The European pharmaceutical market is set to grow from €169 billion in 2015 to €206 billion in 2022, according to a forecast from life science market intelligence firm Evaluate.
If the forecast is correct, this would give the market a compound annual growth rate of 3.2% in that period – but Evaluate has warned that current funding models are not workable in the long term.
Antonio Iervolino, head of forecasting at Evaluate, explained: “New innovations, leading to significantly improved patient outcomes, come with higher drug prices, physicians’ willingness to prescribe and, therefore, higher consensus drug forecasts.”
“In a system ultimately paid for by governments” he added, “this raises questions on the sustainability of the current funding model and presents challenges for payers in Europe”.
Evaluate believes the predicted growth is largely due to innovations in oncology, but says that significant discoveries in other therapy areas – such as multiple sclerosis, chronic heart failure, rheumatoid arthritis and Alzheimer’s disease – will help to keep sales rolling.
However, the forecast anticipates that AbbVie’s TNF blocker Humira – currently the biggest-selling drug in Europe, and indeed the world – will lose the top slot in Europe to Bayer’s Xarelto in the next six years.
It predicts that Humira’s 2022 sales of €1.462 bn in Europe will be dwarfed by those of Bayer’s novel oral anticoagulant Xarelto (2022: €2.607 bn), but that Humira will keep its market leadership position in immunology despite biosimilar threats.
Xarelto’s projected rise is in part driven by its expected expansion into follow-on indications such as chronic heart failure.
Cancer treatments are set to provide five compounds in the top 10 in 2022, although Roche’s Herceptin (2015 sales of €2.117 bn to 2022 sales of €1.383 bn) will face stiff competition from the anticipated launch of various cheaper biosimilars.
Among these is Mylan and Biocon’s MYL-1401O, whose data was shown to be comparable in efficacy and safety to Herceptin, when presented at the ASCO meeting in Chicago.
In hepatitis C, Gilead’s Sovaldi (2015: €1.443 bn; 2022: €609m) and its follow-up therapy Harvoni (2015: €2 bn; 2022: €887m) million) will struggle due to price pressure and shrinking numbers of patients, Evaluate predicts.
Commenting on the implications of the financial forecast, Iervolino added: “To reduce the friction between payers and industry, a new collaborative approach to funding needs to be established, ultimately reflecting the benefits that some of the new innovations are generating throughout the whole healthcare value chain.”