Oncology, neuroscience and immunology are emerging as the areas with the highest number of new active ingredient launches.

They will be launched worldwide in 2023. 69 new active ingredients (NAS), which is six more than the previous year. This figure represents a return to pre-COVID-19 trends. Over the past five years, 362 NAS have been launched worldwide. which brings the total to 942 over 20 years.. However, there is a growing gap between countries such as the US (267 NAS launches in the last five years), Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK (182 launches) and China, which comes in second with 192 launches. This is stated in the report “Global R&D trends in 2024: activity, productivity and drivers of growth‘, prepared by consulting firm IQVIA.

Oncology, neuroscience and immunology were the areas with the largest growth in new launches over the past five years., which is 204 out of 362 (56 percent) compared to 105 out of 246 (43 percent) between 2014 and 2018. Oncology includes cell and gene therapies, as well as innovative techniques such as antibody-drug conjugates and bispecific antibodies. In neurology, 68 new drugs have been released in 10 years, with the most recent targeting rare diseases such as Pompe disease, Friedreich’s ataxia, Rett syndrome and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

infectious diseasesincluding antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal and antiparasitic treatments, introduced new treatments for HIV, Ebola and, more recently, smallpox, and They account for 11 percent of NAS launches over the past decade.. In turn, with COVID-19 they decreased from seven in 2020 to four in 2023.

Taking into account molecules at advanced stages of developmentIt is expected that an average of 65-75 new active ingredients will be released annually over the next five years. In the US, the number has risen to 57 in 2023., which is a 50 percent increase in one year compared to the previous year. This increase in activity contributed to a total of 267 launches over five years. With 33 confirmed launches, the total number of launches in China over the past five years is 192. This is a significant increase from the previous year and 99 from 2014 to 2018. As a result, China has the second highest number of launches in the last five years, while France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK had 22, the lowest since 2014, with a total of 182 in the last five years , and the gap between US and global NAS launches is widening.

“For the sixth year in a row, more than 30 NAS were launched in China., with the result that the five-year total is now second only to the United States in the world, ahead of the four largest European countries and the United Kingdom. Updates to the National Reimbursable Drug List (NRDL), which became annual in 2019, were a factor in encouraging multinationals to launch their operations in the country, with many global launches entering the market during those years,” the document reiterates. Most were from national companies, including 50 out of 105 in the last three years.

From 2014 to 2018, America launched 224 NAS, ahead of China by 125., while over the past five years in the United States there were 267, which is 75 more than in the Asian country. Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK have carried out 182 NAS launches over the past five years, 10 fewer than China. Over the past five years, 129 NAS products launched in China were also previously released into international markets at some point, resulting in a lower international total than the major markets of Europe and Japan.

Gap between the US and the rest of the world

New drugs are not launched in all countries at the same timeand there is a growing gap in the fact that drugs available in the United States are not available in other countries. Over the past five years, there have been 113 (42 percent) NAS launches in the US that have not yet been launched in major European markets, and only 11 (6 percent) of drugs launched in Europe have not been launched in the US. .Joined. It is assumed that the first launch usually takes place in the American country., often with a delay of a year or more before they become available to the rest of the world. “These data mask typical patterns in the sequence of releases over the past two years, but earlier periods point to more systemic patterns of incentives related to the relative trading value of markets,” the report said.

A significant number of first-class drugs have become available, with an average of 48 percent over the past five years. Over the past five years, 144 drugs have been released as orphan drugs, accounting for 54 percent of the total. Specialty drugs (those that treat chronic, complex or rare diseases, and have complex treatment, distribution or patient management) accounted for 75 percent of sales in the United States in 2023. Of the 57 NAS available in the American country, 46 percent were biological.

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