Matej Mikulic
Research expert covering health, pharma & medtech
Top pharmaceutical drugs - Statistics & Facts
The global pharmaceutical market is to a large degree driven by its top pharmaceutical products. The same is true for the leading pharmaceutical companies, which generate a large share of their revenue from their top drug brands. For example, in 2024, U.S.-based Merck & Co. generated more than half of its human pharmaceutical revenue through its top cancer drug, Keytruda. In the same year, Keytruda generated roughly 30 billion U.S. dollars of revenue, making it the best-selling pharmaceutical product worldwide.
A new generation of blockbusters
Biotechnology is becoming more and more the leading technology within the pharmaceutical industry. Seven out of the ten most revenue-generating drugs worldwide are already biotech-derived. Although not a drug in the classic sense, biotech-derived mRNA vaccine Comirnaty was the best-selling pharmaceutical product of all time, based on annual sales. The COVID-19 vaccine was developed in cooperation between German-based BioNTech and U.S. giant Pfizer and generated nearly 38 billion dollars in 2022鈥攁 new record. When it comes to the question of the current biggest hype in the pharmaceutical landscape, the answer is clear: weight loss drugs. Products like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound show the highest growth among blockbuster drugs, with a market estimated at 150 billion U.S. dollars by the mid-2030s.听
The biggest all-timers: Humira and Lipitor
With a revenue of nine billion U.S. dollars in 2024, AbbVie's rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira was still one of the company's leading products. However, back in 2022, Humira generated over 21 billion U.S. dollars of听revenue worldwide. The following loss of patent exclusivity led to plummeting sales in 2023. Pfizer鈥檚 cholesterol drug Lipitor was the top global drug for years in the 2000s but yielded its position due to heavy losses caused, once again, by patent expiration. In the time of patent loss, between 2011 and 2012, Pfizer鈥檚 revenue through Lipitor declined by some 60 percent. But both Humira and Lipitor are still the leading drugs by lifetime sales worldwide. Humira is also the only drug that generated over 200 billion dollars of revenue in its lifetime.
Performance in the U.S. is essential
For years, AbbVie鈥檚 Humira was also among the top drugs based on U.S. revenue听before losing its patent exclusivity. The drug has been generating the overwhelming part of its revenues in the United States, where prices for drugs are much higher. Due to their significantly lower prices, generics are always the top-selling pharmaceutical products when measured by dispensed prescriptions. In 2023, there were some 115 million prescriptions dispensed in the U.S. for the cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin鈥攖he generic version of the above-mentioned Lipitor.听
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