Frankfurt The corona pandemic is giving the pharmaceutical industry the strongest growth spurt in decades. Thanks to high additional revenues in the corona pandemic and a recovery in the traditional pharmaceutical business, the industry is likely to generate 15 to 20 percent more sales than in the previous year.
At least that is what the latest quarterly figures and forecasts from the world’s leading pharmaceutical suppliers point to. According to the Handelsblatt, the 30 largest companies in the industry increased their sales in the first nine months of 2021 by around 108 billion dollars to a combined total of almost 600 billion dollars. This corresponds to an increase of around 22 percent.
In view of the growing threat from new virus mutations such as the recently discovered Omikron variant, it is becoming apparent that the Covid-related boom could give the leading players a significant boost in the coming year. Because the need for vaccines and therapies is likely to increase for the time being before the situation normalizes.
The meanwhile considerable weight of the Covid business becomes clear from a closer look at the most recent quarterly results: The ten pharmaceutical companies, which are represented in the field with their own products, recorded in the first nine months 2021 together around 66 billion dollar sales with Covid vaccines and – Medication. Almost two thirds of the industry growth is currently due to the corona effect alone. The remainder is due to higher revenues from other drugs as well as currency and acquisition effects.
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The three leading vaccine manufacturers Pfizer, Biontech and Moderna posted a good $ 50 billion in additional revenue alone. In addition, companies such as Regeneron, Gilead, Roche and Eli Lilly have generated revenues of more than twelve billion dollars with drugs against Covid-19.
Based on the latest company forecasts, Covid sales for the year as a whole are likely to add up to a volume of at least 95 to 100 billion dollars, of which about 80 percent will be from vaccines. It should be noted that the figures from Biontech and Pfizer contain a certain double count, because the sales reported by Biontech result to a large extent from pre-deliveries to Pfizer and from profit shares from the partnership with the US group.
Regardless of this, vaccines and drugs against Covid-19 are now likely to represent the second largest single category in the pharmaceutical sector after cancer drugs. The Covid boom has significantly increased the growth gap between the companies and at the same time upset the ranking in the industry.
The US corporation Pfizer, which was overtaken by its competitors Roche, Novartis and Abbvie last year, has risen again to the undisputed number one in the pharmaceutical industry thanks to the huge sales of the Covid vaccine Comirnaty (developed by Biontech). And this despite the fact that in the meantime he has spun off his approximately eight billion dollar business with patent-free products to the new company Viatris.
Biontech lands before Bayer
At the same time, with Biontech from Mainz and the US companies Moderna and Regeneron, three representatives from the biotech sector were able to establish themselves among the 25 top-selling pharmaceutical companies in the world.
Biontech now ranks – with sales equivalent to around 16.1 billion dollars in the first nine months – even just ahead of Bayer, which ranks 16th in the world pharmaceutical industry. The young Mainz company, which was largely unknown until a few years ago, is now the leading German pharmaceutical manufacturer in terms of both market capitalization (currently 75 billion euros) and sales – ahead of Bayer and Boehringer.
Moderna has catapulted itself to position 21 in the industry with its successful Covid vaccine Spikevax, closely followed by the biotech company Regeneron, which with its antibody cocktail against Covid made around 4.7 billion dollars in the first nine months and thus its Total sales almost doubled compared to the previous year.
The ongoing corona pandemic guarantees the vaccine developers additional sales.
(Photo: dpa)
The British pharmaceutical company Astra-Zeneca with its vaccine Vaxzevria and the US manufacturer Eli Lilly with its antibody active ingredients also received tailwind from the Covid business – albeit to a much lesser extent. Both groups also posted solid increases in their cancer and diabetes drugs. Astra-Zeneca also benefited from the acquisition of the US company Alexion, which was completed in July.
For most of the actors, it is now becoming apparent that the Covid effect could extend well beyond 2021. Because in view of the still high infection rates, new virus variants and the strong trend towards booster vaccinations, the need for vaccines and therapies remains high for the time being. This, in turn, should benefit both vaccine developers such as Biontech and Moderna, as well as drug providers.
Industry leader Pfizer is expected by analysts to further expand its supremacy in the industry in the coming year. In addition to the extensive vaccine business as part of the alliance with Biontech, the US group is also seeing high sales with its newly developed corona drug Paxlovid, which recently provided very strong data in a study. An emergency approval for the drug is likely to follow this year, the US government has already ordered ten million doses for $ 5.3 billion.
Increasing sales also in the traditional business
In the shadow of the Covid pandemic, the regular pharmaceutical business has also improved significantly over the course of the year. If you exclude Covid sales, the top 30 in the pharmaceutical industry achieved a sales increase of at least seven percent to 531 billion dollars in the first nine months. Adjusted for currency effects, this should correspond to real growth in the traditional pharmaceutical business of around five percent. In the first quarter alone, the industry outside of the Covid business grew by just under one percent.
Even those pharmaceutical companies that are not represented in the Covid business have recently been able to show a significantly better performance than at the beginning of the year.
The German pharmaceutical manufacturers Merck and Bayer, for example, reported currency-adjusted sales increases of six and seven percent for the first nine months, compared to a four percent decline in sales in the first quarter alone. A similar trend can be seen with most international competitors. The industry’s second Abbvie, for example, accelerated sales growth from five percent in the first quarter to eleven percent in the first nine months, and at Novartis from one to seven percent.
A certain catch-up effect also plays a role here: under the influence of the pandemic and the associated lockdown measures, the regulations in several sub-areas of the pharmaceutical market declined in the past year. This has now normalized and has led to unusually strong growth in established drugs in the last two quarters.
More: What is known so far about the vaccination against the Omikron variant.