The 2006 reports are out from IMS Health—and it was a pretty good year.
Globally, IMS reports biopharmaceuticals are now $643 billion, up 7.0% in 2006. The story globally was oncology, with growth at 20.5%. Specialty products contributed 63% of the growth. Generic medications are now half of the volume in the big countries (except Japan)—U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. The North American market was up 8.3% driven by the U.S. performance (more on this later). The Europeans showed another year of slowdowns, while Asia and Latin America showed double-digit growth.
Global drug launches were big with 31 NMEs in the major markets. The pipeline remains fairly strong. There are 2075 products in Phase and II, up 7% from 2005. With any luck, a couple of them might actually be approved! More intriguing, biologics now represent 27% of the Phase III pipeline.
In the other IMS report out earlier this month, the U.S. market now tops $274.9 billion, up 8.3% in 2006. The story here is Medicare Part D drove utilization and generic usage surged (prescriptions were up 4.6% thanks to those senior citizens). The report states that the Medicare drug benefit lifted pharmaceutical sales by just under 1% and prescription volume by 1-2%. Generics were 63% of prescriptions in the Medicare program.
The company noted the first approval of a biosimilar/biogeneric in the U.S. is Sandoz’s Omnitrope. But most intriguing is that the company has done nothing with it in over seven months—Omnitrope was not launched in the U.S. by the end of 2006. Makes you wonder what all this clamoring for imitation biologics legislation is all about.
