Generic Statins to Slash Global Market Value by 2018

Friday 8 February 2013, Amsterdam

The introduction of generic statins has kick-started a decline that will see the global statins market lose over US$7 billion in revenue by 2018, states the latest report by business intelligence providers.

The firm’s new report forecasts the worldwide statins market to drop from a 2012 valuation of US$19.7 billion to US$12.2 billion just five years later at a negative Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.7%.

Statins, a category of drugs employed to lower cholesterol levels, are increasingly under threat from non-statins and combination therapies (a mixture of statins and non-statins), but the primary threat to global revenue lies with the rise of generic variants.

The global statins market declined in 2006 and 2007 due to patent expiries for Merck’s Zocor (simvastatin) and Pravachol (pravastatin), but revenue has remained steady until recently. However, the expiry of Pfizer’s blockbuster drug Lipitor (atorvastatin calcium) in 2011, followed by the immediate launch of generics, has intensified the competition in the statins market and will restrain the commercial opportunities for upcoming products.

The US, the largest single contributor to the global statins market, is expected to demonstrate substantial loss of revenue in the near future and is forecast to slip from a valuation of US$10 billion last year to US$5.8 billion in 2018 – a depreciation of 42% in just six years.

This new report predicts that due to the effects of numerous patent expiries, the generic share of the global statins market will reach 34% in 2018 from an 11% share in 2011.