Plantas

24

P HARMACEUTICAL EXECUTIVE

GROWTH
BOTTOM
from the

Up

By Patrick Clinton and Jerry Cacciotti of Oliver Wyman

T

his year’s Pharm Exec 50 shows an industry whose
growth has slowed to a crawl in the face of patent expirations, aggressive payers, and a tough environment
for approvals. The 50 this year sold $610 billion in human
prescription pharmaceuticals, up just 2.8 percentfrom last
year’s $593 billion. The top 10 grew even more slowly—by
just 2.6 percent—and accounted for 59 percent of the 50’s
total sales, just like last year.
In a year in which investors have looked with increasing disfavor on large R&D budgets, R&D spending grew
by just 4.5 percent, from $101 billion to $105. Among the
top 10, R&D was almost at, growing by just 1.6 percent.
Fourcompanies dropped off the 50 because of mergers:
Genzyme (last year’s number 29), now a part of Sano
Aventis; Alcon (previously 39), which was acquired by
Novartis; Cephalon (previously 40), which is now a part
of Teva; and Nycomed (previously 48), bought by Takeda.
The consolidation that knocked these companies off
the list had another effect: The companies at the bottom
of the list are smaller.Every company in the 50 last year

MORE CONSOLIDATION DIDN’T
BOOST SALES AT THE TOP, BUT A
HANDFUL OF NIMBLE NEWCOMERS
POSTED IMPRESSIVE GROWTH ON
THE OTHER END OF THE CURVE

had sales of at least $2 billion. This year, the smallest,
Aspen, had sales of $1.66 billion. The drop is even
steeper when you look at revenue as a percentage
of the total revenues of the whole Pharm Exec 50.
Lastyear’s smallest company accounted for 0.4 percent of the total revenue of all 50 companies in the
ranking. This year, the equivalent gure was 0.2
percent—only half as big a percentage. By way of
comparison, in 2004, the rst year when all 50 companies had sales of more than $1 billion, the smallest
company accounted for 0.3 percent of the revenue of
the 50.
New additions include areincarnated Valeant (44),
formed when Biovail—Canada’s largest publicly held
pharma, a specialist in CNS drugs and delivery—purchased the American firm for $3.3 billion, adopting
its name and putting Valeant CEO Michael Pearson in
charge of the combined operation. Endo Pharmaceuticals (45) is currently in the process of “reinventing” itself
with a new business model and name (Endo Health Solutions);the company grew its branded and prescription
pharmaceutical business by 38 percent in 2011. Grifols,
the Spanish manufacturer of plasma fractionation products (47), grew revenues by more than 80 percent, partly
as a result of the acquisition of US-based Talecris. And
finally, Aspen Pharmacare, the 50’s first African company, grew its revenues by 29 percent last year, and its
CAGR since 1998is 46 percent. The company has been
expanding its footprint, most recently by the acquisition
of Australia’s Sigma.
While some of the data this year may be a little depressing (incidentally, the anti-depression class of drugs
jumped to number one in the US, surpassing lipid regulators), the hint of diversity and new ideas creeping up
from the bottom of the list is a cause—albeit a small-capone—for optimism.

*Special thanks to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics and IMS Health for supplemental data

Getty Images / Jed Share

MAy 2012 www.pharmexec.com

25

Top 20 Global Products
2011

1 Lipitor
2 Plavix
3 Seretide
4 Crestor
5 Nexium
6 Seroquel
7 Humira
8 Enbrel
9 Remicade
10 Abilify
11 Singulair
12 Zyprexa
13 Mabthera
14 Lantus
15 Avastin
16Herceptin
17 Cymbalta
18 Spiriva
19 Neulasta
20 Glivec

6.3
6.1
5.7
5.7
5.5
5.4
4.8
4.7
4.7
4.2
4.1

% Change

9.3
8.7
8.0
7.9
7.6
7.3
6.8
6.8

–3.3

12.5

3.7
0.04

–6.2

14.4

Source: IMS Health, MIDAS, December 2011

Product

9.5
17.8
6.7
8.4
14.3
10.8

–3.1

8.6
15.2

–7.5

7.9

19.2
13.6
9.4
6.5
Figures are in US$ billions. Growth...