Insight

August 5, 2026 04:01 AM GMT

Biopharma

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC

Terence C Flynn, Ph.D.

Equity Analyst

A new class awakening for sleep

disorders

Orexin agonists represent a promising emerging class in

neuroscience, with the potential to transform treatment across

sleep disorders and build a mega-blockbuster TAM. We review

the competitive landscape and frame upcoming data (including

for LLY's cleminorexton) within.

Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities Co., Ltd.+

Shinichiro Muraoka

Equity Analyst

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC

Sean Laaman, Ph.D.

Equity Analyst

Hailey Horowitz

Research Associate

Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities Co., Ltd.+

Key Takeaways

Jaeheon Lee

Equity Analyst

Our proprietary global sleep/orexin market model implies a ~$16bn 2035 sales

opportunity, even without expansion into broader neuro/fatigue-related

indications.

We believe Sleep represents an underappreciated longer-term pipeline value

driver for OW-rated LLY; we see 2035 risk-adjusted sales of $3bn in our base

case.

For OW-rated Takeda, we estimate the narcolepsy pipeline could represent

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC

Michael H Riad, Ph.D.

Research Associate

Alexander Yevdokimov, Ph.D.

Research Associate

Chris Yu, J.D., Ph.D.

Equity Analyst

roughly 20% of current sales and 60% of current core OP earnings base.

We expect a steady stream of orexin catalysts over the next 18 months, with the

Equity Analyst

first expected catalyst being Takeda’s FDA approval in August.

Connor M Massari

Damien H Kerner

Research Associate

Orexin agonists could become the next major neuroscience drug class, with our

new global sleep/orexin model implying a ~$16bn 2035 sales opportunity across

Morgan Stanley India Company Private Limited+

Narcolepsy Type 1 (NT1), Narcolepsy Type 2 (NT2), and Idiopathic Hypersomnia

(IH) before broader sleep/fatigue expansion. We see underappreciated pipeline

Saket Agarwal

Research Associate

value for LLY’s cleminorexton and meaningful earnings leverage for Takeda, with the

next 18 months of data set to determine whether orexins remain an NT1 orphan

opportunity or scale into a multi-indication sleep franchise ( Exhibit 2 ).

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