Big Pharma Welcomes the Biologics Market

Fast-growing biopharmaceuticals are putting pressure on the dominance of synthetic drugs in the global market for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).

These findings were described a new report by business intelligence providers GBI Research (New York, NY, USA). According to the report, growth in pharmaceutical synthetics is being driven by the development of new drugs and therapies across the globe, but the biopharmaceuticals market is also starting to blossom, and can provide higher effectiveness, greater target specificity, and less side effects than exists with synthetics.

Synthetic API revenues contributed 82.7% of revenues for the global API market in 2011, dominating the market. However, a vast amount of expected patent expirations mean that the synthetic pharmaceutical market is seeing revenues rise gradually, whereas competition flourishes in the blossoming biopharmaceutical market. Revenues from the biotech API market have shown growth at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.4% during 2005-2011, and this success is expected to continue in the future, reducing the dominance of the synthetic API market.

Increased uptake of biologics across different therapeutic areas and government initiatives for biomedical research are geared to fuel API revenues, and stimulate growth in the biopharmaceutical market. Typically, biologics sustain high costs and maintenance, but are considered very target-specific and highly effective, with low toxicity. This has driven many multinational pharmaceutical companies to change their emphasis towards producing biologics, either through outsourcing to specialized companies or by subsidiaries, as the approval for biologics increases worldwide, mitigating the high monetary commitment. Biologics are in great demand for the treatment of diabetes, cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis, and multinational companies and governments are allocating vast funds to biomedical research, increasing biotech API revenues.

However, these precarious and costly processes are also being overtaken by bids to reduce pharmaceutical prices in poorer regions. The developed markets of the Western Europe, Japan, and the United States, have conventionally dominated the global pharmaceutical market, but now less prosperous countries are reaching for access to state-of-the-art medicine. Developing countries rely profoundly on generic drugs, because of the cost advantage over novel drugs under patent, and the price of biosimilars in comparison to biologics has allowed the purchase of biopharmaceuticals in developing countries, increasing market penetration. Over the next five years, generic and biosimilar markets are expected to grow at a collective CAGR of 13.4%, in contrast to an expected collective CAGR of only 4.4% for the innovative and biologic API markets, according to GBI Research analysts.

The total revenue generated by the global API market was USD 108,613 million in 2011, which is expected to increase at a strong CAGR of 7.4% between 2011 and 2017, to generate expected revenues of USD 167,110 million in 2017.

GBI Research is a provider of business intelligence reports, providing data and forecasts based on the insights of key industry leaders.

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