The Consumer Advisor

With only one of the biopharma industry’s top 20 revenue companies seeing a year-over-year decline in sales, 2024 was a remarkable year of revenue growth for the industry. Compare that to 2023, when eight of the top 20 drugmakers experienced revenue declines. Six of the top 20 drugmakers had double-digit increases in 2024, compared to just two in 2023. Five others saw a revenue bump of between 7% and 9%, compared to two reaching those figures in 2023. For the second year in a row, Eli Lilly (32%) and Novo Nordisk (26%) posted Big Pharma's largest year-over-year sales bumps, though their positions were flipped from 2023 when Novo (31%) topped Lilly (20%). Expect the same form in 2025 as Lilly—boosted by sales of its diabetes and obesity drugs Moujaro and Zepbound— projects  its sales to fall between $58 billion and $61 billion. At the midpoint of the projection, it would be a 32% increase, matching the sales boom it saw last year. Meanwhile, Novo—which also has been powered by sale...

Merck, Roche and Celgene (now part of Bristol-Myers Squibb) have remained prominent players, but the market dynamics have shifted significantly in recent years. This increased competition is fueled by the success of blockbuster drugs like Keytruda (Merck), Tagrisso (AstraZeneca), and Ibrance (Pfizer), as well as the rapid adoption of immunotherapies and targeted treatments ( Verified Market Reports ). Look at 2017. The trio of drugmakers together held a 45.8% share of the market, with longtime cancer leader Roche controlling 26.4% all on its own. In 2024, though, market intelligence firm EvaluatePharma expects to see much more parity. The top three’s share will shrink to 26.2%, with Roche’s dropping all the way down to 11.9%. And the No. 2 through No. 5 companies—BMS, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Merck—will boast shares within less than a percentage point of one another. And it won’t just be the heavy hitters clawing for a piece of the pie. That number is set to near...