Sunday, October 6, 2019

Sunday Sunshine Edition: Merck's Keytruda® Soon To Be The Best Selling Drug On Earth...


First -- to be sure, the market for immuno oncology agents is so vast, that BMS's Opdivo® [and all the others that show efficacy] will show multiple billions of dollars in sales per year -- over the same time frame, as well.

However, as the below indicates -- pembrolizumab will. . . reign supreme. And this is a reminder of just how stellar Merck has become, a decade on -- since the days of the 2009 Schering-Plough yard sale. I've scarcely written a reproachful word on the topic, in over a year. Add to that, that Merck's chairman was a lone first voice to stand up to Trump's open Charlottesville racism, and this is a company to be admired, as world class -- across all industries again [as it was in the 1970s and 1980s].

Here's a bit, from Forbes, on Friday:

. . . .Keytruda will be the best-selling drug in the world by 2023, according to a report on Friday from the research firm GlobalData.

GlobalData projected annual sales of Keytruda to hit $22.2 billion by 2025.

“Emerging as an effective treatment for a range of cancers, Keytruda has developed into Merck & Co’s biggest product,” GlobalData pharma analyst Keshalini Sabaratnam said in a statement. . . .


Congrats go out to Mr. Frazier, and the team. Truly well-deserved. A model for American multi-nationals, indeed. Onward, to a mountain bike ride by the lake. . . .

नमस्ते

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Slightly off topic, but do you know if Merck still maintains its investment in Moderna?

condor said...

Indeed it does — see this news item at BioPharmaDive — from about three weeks ago (describing the vaccines relationship):

https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/moderna-marks-progress-toward-goal-of-coaxing-medicine-from-bodys-cells/562743/

Namaste....

condor said...

It wouldn’t surprise me if Merck sold some of its stake — but not all, after the IPO:

https://shearlingsplowed.blogspot.com/2018/11/various-tea-leaves-to-be-read-on-mercks.html

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the response.

condor said...

To be fair, since the investment was immaterial to massive Merck, and was less than 5% of Moderna at IPO launch, there may never be another public filing setting out Merck’s downdated holdings.

But it seems logical that Merck kept at least some of it, as a “rainy day” money / hedge position, if nothing else.

Namaste.