Prospect Of New Drugs In 2021: Innovative Drugs Will Still Be The Main Driving Force Of The Market

The new outbreak makes people more dependent on biopharmaceuticals, such as the development of vaccines and neutralizing antibodies.

At the beginning of the 2021 new year, Pfizer, known as "the largest pharmaceutical factory in the universe", replaced the oval "blue pill" logo used since 1948, and the new logo appeared with spiral graphic design. "With Pfizer's commitment to breakthrough science, it's time to renew our identity to reflect this reality," Pfizer chief executive Albert bourla said in a statement

This is also considered to be the embodiment of Pfizer's biopharmaceutical positioning after the divestiture of its generic drug business. The decision of large manufacturers represents the recognition of innovation direction to a certain extent.

Behind it is that innovative drugs are increasingly driving large pharmaceutical enterprises.

According to the statistics of evaluate vantage, oncology drugs will continue to be the main driving force of the industry's revenue growth in 2021. Of the 10 most popular new products, six are used to treat various cancers, and three of them are anti PD-1 (L1) antibodies. It is expected that by 2023, keysruda of MSD will replace HUMARA of Aberdeen as one of the best-selling drugs in the world and is expected to become the new drug king.

The 2021 consensus forecast for Gilead's Ridgeway viklury has fallen sharply, from $3.5 billion in August to $1 billion in December, with a possible further downgrade.

Roche will beat Novartis to become number one in 2021, with forecast revenues of $51.3 billion and $51 billion, respectively.

Aducanumab, the Alzheimer's drug in Biogen's hands, is the largest potential drug to be launched in 2021, with a predicted sales volume of US $4.8 billion in 2026; the decision of FDA on whether to approve the drug to market is one of the biggest events in the biopharmaceutical field in 2021.

Lilly's tizepatide continues to rank as the most valuable R & D project, with a net present value of $12.7 billion.

The bio generics war continues to compete for Humira's market share, while sales of other large products such as Revlimid, eylea and xarelto will peak in the next few years, creating growth problems for pharmaceutical companies that own them.

Late comers are catching up with dupixent, ozempic, tagrisso and tecentriq, which are the new engines of growth: annual sales are expected to reach $8 billion in the next few years.

Aberdeen may lose its market for Humira, but it is currently benefiting from two very popular new immunotherapies, rinvoq and skyrizi. These two models are aimed at rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis respectively. New sales of AstraZeneca and BMS will continue to benefit from cancer, and demand for AstraZeneca's tagrisso, imfinzi and lynparza is expected to surge this year.

Still, these highly successful anticancer drugs are not enough to make AstraZeneca one of the top 10 in sales this year. The UK pharmaceutical giant appears to be about to be replaced by Takeda, which has steadily become a giant in the field after its acquisition of shire shire, a rare disease drug company, in 2018.

Sanofi's growth next year is almost entirely dependent on dupixent, and how the French pharmaceutical giant plans to diversify will be the focus of this year. Novartis is looking for a variety of treatment areas to expand its new sales, from immunotherapy to cardiology and rare diseases; the company's gene therapy zolgensma is expected to become a blockbuster this year with sales of $1.5 billion.

In the Chinese market, the demand for innovative drugs has accelerated the cooperation between local and foreign pharmaceutical enterprises after volume procurement and medical insurance negotiations have gradually become normalized. On January 12, following Cinda bio and cornerstone pharmaceutical, another domestic PD-1 reached authorized cooperation with multinational pharmaceutical enterprises: Baiji Shenzhou announced that it had reached a cooperation with Novartis to develop and commercialize anti PD-1 antibody tirelizumab. Novartis will jointly develop and commercialize tirelizumab in North America, Japan, the European Union and six other European countries. Baiji Shenzhou will receive US $650 million in advance And is eligible for up to $1.55 billion in potential registration and sales milestone payments, as well as product sales royalties.

This is also the largest domestic drug authorization cooperation project with the highest down payment so far, with a total transaction amount of more than 2.2 billion US dollars, setting a record for the current domestic single drug authorization transaction amount. Previously, cornerstone authorized the rights and interests of shuglimab to Pfizer and eqrx respectively, with down payments of US $200 million and US $150 million respectively, while Cinda authorized the rights of sindilimab to Eli Lilly, with a down payment of US $200 million.

For such cooperation, Chen Chen, an analyst in the pharmaceutical industry of UBS Securities, told the 21st century economic report that "although China's medical demand is huge, the threshold for controlling medical insurance fees is always there, so the domestic market is far from enough, and there is a lot of room for foreign markets to be explored. Our advantages are low cost and fast speed. If we can eat the overseas market, it will be very good for domestic enterprises. But China's pharmaceutical enterprises, especially R & D enterprises, have a very weak sales capacity overseas. If it can be recognized by a very strong overseas sales team, it is very good to sell domestic drugs overseas, which can increase a lot of profit space for domestic enterprises. "

In 2020, the trend of domestic medicine is relatively strong, with Shenwan pharmaceutical biological index rising by 51.10%, surpassing the CSI 300 index by 23.89%; the dynamic P / E ratio of pharmaceutical sector is 45 times, higher than the 10-year average of 37 times; the premium rate relative to Hushen 300 is 181%, lower than the 10-year average of 222%.

Under the long-term logic of aging and urbanization, innovation and industrial upgrading is an important direction for the development of the industry, and is also the direction that will be adhered to in the future. "We believe that the innovative medicine market has a broad space and should maintain a high degree of prosperity in 2021," Chen said

In 2021, there are more new drugs worthy of listing in China. On January 12, nmpa's official website showed that the listing application (Acceptance Number: cxss2000006) of Fosun KITT car-t product, azirensai injection, has entered the administrative examination and approval stage, and is expected to be approved in the near future, which means that the first car-t therapeutic product in China is about to be approved for marketing. In addition, ADC, double antibody, cell therapy and gene therapy are likely to produce more blockbuster drugs.

The research and development of innovative drugs has a long cycle, large investment and high risk, which cannot be separated from the support and catalysis of capital. Since 2018, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the science and technology innovation board have opened the door to unprofitable biotechnology companies. By the end of 2020, there were 30 unprofitable biotechnology companies in the HKEx, with a total IPO Financing of HK $87.4 billion. There are 20 pharmaceutical companies listed on the board, including 7 unprofitable companies. The total amount of IPO Financing reached 34.7 billion yuan.

Judging from the stock price performance, 18 of the 30 companies in the HKEx achieved positive growth, 21 outperformed the Hang Seng Index, and 2 companies increased by more than 200%, with an average increase of 29%. At the same time, 12 companies broke out. Among the 20 companies on the science and technology innovation board, 16 companies rose relative to the initial price, with an average increase of 82%, and 3 companies broke.

"Although the innovative medicine track is good, there has been structural differentiation within the industry." In an interview with the 21st century economic report, Chen Chen said, "strong innovative drug companies are mainly reflected in three aspects, and their R & D capabilities are second to none. Secondly, whether it can be changed from weak to strong and from R & D enterprises to commercialization is reflected in the construction of sales team, academic promotion ability and government affairs ability. The third is the production quality control capability. "

"The head company still maintained a relatively strong stock price growth." Chen Chen said that there are still many companies queuing up for IPO. "Going to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the science and technology innovation board for listing and financing is definitely the path that innovative pharmaceutical companies will continue to follow in the future. As for the future stock price performance, it needs a very professional and in-depth analysis, constantly follow the R & D pipeline to give it a valuation, and adjust the stock price in real time. "