While Big Pharma [call them Benjamin Buttons] is running a race against time, lamenting over the death of their patent rights on many blockbusters, there is a certain tribe smiling about it – the Indian generic tribe. By steven philip warner
A year back, when John Lechleiter took charge as the CEO of the $21.8 billion-a-year earning US pharma giant Eli Lilly, he decided to send his top executives a gift. It was a digital clock, which counted backwards, second by second. It was programmed to stop precisely 48,384,000 seconds later. The deadline – October 23, 2011, the day when Eli Lilly’s top-selling (which raked-in $4.9 billion in 2009) schizophrenia pill Zyprexa would go off-patent, setting-off the alarm for generic drug companies to work double-time. This is just one tale amongst many heartaches that will hit big pharma over the coming few years, names like Pfizer (which will lose patent rights on its bestselling Lipitor in 2011), GSK (Advair, 2011), Merck (Cozaar, 2010), Novartis (Diovan, 2011) being a few other victims. The clock has started ticking backwards, and it is the generic challengers that are eyeing it to make most of the misery of the once-proud pharma patent holders.
Draw out a list, and the lot most hated by big pharma would be the Indians. But the hated lot doesn't mind it. The potential that lies in wait to be tapped by the Indian players can be imagined by the fact that despite being #3 in terms of volumes in the world, the Indian pharma market is still #14 in terms of value ($21.04 billion). A market which was written-off about half-a-decade back, when the world was heading forward at a great rate of knots to catch the patent blockbusters bus, is now chugging ahead faster than imagined before. While the domestic market alone is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12-15%, as opposed to a global average of 4-7% during 2008-2013, the Indian pharmacos are finding the proposition of lapping up the opportunities granted by the patent expiries simply irresistible. Over the next two years, more than 26 bestsellers, with an annual value of $70 billion are going off-patent, representing 240% of the current Indian pharma space. This justifies why despite struggling to win approvals for generic versions from USFDA, Indian drugmakers are filing for generic licences at a brisk pace. They have filed for approvals to market 11 of 15 drugs that go off-patent by 2010, 14 of the 16 that go off-patent in 2011 & 22 of the 26 that expire by 2012.
A year back, when John Lechleiter took charge as the CEO of the $21.8 billion-a-year earning US pharma giant Eli Lilly, he decided to send his top executives a gift. It was a digital clock, which counted backwards, second by second. It was programmed to stop precisely 48,384,000 seconds later. The deadline – October 23, 2011, the day when Eli Lilly’s top-selling (which raked-in $4.9 billion in 2009) schizophrenia pill Zyprexa would go off-patent, setting-off the alarm for generic drug companies to work double-time. This is just one tale amongst many heartaches that will hit big pharma over the coming few years, names like Pfizer (which will lose patent rights on its bestselling Lipitor in 2011), GSK (Advair, 2011), Merck (Cozaar, 2010), Novartis (Diovan, 2011) being a few other victims. The clock has started ticking backwards, and it is the generic challengers that are eyeing it to make most of the misery of the once-proud pharma patent holders.
Draw out a list, and the lot most hated by big pharma would be the Indians. But the hated lot doesn't mind it. The potential that lies in wait to be tapped by the Indian players can be imagined by the fact that despite being #3 in terms of volumes in the world, the Indian pharma market is still #14 in terms of value ($21.04 billion). A market which was written-off about half-a-decade back, when the world was heading forward at a great rate of knots to catch the patent blockbusters bus, is now chugging ahead faster than imagined before. While the domestic market alone is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12-15%, as opposed to a global average of 4-7% during 2008-2013, the Indian pharmacos are finding the proposition of lapping up the opportunities granted by the patent expiries simply irresistible. Over the next two years, more than 26 bestsellers, with an annual value of $70 billion are going off-patent, representing 240% of the current Indian pharma space. This justifies why despite struggling to win approvals for generic versions from USFDA, Indian drugmakers are filing for generic licences at a brisk pace. They have filed for approvals to market 11 of 15 drugs that go off-patent by 2010, 14 of the 16 that go off-patent in 2011 & 22 of the 26 that expire by 2012.
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