Last week, global pharmaceutical market intelligence firm IMS Health announced that the size of the world drug market will expand by $300 billion over the next five years and cross $1.1 trillion, aided by 5-8% compounded growth every year.
Coming at the back of a revival of the US market, which grew 5.1% in 2009 after two consecutive years of slump, this could be seen as an early signal of better years ahead for the struggling industry. In the initial analysis, it appears that the nightmares of the “patent cliff” that the big brand companies are confronted with may be offset to a large extent by the majestic emergence of the Asian markets like India and China, followed by other growth markets like Mexico, Turkey and Brazil. With a measured tone, IMS Health’s well-known analyst Murray Aitken thus explains, “Patient demand for pharmaceuticals will remain robust, despite the ongoing effects of the economic downturn being felt in many parts of the world.”
IMS Health has clearly said that higher growth will come from therapy areas having significant unmet clinical need, high-cost burden of disease and innovative science that can bring new treatment options to patients. In particular, the growth trends will be prominent in areas of oncology, diabetes, HIV and could be in the range of 10% in the next five years. This could be pointed at newer drugs that are likely to be brought into the market in the coming years, but the significance of generic drugs cannot be played down.
PwC report envisions a 50 billion market by 2020, so One 5 billion company should not be a big deal…..
