Early in the pandemic, there were fears that Covid-19 would slow activity in the biopharmaceutical industry. It did at first. But Covid-19 drug and vaccine research has sparked a resurgence in research that has outpaced expectations for pandemic products.
Research from the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science has shown an uptick in a range of metrics across the biopharmaceutical industry.The findings are outlined in a new Global Trends Report Posted last week.
“Concerns that the pandemic will slow innovation have not been substantiated,” said Murray Aitken, IQVIA senior vice president and executive director of IQVIA’s Human Data Science Institute, in the report’s announcement. “Instead, the pandemic has accelerated the growth of biopharmaceuticals. Innovation.”
IQVIA, an analytical and clinical research organization with dual headquarters in Durham, North Carolina and Danbury, Connecticut, counted 84 new active substances launched in 2021. The description covers small molecules and biological substances, totalling twice the number of product launches since five years ago.
IQVIA’s clinical development productivity, which measures the success of new molecules in clinical trials, declined in 2021 across all disease areas, with the exception of vaccines and cardiovascular disease. The lower success rate is due to more severe clinical challenges facing pharmaceutical companies, the report said. The lower success rates in recent years have been offset by the large number of experimental drugs in development. This is why, despite lower productivity, the industry is able to get more new drug approvals and launches.
According to IQVIA, more than 6,000 products are currently in active development, an increase of 68% compared to 2016. The activity shows that despite the disruptions of the pandemic, the life sciences sector continues to invest in and advance new treatments and vaccines for a variety of diseases, the report said. The fastest growing therapeutic areas are oncology, gastrointestinal disorders and neurology. IQVIA points out FDA grants accelerated approval to Biogen’s Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm as a catalyst for growth in neurological drug research. Most neurological research is in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
In oncology, more than 40% of product pipelines are used to treat rare cancers that can be treated with next-generation therapies such as cell and gene therapy. IQVIA said the growth in infectious disease and vaccine research was mainly driven by Covid-19 related products.
IQVIA counts more than 3,000 life sciences companies and organizations involved in research and development. The research is becoming less and less US-centric. The U.S. still accounts for 44% of the research channel, but that share, along with other Western markets, is declining. Chinese companies now account for 12 percent of companies working on the pipeline, up from 2 percent a decade ago, the report said. Europe’s share has fallen to 25 percent, compared with 6 percent in Japan.
More of this research comes from emerging companies (defined by IQVIA as companies with less than $200 million in R&D expenses and less than $500 million in annual revenue). These companies account for 65% of the molecules in the R&D pipeline, up from less than half five years ago. About 46% of these molecules came from North American companies; 20% came from European companies. But over the past five years, both regions’ share has declined, while China’s has increased and now accounts for 17% of the total pipeline.
The cash for all these drug research is increasing. IQVIA reports that there will be more than 2,000 transactions in 2021, with a total transaction value of more than $45 billion. The Asia Pacific flag is also evident on this metric, with companies headquartered in China accounting for a larger share of these deals.
Photo: Martin Barraud, Getty Images
