Epoch 14: Peak Sales Rules Everything Around Me

New Drug Approvals Up, Average Peak Year Sales Down?

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Hello Avatar! Welcome back for another week of biotech analysis. It is Sunday, which means this is our Building Biotech newsletter that is focused on discussing biopharma strategy topics. Today we are going to cover an interesting analysis from the Boston Consulting Group which examines drug approval trends vs. the projected sales value of those approvals. If you read BowtiedBiotech you are very much aware that pharma has shifted to largely buying mega-blockbuster products from biotech.  While rare disease and precision medicine products can still find a home, it does appear revenues are being prioritized over probability of success in development at this time.  The analysis we will share today will put some numbers behind these statements and are quite eye opening particularly as we transition into a post-COVID world.

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Enough shilling for the day, lots to cover this week, let's get started!

PEAK SALES RULES EVERYTHING AROUND ME

If you have been following us for some time then you know the pharma model has shifted to prefer larger indications or mega-blockbuster products.  A blockbuster is defined as $1-3B peak year sales and we will define a mega-blockbuster as $3B+ peak year sales.

Recently the Boston Consulting Group (which if you don't know is a management consultancy that works with the world's leading biopharmaceutical companies) wrote a research article which quantitates this trend by looking at recent new drug approvals. You can read it here.

NEW DRUG APPROVALS WERE UP IN 2023