2010 el año de "patent cliff".

Tres hechos determinantes...


-Caducidad de patentes

"Among the drugs facing generic competition this year are Pfi­zer’s Alzheimer’s treatment Aricept, Merck & Co.’s hypertension medicine Cozaar, and Sanofi-Aventis’ breast cancer drug Taxotere. And by 2012, several firms will have lost protection on their most lucrative products, including Eli Lilly & Co. (Zyprexa), Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis (Plavix), and AstraZeneca (Ser­oquel). Most critically, Pfizer will face competition on Lipitor, the cholesterol-lowering drug that raked in nearly $13 billion in 2008."



-Megafusiones

Yet even with this latest round of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, no single firm commands more than 8% of the global prescription drug market, notes G. Steven Burrill, head of the venture capital and merchant banking firm Burrill & Co. “That would generally indicate that we have a ways to go on consolidation,” he adds.

“There’s definitely a couple of large M&A events left in big pharma,” agrees Simon King, senior analyst at the health care consultancy Datamonitor.

-Mercados emergentes

Also this year, drug companies will continue to look to emerging markets for growth, Datamonitor predicts. In addition to India and China, where many firms increased their stake in 2009, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and Turkey will be important acquisition locales for big pharma in 2010.

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