With thirty-nine approvals from the FDA, 2012 triggered a wave of optimism in the pharmaceutical industry.  But if 2012 was characterized by an increased number of approvals, the sales potential of many of those new products was underwhelming.  For 2013, the number of approvals may have gone down, but the quality (in terms of clinical impact and sales potential) has increased dramatically.

Twenty-seven approvals (twenty four of them drugs) in 2013 may be twelve less than the 2012 haul, but it is still above average across the last two decades.  And in any case, the number of approvals is a poor surrogate for the productivity of the industry.

With between five and seven products headed for blockbuster status, and Sovaldi™ potentially reaching peak sales in excess of $10billion annually, the output from the global pharmaceutical industry in 2013 shows signs of return to the glory days of the late 1990s.  Indeed, arguably, 2013 may be the best year ever in terms of future sales potential for newly-approved products.  Predicted global sales of these medicines five years after launch dwarf the equivalent figure for the class of 2012 by as much as 10-fold.  With this kind of R&D productivity, things look rosier for the global pharmaceutical industry than they have done for more than a decade.

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The Cambridge Partnership is the only professional services company in the UK exclusively dedicated to supporting companies in the biotechnology industry. We specialize in providing a “one-stop shop” for accountancy, company secretarial, IP management and admin services. The Cambridge Partnership was founded in 2012 to fill a gap. Running a biotechnology company has little …