Blockbuster Drugs

Blockbuster drugs are those drugs which generate revenue of more than $ 1 billion annually to the owner. There are many such drugs in the pharma market. So these drugs are also one of the main sources of revenue for the parent company. Take a prominent example of Lipitor, a product of Pfizer Inc. This product has an annual sale of about $ 13 b, and is also the highest selling drug in the world.

Also in the list of blockbuster drugs is Plavix, the second highest selling drug, being sold to the tone of about $ 5.9 b annually? These drugs are under patent protection and most of these drugs will be coming off- patent in the year 2010-12. After that, they can be produced be any company and will come under the tag line of generic drugs.

Most of the blockbuster drugs that are in the market now, are essentially for diseases like hypertension, diabetes, anti-allergic, or some of the nervous system disorder like depression, schizophrenia, etc. These diseases were one of the main causes of mortality about 20 years ago, during this course of time; these drugs have performed extravagantly in curing or mitigating them.

Now, the times have changed, as we move to a new world encountered with many new challenges and diseases. CHF, Diabetes, Stroke are common now also, but today we have cure for them. For what we do not have a cure as yet is HIV, Cancer, Hepatitis B and several autoimmune diseases. Such diseases continue to be prominent worldwide and undefeated by any of the drugs or chemicals discovered so far.

In Europe, a group of scientists worked together for almost 20 years and finally prepared an injection for treating Cancer. But they were left in a fray to discover that drug failing to perform its desired action in the Cancer patients. Yet, it is not that these diseases cannot be tackled effectively. The portfolio of the Pharma majors today speaks of having a range of Anti- Cancer drugs, Immuno suppressant drugs and ever increasing number of vaccines.

Diversification of the portfolio is of utmost importance and we are witnessing some of good pharma companies doing that. Now, as these companies are realizing that their patented drugs can serve them for only a couple of more years, they have now started investing to a greater extent in R & D to have a new pipeline of drugs emerging in the market.

But this will take about 5-10 years more to actually find a cure for the new lethal diseases and that too if the R & D is carried out vigorously. But once such therapies are successful in the clinical trials and eventually rolled out in the market, they will have the potential of generating about twice the revenue generated by Lipitor, as Cancer and AIDS are experiencing an unprecedented mushroom growth across the worldwide population. Finding a cure for them has become a need of the hour.

Companies like Pfizer, Novartis, Astra Zeneca and other majors like Merck and Ranbaxy are capable enough to shell out huge amounts on R&D and hope that we will soon have a robust cure for these diseases…….. HOPE FOR THE BEST.