FiercePharma | Eric Palmer
The earnings reports for the biggest of Big Pharma are all in. Bayer
reported last week, making it possible to see how they stacked up as they came
into the new year. There are no big surprises. Pfizer ($PFE) and Merck & Co. ($MRK), with ongoing patent issues and reorganizations, saw their positions fall
a couple of notches, and AbbVie ($ABBV), having been spun off from Abbott Laboratories ($ABT) at the beginning of the year, didn't quite make the top 10. Its
disappearance allowed Eli Lilly & Co. ($LLY) to make the list. It also helped Bayer HealthCare move up a couple of
notches.
Here's last year's special report if you make comparisons.
After the major patent crashes of 2012, last year was more of a
transitional period. Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ), Novartis ($NVS), Roche ($RHHBY), GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK), Eli Lilly and Bayer saw their revenues rise, although only J&J and Bayer had an
appreciable change. Bayer's pharma revenues, combined with its consumer health
unit, saw revenue growth of 7.6% based on dollars. J&J's number was up
6.7%, driven in large part by its pharma division. The others were flat or had
growth of less than 3%.
Pfizer, Sanofi ($SNY), Merck & Co. and AstraZeneca ($AZN) were on the revenue-eroding end of the spectrum. Patent losses on
blockbusters figured into most of the declines. Merck, whose revenues were off
6.8%, lost the patent on Singulair. Pfizer, which has yet to get past the sales erosion from the 2011 patent
loss of Lipitor, saw its revenues fade 6%. Interestingly, Lipitor generics also rained on
AstraZeneca's revenue parade, cutting sales of its cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor by 9% for the year; AZ's revenues were off 8% across the board. Sanofi's
revenues were down 5.7%, undermined by a host of issues, including the patent
loss on Plavix.
Still, you have to keep this all in perspective. Those numbers are nothing
compared to the 17% revenue free falls that both AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers
Squibb ($BMY), which doesn't make this year's list, reported last year. As I said, it
was a transitional year.
We welcome your input, so let me or Carly Helfand know if you have
observations about the state of the top 10.
A note on methodology: We drew our figures from companies' filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, their annual reports, and information
provided during earnings calls. Sales reported in pounds, euros or francs were
converted into U.S. dollars.