EvaluatePharma forecast: 2020 global pharma sales of $1.107 trillion

The World Preview 2014 from EvaluatePharma (US HQ: Boston) totes up current worldwide pharma sales, assesses pipeline products, and projects industry growth to 2020. According to Paul Hills, head of operations, the “quality” (i.e., projected market value) of new drugs approved by FDA in 2013 increased by 43% over the previous year; this marks a “step change in innovation and output for the industry since 2009.” Nine of the top 10 introduced that year (led by Gilead Science’s Sovaldi) will be >$1-billion blockbusters, and the 2013 approvals are expected to add over $24.4 billion to total US drug sales by 2018.

More good news: as calculated by net present value (NPV), the industry’s pipeline has grown by 46%, to $418.5 billion; “this is the largest figure we have published since the first edition of the World Preview in 2008,” Hills writes. EvaluatePharma is very bullish on Bristol-Myers Squibb’s nivolumab oncolytic, projecting 2020 sales of the product of $6 billion. (Nivolumab, a “programmed death-1” pathway product, is currently in Phase III development; the PD-1 pathway is also being explored by Merck, Genentech and GSK, among others.)

EvaluatePharma projects a 5.1% CAGR for the industry between 2013 and 2020. 2014 sales are projected to come in at $749 billion, up 4.4% over the prior year, and growth will accelerate through 2016, when 5.8% CAGR will be seen. Meanwhile, $24 billion is expected to be lost to patent expiries in 2014, continuing a downward trend from the peak “lost sales year” of 2012, when $38 billion was calculated to have been lost. Patent expiries will be in the $12—19-billion range annually through 2020. Over that span, biotech products (biologics and vaccines) will increase their market share globally from 22% in 2013 to 27% in 2020, says EvaluatePharma; however, the report is sketchy on the effects of biosimilars.

Worldwide R&D spending is on a 2.4% CAGR trend through 2020, going from $137 billion in 2013 to $162 billion (based on top 500 companies). The 2013 leaders, in order, were Novartis, Roche, Sanofi, Pfizer and J&J.