A report by Thomson Reuters' Intellectual Property and Science business has found that the drug manufacturing industry is set to make significant gains from the $1 trillion recorded in 2014 to $1.3 trillion by 2018, courtesy of new product launches and more successful clinical trials by drug companies.
In its 2015 CMR Pharmaceutical R&D Factbook released on Tuesday, Thomson Reuters stated that a surge in international drug sales is slated in the next four years despite existing concerns about declines in research and development.
The report also revealed that there is a positive shift regarding new molecular entities (NMEs), with 46 of them launched internationally in 2014. This is considered to be the highest in more than a decade.
NMEs released last year featured two medications for cancer, the Bristol-Myers Squibb-made Opdivo and the Merck-made Keytruda, designed to help the immune cells of the body to combat tumors, as oncology continues to be one of the top areas for drug research. The field of study attracts close to one third of all spending for research and development.
These two new cancer drugs are the first ones in an upcoming wave of costly immunotherapies.
Aside from the launching of newer medications, the drug manufacturing industry has also experienced an increased in success rates in the expensive final phase of clinical development. In the past six years, scientists have seen a steady decrease in the number of failures in Phase III projects.
The number of discontinued Phase III projects reached 56 in the past three years, which is down from the 68 that were recorded between 2009 and 2011.
Philip Miller, Thomson Reuters' senior clinical and regulatory affairs director, said that the industry is doing well overall, based on the metrics that they use.
Miller noted that drug manufacturers benefit from the switch to the production of specialized drugs for rare illnesses, which are often produced through clinical development at a much faster rate compared to treatments for mass markets.
Data from the Thomson Reuters report show that experimental drugs are receiving marketing approval overall from regulators much faster than ten years ago.
The drug industry in Japan has experienced the largest turnaround, where the average time for granting a new drug approval has decreased, from over 800 days in 2006 down to 306 days in 2014.
Photo: Taki Steve | Flickr
