Forecast: These 10 medicines will sell best in 2021!

Recently, the comprehensive sales (absolute value), year-on-year growth rate (relative value), time to market, patent expiration time, indications, market demand and other factors of the comprehensive sales of Spring and Autumn Drugs have been selected in addition to the 10 most promising drugs in the world in 2020. 

Among them, Merck’s pembrolizumab, Gilead’s Biconazole tablets, Eli Lilly’s dulaglutide, AstraZeneca’s osimertinib and Novartis’s secukinumab are among the top five, 2020 Annual sales increased by 30%, 67%, 23%, 38% and 21% year-on-year.

PD-1 and PD-L1 drugs, including K drug, secukinumab, darelimumab, duplizumab, atilizumab, and imelizumab, are on the list Occupying six seats is enough to prove the future development prospects of this class of drugs.

K drug leads the list, O drug fails to be on the list

When it comes to  K drug, its strong rival O drug has failed to show greater sales potential. This may be a glimpse of the indications dispute between the two.

In the PD-1 battle, K medicine won a key victory in the battle for the first-line lung cancer treatment with O medicine, and achieved a counterattack: In 2016, the sales of O medicine were nearly three times that of K medicine; in 2020, K medicine sales The amount is close to 15 billion US dollars, which is nearly twice the sales of O medicine. In terms of scale, the leading advantage of K drug is greater than that of O drug in 2016.

Merck’s 2020 annual report shows that K medicine has reached the second position in the world with a sales of 14.38 billion U.S. dollars, and is in the company's sales ranking of all varieties, leaving other products far behind. On the contrary, the sales of "O medicine" are somewhat unsatisfactory. Its global sales in 2020 are close to 8 billion U.S. dollars, and there has been a negative growth.

To some extent, the dispute between O drugs and K drugs is a dispute over indications, and it is also a situation that all PD-1 drugs must face: In 2016, O drugs have been used in melanoma, head and neck cancer, lung cancer, kidney cancer, etc. Two cancer types were approved, while K drug was only approved in melanoma and lung cancer. At that time, the industry generally believed that O drug would take advantage of the first-mover advantage to sit on a huge market.

However, in the Phase III study of the first-line treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, the most common type of lung cancer, drug O failed to reach the clinical endpoint, and drug K opened the way to counterattack.

Today, drug K has been approved for the treatment of 19 indications such as classic Hodgkin’s lymphoma, skin squamous cell carcinoma, esophageal cancer, gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma, and it is still two consecutive times in the context of high epidemics. Achieved rapid growth in the last quarter. That is to say, for a company, the efficiency of clinical transformation and the correctness of clinical strategies ultimately determine the time to market and commercial value of a new drug, and the ultimate commercial potential of K drugs and O drugs is also reflected by this.

Osimertinib, to further seize the market

As a blockbuster anti-tumor drug of AZ, Osimertinib has further seized the market due to its combination with the 4+7 mass-purchased variety Gefitinib, ranking fourth among the top ten drugs with sales potential.

This variety is also of profound significance to AZ. Since its listing, it has further promoted the growth of AstraZeneca's oncology business in China. In 2018, sales increased by 44% to US$810 million. This is largely due to the launch of the blockbuster anti-tumor drug Teresa (Osimertinib) in China in 2017.

According to data, osimertinib was approved in the United States in November 2015 and approved in China in March 2017, making it the fastest imported anti-cancer drug ever to enter the country. There is a view in the industry that Teresa should be one of the most famous imported anti-cancer drugs marketed in recent years and one of the drugs that have the greatest impact on Chinese patients. It targets patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer with EGFR mutations, and the number is far in China. Far more than Europe and the United States, even this is the new medicine customized by European and American pharmaceutical companies for Chinese patients.

In order to promote the sales of Teresa, AstraZeneca’s gefitinib won the BID with a 76% drop in the 4+7 volume procurement pilot. The industry speculates that AZ is to maintain patients’ medication habits and doctor’s prescription habits. The third-generation EGFR TKI Teresa (Osimertinib), which is soon on the market and has better curative effect, is upgraded. "Shuangsha" leverages "4+7" volume purchases to occupy a larger market share in the field of non-small cell lung cancer.

In the hypoglycemic field, GLP-1 has a gratifying increase

According to Yao Chunqiu data, two hypoglycemic drugs from Eli Lilly’s dulaglutide and Novo Nordisk’s Semaglutide entered the list this time, and both are GLP-1 drugs. The sales data of dulaglutide in 2020 is 5.07 billion U.S. dollars. Semaglutide, the "successor" of GLP-1, also won the most sales potential drug with a high growth of 119% and dazzling data of 3.69 billion U.S. dollars. Ranked eighth.

GLP-1 is a kind of "incretin" naturally secreted by the mucosa of the human gastrointestinal tract. GLP-1 receptor agonist type hypoglycemic drugs are currently one of the best-selling hypoglycemic agents. Its advantage lies in the risk of hypoglycemia. The incidence is significantly lower than INSULIN, and it can reduce food intake and delay gastric emptying, which is conducive to weight control and can protect pancreatic β-cell function.

Eli Lilly’s dulaglycotide injection was approved by the National Food and Drug Administration to enter the Chinese market in February 2019. The product was approved by the FDA in 2014 and its sales have been rising since it was launched. In 2017, it exceeded the US$2 billion mark for the first time. A year-on-year increase of 119.46%.