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What matters most in commercial success: first-in-class or best-in-class?

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 12, pages 419–420 (2013)Cite this article

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One frequently cited example of a best-in-class late entrant that achieved major commercial success is atorvastatin (Lipitor; Pfizer). Although it was the fifth statin on the market, trailing lovastatin (Mevacor; Merck), the first, by more than 9 years, it went on to capture nearly double the peak annual sales of other drugs in the class, reaching US$13 billion. This example suggests that there could be merit in the common assumption that as long as a drug has a proven therapeutic advantage over its rivals, it does not have to be first. But what would a more systematic review tell us about the relative value of speed and therapeutic advantage? And how do these dynamics play out in different therapeutic areas and mechanistic classes?

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Figure 1: Value captured as a function of time of market entry and therapeutic advantage.
Figure 2: Value captured by follow-on entrants as a function of time of market entry and therapeutic advantage.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of M. Herant, G. Hersch and B. Howard to this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ulrik Schulze, Ph.D., is at The Boston Consulting Group, Münstergasse 2, 8001 Zürich ZH, Switzerland.,

    Ulrik Schulze

  2. Michael Ringel, Ph.D., is at The Boston Consulting Group, Exchange Place, 31st floor, Boston, Massachusetts 02109, USA.,

    Michael Ringel

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  1. Ulrik Schulze
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  2. Michael Ringel
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Correspondence to Ulrik Schulze.

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Competing interests

The authors of this article are employees of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a management consultancy that works with the world's leading biopharmaceutical companies on R&D productivity issues. The research for this specific article was funded by BCG's Health Care practice.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table S1

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Supplementary Box S2

Dataset and details of analysis (PDF 475 kb)

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Schulze, U., Ringel, M. What matters most in commercial success: first-in-class or best-in-class?. Nat Rev Drug Discov 12, 419–420 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd4035

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