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Merck’s Keytruda Will Become Best-Selling Drug Worldwide, Research Group Says.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/mercks-keytruda-will-become-best-selling-drug-worldwide-research-group-says-51570204530

Oct. 4, 2019

Merck’s cancer drug Keytruda will be the best-selling drug in the world by 2023, according to a report on Friday from the research firm GlobalData.
GlobalData projected annual sales of Keytruda to hit $22.2 billion by 2025.
“Emerging as an effective treatment for a range of cancers, Keytruda has developed into Merck & Co’s biggest product,” GlobalData pharma analyst Keshalini Sabaratnam said in a statement.
Merck (MRK) reported $7.2 billion in Keytruda sales in 2018, and Wall Street analysts project $10.8 billion in 2019.
GlobalData’s estimate is more aggressive than the Wall Street consensus, which projects $19.9 billion in Keytruda sales by 2023.
The back story. Shares of Merck are up 9.7% this year, and 18% over the past 12 months. First approved in 2015, Keytruda boosts the immune system by inhibiting the so-called PD-1 pathway. Keytruda has been approved in many indications, and, according to Merck, is the subject of more than 1,000 ongoing trials.
What’s new. According to GlobalData, sales of Keytruda could outstrip sales of all other prescription drugs worldwide by 2023.
“Keytruda is expected to overtake AbbVie and Eisai Co’s anti-inflammatory drug Humira (adalimumab), which is currently the world’s top-selling drug,” Sabaratnam said in the statement. “It has received market approvals for over 20 oncology indications in the U.S., and is continuing to expand into new indications and markets globally.”
GlobalData projects that Eliquis, an anticoagulant sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) and Pfizer (PFE), will be the second-best-selling drug by 2025, and that Celgene’s (CELG) Revlimid, a cancer drug, will be third. Opdivo, a Bristol-Myers Squibb drug that competes directly with Keytruda, will be fourth, according to the research group.
When the Bristol-Myers Squibb acquisition of Celgene is finalized, which is expected in the coming months, Bristol-Myers will own at least a piece of all three of those runners-up.
Looking forward. Keytruda continues to rack up indications. On Wednesday, Merck announced that Chinese regulators had approved the drug as a first-line treatment of patients with forms of non-small cell lung cancer. And at a cancer conference in Barcelona late last Month, Merck offered new data on Keytruda in patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer in combination with chemotherapy.

Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at [e-mail]