Market Place
Acquisitions and spin-offs dominated headlines in 2019 and the tone was set very early with Bristol-Myers Squibb acquiring
New Jersey-based cancer drug company Celgene in a US$ 74 billion deal announced on
January 3, 2019. After factoring
in debt, the deal value ballooned to about US$ 95 billion, which according
to data compiled by Refinitiv, made it the largest healthcare deal on
record.
In the summer, AbbVie Inc,
which sells the world’s best-selling drug Humira, announced its acquisition of Allergan Plc, known for Botox and other cosmetic
treatments, for US$ 63 billion. While the companies are still awaiting
regulatory approval for their deal, with US$ 49 billion in combined 2019
revenues, the merged entity would rank amongst the biggest in the industry.
View Our Interactive Dashboard on Top drugs by sales in 2019 (Free Excel Available)
The big five by pharmaceutical sales — Pfizer,
Roche, J&J, Novartis and Merck
Pfizer
continued
to lead companies by pharmaceutical sales by reporting annual 2019 revenues of
US$ 51.8 billion, a decrease of US$ 1.9 billion, or 4 percent, compared to
2018. The decline was primarily attributed to the loss of exclusivity of Lyrica in 2019,
which witnessed its sales drop from US$ 5 billion in 2018 to US$ 3.3 billion in
2019.
In 2018, Pfizer’s then incoming CEO Albert Bourla had mentioned that the company did not see the need for any large-scale M&A activity as Pfizer had “the best pipeline” in its history, which needed the company to focus on deploying its capital to keep its pipeline flowing and execute on its drug launches.
Bourla stayed true to his word and barring the acquisition of Array Biopharma for US$ 11.4 billion and a spin-off to merge Upjohn, Pfizer’s off-patent branded and generic established medicines business with
Mylan, there weren’t any other big ticket deals which were announced.
The
Upjohn-Mylan merged entity will be called Viatris and is expected to have 2020
revenues between US$ 19 and US$ 20 billion
and could outpace Teva to
become the largest generic company in the world, in term of revenues.
Novartis, which had
followed Pfizer with the second largest revenues in the pharmaceutical industry
in 2018, reported its first full year earnings after spinning off its Alcon eye
care devices business division that
had US$ 7.15 billion in 2018 sales.
In 2019,
Novartis slipped two spots in the ranking after reporting total sales of US$
47.4 billion and its CEO Vas Narasimhan continued his deal-making spree by buying New
Jersey-headquartered The Medicines Company (MedCo) for US$ 9.7
billion to acquire a late-stage cholesterol-lowering
therapy named inclisiran.
As Takeda Pharmaceutical Co was
busy in 2019 on working to reduce its debt burden incurred due to its US$ 62
billion purchase of Shire Plc, which was announced in 2018, Novartis also purchased
the eye-disease medicine, Xiidra, from the Japanese drugmaker for US$ 5.3 billion.
Novartis’ management also spent a considerable part of 2019 dealing with data-integrity concerns which emerged from its 2018 buyout of AveXis, the
gene-therapy maker Novartis had acquired for US$ 8.7 billion.
The deal gave Novartis rights to Zolgensma,
a novel treatment intended for children less than two years of age with the
most severe form of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Priced at US$ 2.1 million,
Zolgensma is currently the world’s most expensive drug.
However,
in a shocking announcement, a month after approving the drug, the US Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) issued a press release on
data accuracy issues as the agency was informed by AveXis that
its personnel had manipulated data which
the FDA used to evaluate product comparability and nonclinical (animal)
pharmacology as part of the biologics license application (BLA), which was
submitted and reviewed by the FDA.
With US$
50.0 billion (CHF 48.5 billion) in annual pharmaceutical sales, Swiss drugmaker
Roche came in at number two position in 2019
as its sales grew 11 percent driven by
its multiple sclerosis medicine Ocrevus, haemophilia drug Hemlibra and cancer medicines Tecentriq and Perjeta.
Roche’s newly introduced medicines generated US$ 5.53 billion (CHF 5.4 billion) in growth, helping offset the impact of the competition from biosimilars for its three best-selling drugs MabThera/Rituxan, Herceptin and Avastin.
In late 2019, after months of increased
antitrust scrutiny, Roche completed
its US$ 5.1 billion acquisition of Spark Therapeutics to strengthen its presence in
gene therapy.
Last year, J&J reported almost flat worldwide sales of US$ 82.1 billion. J&J’s pharmaceutical division generated US$ 42.20 billion and its medical devices and consumer health divisions brought in US$ 25.96 billion and US$ 13.89 billion respectively.
Since J&J’s consumer health division sells analgesics, digestive health along with beauty and oral care products, the US$ 5.43 billion in consumer health sales from over-the-counter drugs and women’s health products was only used in our assessment of J&J’s total pharmaceutical revenues. With combined pharmaceutical sales of US$ 47.63 billion, J&J made it to number three on our list.
While the sales of products like Stelara, Darzalex, Imbruvica, Invega Sustenna drove J&J’s pharmaceutical business to grow by 4 percent over 2018, the firm had to contend with generic competition against key revenue contributors Remicade and Zytiga.
US-headquartered Merck, which is known as
MSD (short for Merck Sharp & Dohme) outside the United States and
Canada, is set to significantly move up the rankings next year fueled by its
cancer drug Keytruda, which witnessed a 55
percent increase in sales to US$ 11.1 billion.
Merck reported total revenues of US$ 41.75 billion and also
announced it will spin off its women’s health drugs,
biosimilar drugs and older products to create a new pharmaceutical
company with US$ 6.5 billion in annual revenues.
The firm had anticipated 2020 sales between US$ 48.8 billion and US$ 50.3 billion however this week it announced that the coronavirus pandemic will reduce 2020 sales by more than $2 billion.
View Our Interactive Dashboard on Top drugs by sales in 2019 (Free Excel Available)
Humira holds on to remain world’s best-selling drug
AbbVie’s acquisition of Allergan comes as the firm faces the expiration of patent protection for Humira, which brought in a staggering US$ 19.2 billion in sales last year for
the company. AbbVie has failed to successfully acquire or develop a major new
product to replace the sales generated by its flagship drug.
In 2019, Humira’s US revenues increased 8.6 percent to US$ 14.86 billion while internationally, due
to biosimilar competition, the sales dropped 31.1 percent to US$ 4.30 billion.
Bristol Myers Squibb’s Eliquis, which is also marketed by Pfizer, maintained its number two position
and posted total sales of US$ 12.1 billion, a 23 percent increase over 2018.
While Bristol Myers Squibb’s immunotherapy treatment Opdivo, sold in partnership with Ono in Japan, saw sales increase from US$ 7.57 billion to US$ 8.0 billion, the growth paled in comparison to the US$ 3.9
billion revenue increase of Opdivo’s key immunotherapy competitor Merck’s Keytruda.
Keytruda took the number three spot in drug sales that
previously belonged to Celgene’s Revlimid, which witnessed a sales decline from US$ 9.69 billion to US$ 9.4 billion.
Cancer treatment Imbruvica, which is marketed
by J&J and AbbVie, witnessed a 30 percent increase in sales. With US$ 8.1
billion in 2019 revenues, it took the number five position.
View Our Interactive Dashboard on Top drugs by sales in 2019 (Free Excel Available)
Vaccines – Covid-19 turns competitors into partners
This year has been dominated by the single biggest health emergency in years — the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. As drugs continue to fail to meet expectations, vaccine development has received a lot of attention.
GSK reported the highest vaccine sales of all drugmakers with
total sales of US$ 8.4 billion (GBP 7.16 billion), a significant portion of its
total sales of US$ 41.8 billion (GBP 33.754 billion).
US-based Merck’s vaccine division also reported a significant increase in sales to US$ 8.0 billion and in 2019 received FDA and EU approval to market its Ebola vaccine Ervebo.
This is the first FDA-authorized vaccine against the deadly virus which causes
hemorrhagic fever and spreads from person to person through direct contact with
body fluids.
Pfizer and Sanofi also reported an increase in their vaccine sales to US$ 6.4
billion and US$ 6.2 billion respectively and the Covid-19 pandemic has recently
pushed drugmakers to move faster than ever before and has also converted
competitors into partners.
In a rare move, drug behemoths — Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) —joined hands to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.
The two companies plan to start human trials
in the second half of this year, and if things go right, they will file
for potential approvals by the second half of 2021.
View Our Interactive Dashboard on Top drugs by sales in 2019 (Free Excel Available)
Our view
Covid-19 has brought the world economy to a grinding halt and shifted the global attention to the pharmaceutical industry’s capability to deliver solutions to address this pandemic.
Our compilation shows that vaccines and drugs
for infectious diseases currently form a tiny fraction of the total sales of
pharmaceutical companies and few drugs against infectious diseases rank high on
the sales list.
This could well explain the limited range of
options currently available to fight Covid-19. With the pandemic currently infecting
over 3 million people spread across more than 200 countries, we can safely
conclude that the scenario in 2020 will change substantially. And so should our
compilation of top drugs for the year.
View Our Interactive Dashboard on Top drugs by sales in 2019 (Free Excel Available)
Impressions: 54752
https://www.pharmacompass.com/radio-compass-blog/top-drugs-and-pharmaceutical-companies-of-2019-by-revenues
#PharmaFlow by PHARMACOMPASS
29 Apr 2020
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On March 17th of this year, a first delivery of 400,000 doses of hope has reached Gwalior and Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh, India). First delivery of many to come…
December 2014, after 2 years of an international tender, Shantha, a subsidiary of Sanofi Pasteur (Sanofi vaccines) in Hyderabad, India, was selected to supply, over the next 2 years, 37 million doses of Shan5™, a 5-in-1 vaccines for children. After Sanofi’s “Kick in the nest” episode, with the ex CEO Christopher Viehbacher (see retrospective article at the bottom), followed by a controversy with their 4 million package for new CEO, Olivier Brandicourt, finally we can write some positive news about Sanofi!
It is indeed a success. Delivering millions of pediatric vaccines to countries that are in deep need, projects the right image for the pharmaceutical giant, while falling within several of their 7 strategic growth platforms (diabetes, vaccines, consumer healthcare, rare diseases and multiple sclerosis, other innovative products, animal health, and emerging markets).
Sanofi has just scored at all levels.
The countries to be receiving Shan5™ are all part of Gavi; the Vaccine Alliance is pretty new, but it is huge. Created in 2000, Gavi has serious partners, like The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations, the WHO, UNICEF, The World Bank, and plenty of others. They aim to get public and private funds to give the poorest countries access to the latest vaccines for children. Since 2000, Gavi has immunized about 500 million children in about 60 countries. Today, with Shan5™, they will increase their numbers, immunizing 10 million children against 5 serious diseases: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, Hib infection, and Hepatitis B. The vaccine is in a liquid form and can be given to children as young as 6 weeks old.
Shantha was created in 1993 by Dr. K. I. Varaprasad Reddy in Hyderabad and acquired by Sanofi Pasteur in 2009. This ultra-modern pharmaceutical site specializes into biotechnology and is certainly one of the most advanced pharmaceutical sites in Asia. The WHO has already validated 3 other vaccines from Shantha: Shanchol (cholera), Shanvac-B (hepatitis B), and ShanTT (tetanus), but this vaccine is a 5-in-1 shot that will save millions of children in the world.
Sanofi: Kick in the nest
While on October 27 last year, Christopher Viehbacher, CEO of Sanofi, attended the funeral of his friend Christophe de Margerie (the CEO of Total, who died earlier in an aircraft accident in Moscow), the 15-person board of Sanofi was meeting to plan Viehbacher’s inevitable exit from the group.
Viehbacher was brought in by former Chairman Jean-Francois Dehecq in 2008 to breathe new life into the pharmaceutical giant, so why such a kick in the nest 6 years later?
Who is Christopher Viehbacher?
A Canadian-German dual citizen.
A chartered accountant, who graduated from from l’ENA (Ecole Nationale d’Administration), the most prestigious French school for politicians.
A talented consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
An ex-international GSK manager for 20 years (Europe, US, and Canada).
What was Viehbacher’s strategy for Sanofi?
1/ Expand and diversify the operations by launching new drugs, developing new markets in emerging countries, and developing generics and other over-the-counter portfolios.
Even if it looked a lot like the strategy he implemented at GSK previously, it actually made lots of sense for Sanofi as well. In February 2013, in an interview at BFM Business, Viehbacher explained the dramatic cliff Sanofi experienced between 2010 and 2012.
In total, 9 patents expired: Plavix (a blood thinner – dropped to 505 million euros in 2012), Aprovel (a hypertension drug – dropped to 334 million euros), Eloxatin (a colorectal cancer drug – dropped to 129 million euros), and Multaq (a drug for cardiac arrhythmia – dropped to 65 million euros etc…), causing a total impact of 5 billion euros.
This is why the 7 platforms of growth were defined: vaccines, diabetes, biologics, emergent countries, general public health, generics, and animal health, to give the company some confortable cash flow to re-invest in innovations, which is the risky part of the business (Sanofi invested around 1.9 billion euros in R&D in 2012). Despite this patent cliff, Sanofi succeeded in increasing revenues in 2012 (34.9 billion euros +4.7%), but the margins fell (-12.8%), so Viehbacher didn’t stop there.
The general goal of Viehbacher was to turn Sanofi into a health company instead of a pharmaceutical company, and he aimed to do this by creating a strategy beyond the pill. For example, in the case of diabetes in Brazil, Sanofi supplies a package for diabetes itself but also for the side effect of diabetes (hypotension, cholesterol, etc.), and all this for an all-inclusive price. This also comes along with an application on the patients’ smartphones to record their glucose levels, so the patient gets an all-in-one treatment.
In 2013, Sanofi was expected to launch 18 new drugs by 2015.
2/ The 2nd main line of Viehbacher’s strategy was to restructure internally (and more specifically the R&D).
If Sanofi is expected to launch 18 new products by 2015, Viehbacher says that only a single one is coming from research and development at Sanofi. The 17 others are all coming from the 28,000 collaborators that work with Sanofi on innovative products. Moreover, these 18 products have only been successfully registered in countries other than France, so with 26 factories in France, if the export sales are not to the level forecasted, the future of Sanofi could be far away from being stable.
The sacker gets sacked
Viehbacher saved 700 millions euros in 2012 by restructuring, including a new R&D facility in Lyon specializing in infectious diseases and a plan for cutting 2500 jobs in France. Mid-2012, a massive strike occurred at Sanofi France, and Jean-Louis Chazy said that Sanofi was turning its back on its home country; Viehbacher was called “the smiling killer” by the trade unions. Finally, under French government pressure, the layoffs were scaled back to 800, and the cancer center in Toulouse wasn’t closed down. However, according to the French newspaper Les Echos, this has caused one of the 2 major fallings-out between Viehbacher and the board.
Indeed this year, and according to Serge Weinberg (Sanofi’s chaiman), Viehbacher had planned to sell an 8-billion-USD portfolio of off-patent medicines affecting 6 sites, mainly in France, without board approval.
Between his style of management, abrupt, and without board cooperation, and the destabilization of the group by constantly trying to lay people off in France, Viehbacher was finally let go himself.
Two days after, Sanofi capitalization lost 15 billion euros…
Does that mean that capital investors liked Viehbacher’s strategy? Or that competitors are taking advantage of the situation in Sanofi today? Maybe both? Maybe not! Who knows what Sanofi is going to come up with next?
Impressions: 2224
https://www.pharmacompass.com/radio-compass-blog/Sanofi-ups-and-down-downs-and-up
#PharmaFlow by PHARMACOMPASS
18 Mar 2015
