Second Patent Cliff Lies Ahead for Pharma With $251 Billion in Sales at Risk by 2024

EvaluatePharma, a company that provides consensus forecasts of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sphere, recently published the 11th edition of its World Preview. In this 2018 installment, the company provided an overview of what investors and other stakeholders can expect to see in the industry from 2018 to 2024.

In creating the report, the company analyzed data from 7000 of the world’s leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and highlighted trends found in prescription drug sales, patent risk, research and development (R&D) spending, global brand sales, and market performance by therapy area.

“We are looking at an industry set to experience sales accelerating from the sluggish levels following the financial crisis, to annual compound growth of over 6% between now and 2024,” read the report.

Additionally, it is predicted that the pharmaceutical market will be driven by an unmet need in various disorders, consistent with a previous report that anticipates that the orphan drug market will reach $262 billion in 2024.

“Total prescription sales are expected to be $1.2 trillion in 2024, due to novel therapies addressing key unmet needs, as well as increasing access to medicines globally. Payer scrutiny and sales losses from genericization and biosimilars will act as brakes on growth,” according to the report.

Novartis is expected to lead the prescription drug market, with $53.2 billion in sales in 2024, ahead of competitors Pfizer and Roche, both of whom will be in a close race for second place, reaching $51.2 billion and $50.6 billion, respectively.

Despite the entry of an adalimumab biosimilar being delayed until 2023, the reference adalimumab (Humira) is expected to remain the top-selling drug in 2024 despite a compound annual growth of —3% over the next 7 years.

“The growing power of payers, combined with the arguably underestimated threat of biosimilars and the genericization of some of the industry’s biggest products, including Humira,” could hold back growth, said the report. In total, $251 billion in sales are at risk between 2018 and 2024, creating a second “patent cliff” for the industry.