Actavis joins generics elite according to new pharma study

Friday 30 August 2013, Amsterdam

A new report describes the 2012 merger of Actavis and Watson as the key recent development in the world generic drugs industry. The enlarged Actavis has also acquired Warner Chilcott, cementing its place alongside the generics market leader, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, near the top of our ranking. Other leaders include “classical” generics companies – such as Mylan – and Big Pharma players – such as Novartis and Sanofi – who have diversified into generic medicines.

Pharma Leader Series: Top 50 Generic Drug Manufacturers 2013-2023, published in July 2013, covers those developments and others. That study also predicts revenues of companies to 2023.

With patent expiries, the generics industry grows ever more important to the pharmaceutical industry overall. Though Novartis and Sanofi have led the way for Big Pharma, other companies, such as Abbott and Pfizer, are also among the leading generics producers and sellers. Visiongain’s study provides an assessment of the leading 50 firms, assessing their strategies and goals in the generics industry and market from 2013.

Dr James Evans, a pharmaceutical industry analyst in visiongain, said: “Last year, 2012, marked a watershed for the generics industry. It’s almost certainly the last year that Teva will draw most of its revenues from generics – just over 50% in 2012. Also, Teva has just broken into the top 10 pharma companies worldwide. That progress shows how the divide between research-based and generics companies starts to break down. Generics manufacturers become more innovative and specialised.

“All the Big Pharma players have got interest in generics now. The importance of the emerging national markets doesn’t leave them much option – they need generics in their portfolios to take to China and other ‘pharmerging’ markets. But even Amgen – which you’d think of as a research-driven biotech – has made a generics acquisition. Meanwhile, generics firms are investing more heavily in R&D. It’s not enough now just to have a lot of molecules in your generics portfolio – you need to differentiate them. Teva and Sandoz already focus on niche areas of the generics market, but you can see that many of the other companies we analyse in the top 50 are going for the same approach now.

“In terms of geographies, India is still generics provider to the world, and the new hard line from the Indian government on IP is only likely to reinforce Indian exporting dominance. In some other regional markets you get one or two big local players with not much presence in the broader market. Some of these regional giants, though, like Aspen in South Africa, have started to expand business geographically.”

This new report finds generic medicines will help sales growth for many pharma companies. Pharma Leader Series: Top 50 Generic Drug Manufacturers 2013-2023 adds to its range of analytical reports on pharmaceuticals and other healthcare industries and markets.