Overseas Sales and Cancer Treatments Drive Pharma’s Future

          by Robert Dailey

This week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News features a year-end summary of what many believe has been a dismal year for the pharmaceutical industry (click here for article).  Despite Wall Street's gloom, the report predicts a solid future for pharma.

Sales in 2006 continued to grow at a 6% clip in the United States.  Growth figures for Western Europe and Japan showed similar single-digit increases.  But China, Brazil, Korea, India, Russia, and Turkey all showed double-digit growth.  China and Turkey are likely the brightest stars in this emerging class of pharmaceutical consumers.  Of course, much of the growth potential in these countries depends on their ability to develop stable and fair health care systems.

The oncology market, though, has increased 22% within the past year.  Much of this is due to the increased ability to manage cancer over a patient's lifetime.  Oncology drugs are already the top class of sellers in Japan and Europe.  The market for these treatments should continue growing in the United States.  But demand is not the only factor in the equation.  Sales growth will also depend on changes in the system's manner of delivering cancer care and the payers' demands for affordability.

The article also points out that we are far from seeing the end of blockbuster drugs.  Several key products, notably Pfizer drugs Norvasc and Zyrtec, will likely lose patent protection within the coming year.  Nevertheless, analysts project that 2007 will see 112 blockbuster drugs--eleven more than in 2006.

Robert Dailey, Ph.D. is a physical chemist and a third-year law student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Dr. Dailey was a member of the 2006 class of summer associates at McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff.