Big pharma had a bumper crop of new drugs in 2017, and expects more in 2018
London — It is shaping up to be a bumper year for drug approvals, with US officials clearing twice as many novel medicines as in 2016, yet returns on research investment at leading pharmaceutical companies are down. In fact, projected returns at 12 of the world’s top drug makers have fallen to an eight-year low of only 3.2%, consultancy Deloitte said on Thursday. The disconnect reflects the rising cost of developing new drugs, meagre peak sales expectations for individual products, and the fact that younger biotech companies are accounting for a growing proportion of new products. So far this year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), gatekeeper to the world’s biggest drugs market, has approved 41 novel drugs compared with 22 for the whole of 2016. The strong biotech sector is good news for investors such as Daniel Koller, head of investment management at Swiss-based BB Biotech, which has money tied up in fast-growing US and European companies. "It’s been a great year for appr...
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