Mirror, Mirror On The Wall… The Biggest Drugmakers
16 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // March 29th, 2010 // 11:43 am
This is a list of the top 20 drugmakers, ranked by global prescription drug sales for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2009, according to IMS Health, which prepared this for Reuters. The dollar sales are in billions and, next to that, is the percent change from the year-over-year period. As you can see, though, the results don’t include the mergers between Merck and Schering-Plough, and Pfizer and Wyeth, since these weren’t consummated until later in the year.
1 - Pfizer - $41.7 billion - (0.8)
2 - Novartis - $36.7 billion - 7.0
3 - Sanofi-Aventis - $35.1 billion - 3.3
4 - GlaxoSmithKline - $34.3 billion - (3.4)
5 - AstraZeneca - $33.2 billion - 7.8
6 - Roche - $31.3 billion - 8.6
7 - Johnson & Johnson - $26.9 billion - (6.6)
8 - Merck - $25.0 billion - (4.1)
9 - Eli Lilly - $19.6 billion - 8.3
10 - Abbott - $19.4 billion - 5.5
11 - Teva - $15.7 billion - 12.3
12 - Bayer - $15.4 billion - 3.9
13 - Wyeth - $14.8 billion - (2.3)
14 - Amgen - $14.8 billion - (3.1)
15 - Boehringer - $14.6 billion - 10.4
16 - Takeda - $14.4 billion - 2.1
17 - Bristol-Myers - $14.2 billion - 5.8
18 - Schering-Plough - $13.1 billion - 4.3
19 - Daiichi Sankyo - $8.5 billion - 3.1
20 - Novo Nordisk - $8.2 billion 11.6
(Source: IMS Health)
pharmavet
This is quite a shock to the system. When I enterered Pharma in 1983, it was considered the “Golden Era of the Pharmaceutical Industry”. Without the following, we were able to achieve average annual sales increases of 15% between 1980 and 1995: 1) restrictive formularies, 2) PBM’s, 3) managed care, 4) tiered copays, 5) generic intrusions, 6) patent expirations, 7) pricing pressure from third party payers, 8) Rx to OTC switches. Back then six figure bonuses, President’s club awards, luxury vacation packages, generous salary increases, stock awards, and so on made the Pharma industry the most highly compensated industy to work in, except perhaps on Wall Street.
It is important to appreciate that in 2010, when Big Pharma forecasts sales growth in the low single digits how far this once highly profitable industry has fallen, due to a large extent to the factors cited above.
Lisa Van Syckel
Too Many dead consumers, maybe?
Lisa Johns
I find it obscene that pharmaceuticals pull in this sort of money by heavily marketing them off-licence and overpricing their medications, many of which have extremely damaging side effects. It’s time this industry was cleaned up.
pharmavet
Lisa, I’m guessing that based on your spelling of “licence” that you might be from the UK. My apologies if that it incorrect. Until recently UK countries prohibited Direct-to-Consumer advertising, but now that ban has finally been lifted you should expect to see much more DTC advertising in the future (all of it on-label of course).
JaT
Don’t they also bring in a bundle from government contracts?
Justice in MI
Hi Vet–I think Lisa is from the British part of New Jersey, perhaps the Jersey Isles…
Anyway, I’m glad you didn’t blame it all on greedy trial lawyers. Thanks for that (I’m not one, but it gets tiresome.)
Interesting to me that the change you note has all happened since widespread (TV) DTCA.
Also, since PDUFA.
And you know the various arguments re: low-hanging fruit, recurrent price-fixing scandals, etc..
But here’s a question raised before: get rid of all the factors you list, mainly related to insurance and other privatized “price controls.”
Taking the role of U.S. taxpayer (obviously different in most other countries), what would the end of generics, PBMs, public formularies, etc. do to the costs of Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA? Is it right that the public, in general, should pay those taxes and (as a result) boost pharma profits? How about those countries that clearly cannot afford branded products. Is it realistic to expect industry benficence in those contexts (as with AIDS drugs, etc.) given the uncertain record over the years? What about a system which elminated the various factors you mention, but also spread the cost of branded drugs more equally on a global basis. Would that be fair, desirable, realistic?
As always, real questions.
Justice in MI
Also this. I assume the following was not meant to be ironic (but I’m candidly unsure):
“Back then six figure bonuses, President’s club awards, luxury vacation packages, generous salary increases, stock awards, and so on made the Pharma industry the most highly compensated industy to work in, except perhaps on Wall Street.”
Assuming it was not ironic, it’s perhaps worth saying that a lot of very productive and hard-working people who happen to do other things would read this and find the implicit entitlement kind of amazing.
JaT
I should be more specific by saying government contracts that are for the purpose of dealing with monitoring systems or certain areas of testing and research- and not just for medicaid or medicare formulary pricing of drugs.
Josh
And yet pharma companies don’t even make the top 100 in revenue in the world.
Lisa Van Syckel
Justice,
I think Pharmavet was refering to Lisa Johns, and not me. I now reside in the wonderful state of North Carolina, My husband has semi-retired, and we are enjoying, spending time with our 16 month old grandson.
Christopher
You left Jersey?!
pharmavet
Justice, I was not blogging with any sense of entitlement. I was just providing an historical counterpoint to the situation as it curently exists. For perspective, I should have added that I will be the first one to admit that Pharma folks were (and probably still are) overpaid compared to equally hard or harder working people in other professions.
Personally, I would have much rather stayed in academia at a lower salary since basic research was my first love. I left to go into industry because I frankly didn’t think that I could have survived the tenure-track process. My greatest admiration is for my peers in academia who did stick it out to make academic research their career.
Justice in MI
Bless you, Vet!
Speaking from academia, I’d say we’ve got our own group of overpaid, and not particularly hard-working, folks…
It’s probably always a mix. Every sphere of work has the those who go over and above, and those who kinda glide…
ghazala shabeen
i have compeeted D-Pharm,now i want to job of pharmacist in any best pharma industry
Lisa Van Syckel
Yes Christopher, I left Jersey, a year ago this February. You can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can’t take Jersey out of the girl. You know what I love about N.C.? My property taxes and Automobile insurance. I feel as if NJ has robbed me for years!! LMAO
Lisa Johns
Pharmavet, yes I am in Britain. Antipsychotics such as quetiapine were promoted heavily over here and are frequently prescribed by consultants for anxiety, not schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.