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WEEKLY CHECKUP
Top Selling Drugs Are Soon Losing Patent Protection
Conor Ryan
April 23, 2015
For the last several years, pharmaceutical spending growth has consistently
outpaced overall growth in health care spending. But these increases, which still
represent a relatively small portion of overall spending, frequently come with
new drugs that improve existing treatments or create new medicines altogether.
Still, high price tags continue to creep up, and patients and policy makers are
nervous about the implications for access to care. Fortunately, many block buster
drugs will soon face competition from generic versions as patent protections
expire. Of the 20 top selling drugs in 2013, 13 will no longer have patent
protection after 2016, with three more patents set to expire in 2018.1 As
demonstrated in the chart below, between $10 billion and $15 billion in annual
revenue will be exposed to new generic competition every year between 2013 and
2016.
18
Total 2013 US Sales (billions)
16
Many Blockbuster Drugs May Have
Generic Competitors by 2016
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
Year of Patent Expiration
1
Data on drug sales is taken from http://www.drugs.com/stats/top100/2013/sales
AmericanActionForum.org
2022