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Forecasting market share in the US pharmaceutical market

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 14, pages 594–595 (2015)Cite this article

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Drug development is costly, and so drug makers need accurate estimates of sales potential. However, sales forecasts are often unreliable (Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 12, 737–738; 2013). Here, we present an analysis of data concerning entry order and promotional spending from a large sample of drug classes, to estimate peak market share while controlling for product quality (see Supplementary information S1 (box) for details of the data and analysis methods).

The data sample included new molecular entities approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between 1988 and 2009. We ended the sample at 2009 approvals so that each assessed product would accrue at least 4 years of post-launch data on sales and promotion. To control for product quality, we focused on drugs for which the FDA granted a standard review (meaning that the drugs did not represent a significant advance over previous drugs) and that the French Transparency Commission classified as providing little or no improvement over previous drugs (see the Haute Autorité de Santé link in Further information). The sample comprised 29 second entrants to a particular drug class, 13 third entrants and 8 fourth entrants.

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Figure 1: Forecasting the market share of drugs in the US market.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Novartis Pharma AG, Novartis Campus, Basel, 4056, Switzerland

    Stephane A. Regnier

  2. Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, 27708, North Carolina, USA

    David B. Ridley

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  1. Stephane A. Regnier
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  2. David B. Ridley
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Correspondence to Stephane A. Regnier or David B. Ridley.

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Competing interests

Stephane A. Régnier is an employee of Novartis Pharma AG. The views in the article are those of the authors, not necessarily those of Novartis Pharma AG.

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FURTHER INFORMATION

Haute Autorité de Santé

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Supplementary information

Supplementary information S1 (Box)

Data and analysis methods (PDF 1456 kb)

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Regnier, S., Ridley, D. Forecasting market share in the US pharmaceutical market. Nat Rev Drug Discov 14, 594–595 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd4697

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