Will a new generation of Medicine Kings take over?

In 2012, Humerol beat Pfizer's Lipitor to the top spot in global drug sales with $9.48 billion. At this point, Xiu Meile has been consecutive 9 years of the "king of medicine" throne.

This year may see a change in the world's medicine king.

Merck reported sales of $15.487 billion for the first three quarters of the year, only narrowly behind Samel ($15.658 billion), according to the company's third-quarter results.

Is the era of Sho Merlot coming to an end?

In January 2023, Humele's first biosimilar drug will be available in the United States. This marks the complete end of Humele's 20-year run of market exclusivity. According to media reports, it is expected to face competition from nine biosimilar drugs in the US market by 2023.

This will put a lot of competitive pressure on AbbVie.

But it has to be said that, by far, Sumerol remains the highest-selling drug in history, generating more than $200 billion in revenue over some 20 years. In particular, last year, Humelor's annual sales broke the $20 billion mark for the first time, making it the biggest drug in terms of sales after Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine.

In 2019, Evaluate Pharma predicted that it would take until 2023 for K to replace AbbVie's Samele. However, considering the current sales and growth rate of K-drug and Schomelor, Schomelor's position as the "king of medicine" may be replaced by K-drug in advance.

On October 28, AbbVie reported its third quarter 2022 results, in which Humelux generated $5.559 billion in revenue, up 2.5% year over year. Humele sales accounted for 37.5 percent of AbbVie's total revenue in the first three quarters of 2022, down from 40 percent in the same period last year and 61 percent in 2018. It's easy to see how AbbVie has been trying to reduce its reliance on Shomelow.

Notably, AbbVie's other two autoimmune drugs, Skyrizi and Rinvoq, have grown at impressive year-to-date rates of +75.4% ($1.397 billion in revenue) and +59.3% ($695 million), respectively.

Currently, AbbVie is accelerating the expansion of the two autoimmune drug indications to make up for the sales gap after the expiration of the patent, but it is expected to be difficult to repeat the success of the Summel.

Drug K continues to grow rapidly

Merck's Keytruda (pembrolizumab) will shine in the coming years as Semel loses its luster. Drug K is the best-selling PD-1 mab in the world, and also the most widely approved PD-1 mab covering tumor types.

Recently, MSD announced its financial results for the third quarter of this year, reporting sales of $14.96 billion, up 18% from the same period last year. Among them, the main product driving the global revenue growth is K-drug, which reached 5.426 billion dollars, only 133 million dollars behind Humela's 5.559 billion dollars.

And in the case of a high base, K drug still maintained a high growth. In the third quarter, K sales grew 20%; Excluding currency effects, sales grew 26 per cent in real terms. In the third quarter, global sales grew just 2.5 per cent from a year earlier.

Looking back at 2016 data, Drug K generated just $1.402 billion in sales.

In 2022, there is little doubt that K drug will overtake Xiomele to become the "king of medicines".

Previously, Evaluate Pharma predicted that global sales of Drug K would reach $24.32 billion in 2026. On the current performance, K drug sales peak may exceed the market previously expected.

In response, MSD said that K's strong growth is mainly due to a strong performance in the non-small cell cancer segment. And starting in 2021, adjuvant/neoadjuvant indications are emerging as a new growth engine for K, and this segment is becoming increasingly "strong."

At present, K drug has been approved for nearly 30 indications worldwide, ranging from advanced melanoma to non-small cell lung cancer, metastatic gastric cancer, esophageal cancer, kidney cancer, breast cancer and liver cancer. Each additional indication approved for K means higher sales. In addition, microbiological therapy, CAR-M therapy and oncolytic virus therapy are also golden partners sought by Merck for K drug.

But just as there are two sides to a coin, the biggest worry for Drug K right now is the challenge of the patent cliff. In 2028, the core patent of K will lose protection, which is like a sword of Damocles hanging over Merck's head.

In the first three quarters of this year, Merck's revenue was $45.45 billion, while K's revenue was $15.487 billion, or about 30%. This means that once K drug "patent cliff", Merck's performance will encounter a great challenge.

In fact, whether it is Ximerol or K drug, or all innovative drugs, the "patent cliff" is a common "pain" of many big drug companies. Therefore, how to prevent and deal with the "patent cliff", the pharmaceutical industry still needs to think carefully and plan.