Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • From the Analyst's Couch
  • Published:

Pulling away from the pack in drug launches

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 16, pages 749–750 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

To assess the success of a pharmaceutical launch, our study used three metrics: peak revenues, the shape of the revenue curve and the percentage of analysts' launch expectations achieved after 5 years. We examined US launches from 2006 to 2013 to evaluate 3- and 5-year data (not available for launches in 2012 and 2013) after launch, using revenue data from the EvaluatePharma database and multivariate regression analysis. Here, we present the key findings from our analysis (see Supplementary information S1 (box) for details of the data set and analysis).

Successful launch is harder to achieve

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Trends in drug launch performance.
Figure 2: Trends in factors affecting launch success.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge R. Linden, N. Husain, C. Eakins, F. Yu and J. Mong for help with this research.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. McKinsey & Company, 315 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, 94104, California, USA

    Nicholas Donoghoe

  2. McKinsey & Company, 3075 Hansen Way, Palo Alto, 94304, California, USA

    Jon Duane & George Xu

  3. McKinsey & Company, 2000 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 800N, Los Angeles, 90067, California, USA

    Jin Kim

Authors
  1. Nicholas Donoghoe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jon Duane
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jin Kim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. George Xu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Nicholas Donoghoe or Jin Kim.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors of this article are employees of McKinsey & Company, a management consultancy that works with the world's leading biopharmaceutical companies on launch issues. The analysis in this study was funded by McKinsey's Pharmaceuticals and Medical Products practice.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information S1 (box)

Data and analysis (PDF 214 kb)

Supplementary information S2 (figure)

Winners are pulling further ahead in oncology and other therapeutic areas (PDF 89 kb)

Supplementary information S3 (figure)

Companies that are more selective in early clinical development tend to have better launches (PDF 101 kb)

Supplementary information S4 (figure)

Launch success factors differ for oncology and central nervous system (CNS) drugs (PDF 274 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Donoghoe, N., Duane, J., Kim, J. et al. Pulling away from the pack in drug launches. Nat Rev Drug Discov 16, 749–750 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2017.122

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2017.122

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.

Get what matters in translational research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Translational Research