The top fifty pharmaceutical companies in the world have some 550 projects in late-stage development, and a new report estimates that these projects have the potential to add a value of more than $70 billion in revenues to the market by 2015.
The estimates are according to an analysis by New York-based market research firm Kalorama Information.
"There's a wave of new products coming and we think enough of them will reach commercialization so that, on top of the organic growth we might normally expect in the market, this will add additional value," said Melissa Elder, analyst for Kalorama Information. "This is good news for an industry hit with a shortage of new products, an economic recession and new taxes."
According to "World Pharmaceutical and Biopharmaceutical Market, 2010-2015", drugs in the oncology segment are expected to make a significant impact on current markets, increasing competition and providing advanced alternatives to current therapies. There are over 140 cancer drugs in development and these alone could possibly make up nearly a third of the potential value that will be added to the pharmaceutical market.
Elder said this is followed by development projects in the areas of cardiovascular and blood, neurotherapeutics, respiratory and inflammation, infectious diseases, gastrointestinal drugs, and other drugs.
Biopharmaceutical projects dominate these late-stage efforts, and should provide the bulk of the growth in revenue, Elder said. The report indicates that traditional pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, Merck and Novartis have joined the biopharmaceutical industry lead by Amgen and Gilead Sciences, and their pipelines include a number of monoclonal antibody products for diseases such as renal, gastric and breast cancer.
The line between what is a pharmaceutical company and what is a biopharmaceutical company is becoming blurred, according to the report. Many large firms told Kalorama Information they consider themselves both pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies.