Οικονομικοί
αναλυτές της Wall Street έδωσαν χθες στη δημοσιότητα μια
επισκόπηση της διεθνούς φαρμακευτικής αγοράς του 2011 με αναφορά στις μεγάλες
εξαγορές και συγχωνεύσεις που έγιναν στη διάρκεια του έτους καθώς και τις
ευκαιρίες και απειλές που φέρνει ο καινούργιος χρόνος στη συγκεκριμένη αγορά.
Τα κύρια σημεία της έκθεσης των αναλυτών έχουν ως εξής:
Pharma & Biotech Stock Review & Outlook
Πηγή: Zacks
Investment Research
With 2011 coming to an end,
the pharmaceutical industry continues to face challenges like sluggish
prescription trends, EU pricing pressure, intensifying generic competition,
pipeline failures and limited late-stage catalysts. The next five years are
expected to reflect a significant imbalance between new product introductions
and patent losses. All these factors will lead to a slowdown in global
pharmaceutical market growth in the next five years, with major
revenue-generating drugs like Lipitor, Plavix, Lexapro and Zyprexa losing
exclusivity.
In fact, by the end of 2011,
drugs worth more than a total of $30 billion will lose patent protection. This
includes drugs like Lipitor, Zyprexa and Levaquin. The effect of the
genericization of these products will be felt mostly in 2012, which will be a
challenging year for several companies. At the same time, new products are not
expected to generate the same level of sales as products losing patent
protection.
Moreover, the government is
exploring options which will help increase the availability of generics.
Recently, the Obama administration announced that it is looking to implement a
proposal under which the exclusivity period for biologics will be cut down by 5
years, thereby allowing generics to enter the market sooner. The government is
looking to bring this proposal into effect from 2012.
The government is also
seeking to increase the availability of generics by preventing companies from
entering into anti-competitive or “pay for delay” agreements which push out the
availability of generics. These initiatives, if implemented, would result in
additional pricing competition and genericization in the pharma industry.