FiercePharma
| Eric Palmer Mar 4, 2019
Pharma companies do their best
to fight off patent expirations and generic competition as long as possible to
protect their big moneymakers. But this year looks like the end of the
line for many of the industry's top brands.
Pfizer’s Lyrica,
GlaxoSmithKline’s Advair, Roche’s Rituxan, Gilead’s Harvoni and many
other drugs are slated or expected to face new generic competition this year.
Each has navigated a different path to the patent cliff, but they'll all end up
delivering a heavy financial blow to their makers.
For several companies
included in the list, new generic pressure is already here. Amgen, for
instance, started dealing with competition for Neulasta and
Epogen last year, thanks to biosimilars from Mylan, Coherus and
Pfizer. It remains to be seen just how much—and how quickly—biosimilars will
hurt the profitable brands.
Other drugs face more
uncertainty as they lose some of their IP protections. Enbrel, for instance, is
another profitable drug that's nearing the cliff, but Amgen executives
recently said their court fight against would-be biosim rival Sandoz will take
a while to play out, so it's uncertain when the drug could face competition.
No bigger lineup of drugs is
facing copycats for the first time than the one at Roche. Executives for the
cancer giant have told investors they're expecting U.S. competition in 2019 for
Rituxan, Herceptin and Avastin. Together, the trio of cancer megablockbusters
pulled in more than $10 billion in the U.S. last year, Roche reported,
representing a huge target for biosim companies.
Pfizer’s Lyrica and Glaxo’s
Advair are two household names making an appearance in this year's
ranking—again. Pfizer was slated to lose Lyrica exclusivity at the end of last
year, but the FDA blessed the drugmaker with a 6-month extension for
testing the drug in a set of pediatric patients. Glaxo, for its part, will
finally face new Advair competition after numerous delays among would-be copycats. Mylan
just recently scored FDA approval for its generic, and the company launched it
in February.