The top 15 would-be block­busters in the pipeline prep­ping for a 2017 launch

This is the year that a whole slate of Big Phar­mas should be able to score brag­ging rights to block­buster drug launch­es. And af­ter last year’s pal­try roundup of new drug ap­provals, they all des­per­ate­ly need it.

Every year Eval­u­ate Phar­ma likes to do its break­down of the top 20 small mol­e­cules and bi­o­log­ics aim­ing to hit the mar­ket, ranked by es­ti­mat­ed 2022 sales. (Be­ing a bit ag­nos­tic about this, we mashed the two lists in­to one and ranked them all by peak sales fore­casts.)

There are 15 would-be block­busters in Eval­u­ate’s top 20. And this year’s list in­cludes some no­table stand­outs.

As­traZeneca has one drug on the list, its PD-L1 check­point in­hibitor dur­val­um­ab, which is make or break for this phar­ma gi­ant. The di­ver­si­fied J&J, which has three drugs on the block­buster list, is look­ing to cap­i­tal­ize on some ear­li­er deal­mak­ing. Eli Lil­ly still has a point to make with baric­i­tinib, hop­ing to show that it can con­sis­tent­ly de­vel­op new block­busters. Sanofi and Re­gen­eron have some scores to set­tle with dupilum­ab. And even Roche is back with a po­ten­tial megablock­buster to add — af­ter a de­lay of game near the end of last year.

To be sure, a cou­ple of biotechs make the grade. Tesaro is up top with ner­a­tinib (where it will weigh in against a striv­ing As­traZeneca). And Kite is out to score the biggest new en­try among the pi­o­neer­ing CAR-Ts. Both will be look­ing to make a big change in grow­ing com­mer­cial­iza­tion arms.

The on­ly big 10 play­er not on the list? Glax­o­SmithK­line. To be sure, Shin­grix is like­ly to come close to block­buster sta­tus, giv­ing the com­pa­ny more to be pleased with from its vac­cines di­vi­sion. But the com­pa­ny man­ages to con­sis­tent­ly dis­ap­point an­a­lysts with an un­ex­cit­ing late-stage pipeline.

Here’s a snap­shot of the 15 new drugs launch­ing this year that can rea­son­ably ex­pect to hit block­buster sta­tus in 5 years. Just re­mem­ber, peak sales es­ti­mates are con­sis­tent­ly dis­ap­point­ing. Sell-side an­a­lysts of­ten over­look just how hard pay­ers can fight against new en­tries with big prices. And right now, who re­al­ly knows what the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has in mind for keep­ing its promise to slash drug prices?

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