Pharma is boosting pipelines to avoid patent cliff
pharmafile | February 11, 2015 | News story | Sales and Marketing |Â Â Biogen IDEC, Moody's, dimethyl fumarate, lilly, pharma, pipelines, sofosbuvir, sovaldi, tecfideraÂ
Pharmaceutical companies have improved their pipelines of new drugs over the last 18 months according to financial analysts Moody’s Investors Service.
The firm that produces reports around the financial outlook of companies and countries says pharma has improved its pipelines of new drugs, but that potential losses due to patent expirations has also increased since mid-2013.
In its Global Pharmaceuticals Snapshot study, an analysis of changes in the key credit attributes of 16 companies since the last report in May 2013, Moody’s calculated that four companies: Eli Lilly, Amgen, Merck and AstraZeneca have strengthened their pipelines, with AstraZeneca showing the largest improvement.
Biogen Idec and Gilead have weaker pipelines, primarily because both companies have already launched their high-profile drugs, Tecfidera (dimethyl fumarate) and Sovaldi (sofosbuvir), respectively, the findings note.
No pharma companies earned the highest or AAA rating, and only two – Bristol Myers-Squibb and Lilly earned the next highest AA factor, reflecting strong pipeline prospects. AstraZeneca, BMS and Lilly are flagged up as being at high exposure from the loss of patents to key drugs, meaning they potentially have 30-40% of their revenue exposed to losses from patent profits.
The vulnerable drugs include BMS’ Abilify (aripiprazole), Baraclude (entecavir) and Sustiva (efavirenz), which earned $595 million, $275m and $379m in respective annual sales.
Lilly’s Cymbalta (duloxetine) and Evista (raloxifene) stand to lose $2.1 billion and $624 million, respectively. AstraZeneca is at risk of $2 billion in losses from the expiration of its patent for Nexium (esomeprazole) and $1.5 billion from the loss of the Symbicort (budesonide and formoterol) patent.
“In most of these cases, the erosion relates to blockbuster biotech products that are now closer to the possibility of biosimilar competition,” says Moody’s senior vice president Michael Levesque.
“Most companies with large exposures to patent expirations have managed to strengthen their pipelines to compensate,” he adds.
Moody’s assessments represent an estimate of the amount of total company revenue that is at risk of decline over the next three years, before considering growth from existing and pipeline products.
It also examines patent expirations by product and by geography, reflecting fast erosion in some markets and slow erosion in others.
Lilian Anekwe
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