Top global pharmaceutical companies are struggling to maintain their high profits and sales growth in the face of strong generic competition and poor research productivity. Sales and profitability of multinational drug companies have been steadily declining for the last five years with increasing number of patent expiries and a drop in the number of blockbuster drugs. The basic reason for this trend is a serious drought the companies are facing in research pipeline despite spending heavily on new molecular research. Very few new drugs are coming out of their R&D labs despite most of them targeting research on life style diseases. A Pharmabiz study of financial performances of 15 top MNCs during 2014 once again confirmed this disturbing trend. During 2014 the total revenues of 15 MNCs declined by 1.7 per cent to US$ 546 billion as against $ 555 billion reported in the previous year. The net profit declined by 8.3 per cent to $ 96 billion from $ 104 billion. The number of blockbusters also declined to 95 last year from 105 in the previous year. Perhaps what is most disturbing for the top MNCs is a small drop in growth of sales of pharmaceuticals during last year. Out of total revenues of these companies, the sales of Pharmaceutical and Vaccines remained at $ 409 billion during 2014 as against $ 411 billion in the previous year.
Among the global companies, Novartis stood at the top during 2014 with pharmaceutical sales of $54 billion as against $ 53 billion in the previous year, registering only a nominal growth of 1.9 per cent. Pfizer maintained its second position even with a fall in sales at $ 46 billion from $ 48 billion in the previous year. Sanofi's sales declined by 9.3 per cent to $ 39 billion as against $ 43 billion in the previous year and stood at the third position. Roche stood at the fourth position with a sales of $ 37 billion despite a 9.8 per cent drop in sales. Perhaps GSK reported the worst performance in sales at $ 29 billion during 2014 as against $ 35 billion in the previous year. Gilead Sciences, on the other hand, reported a stunning performance in 2014 with its pharma sales going up by 118 per cent to $ 24 billion from $ 11 billion reported in the previous year. The main factor for the sharp rise in sales is the performance of its blockbuster, Sovaldi, an antiviral product. This single product clocked a sales of $ 10.28 billion for the company during 2014 from just $ 139 million in the previous year. However, Humira of AbbVie for treatment of Rheumatoid arthritis, remained the number one blockbuster with the sales of $ 12.54 billion during 2014 as against $ 10.75 billion in the previous year. Patent expiries and drop in number of blockbusters are troubling the growth of global pharmaceutical industry today. This is despite huge amounts these companies are spending annually for R&D. Last year these 15 companies spent over $ 86 billion on R&D. Among the top spenders on R&D are Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Gilead, AbbVie and Bristol-Myers.