Biogen Idec’s multiple sclerosis drug, Tecfidera, tops the list of the biggest potential revenue-generating drugs launched so far this year in the U.S., with expected sales of $2.9 billion by 2018, according to a report by EP Vantage. The estimated sales over the next five years from the much-anticipated launch of Tecfidera in March beats out other drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this year by Big Pharma giants like Roche, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline.
However, if Gilead’s hepatitis C drug, sofosbuvir, is approved as expected before Dec. 31, it will just edge out Tecfidera, with $3 billion in expected revenues by 2018.
Overall, while the number of drugs expected to be approved by the FDA before the end of the year will not reach 2012’s record of 43 drug approvals (it will likely be 34), the report finds that the potential revenue from the drugs approved in 2013 in five years will likely hit a record of $18.7 billion. That number assumes the expected approval of sofosbuvir as well as six others before the end of the year.
That sales estimate is up 14 percent from the estimated five-year revenues of drugs approved in the U.S. in 2012, and up four-fold from the most recent low of $4.4 billion in 2007.
Tecfidera, which generated $286 in revenue in the most recent quarter ending in September, is the company’s first oral medicine - and its third overall - for multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord and affects about 2.1 million people worldwide. The company says the drug is now the leading oral multiple sclerosis drug in the U.S.
Click here to read more
