Below is a picture of the original piece of data journalism that we were tasked with translating into a more palatable and easily digestible piece of journalism below this is my attempt to do so.

Evaluate Pharma one of the worlds leading market research organisations in the medical field has recently released it analysis of the top selling drugs in the world today.

Furthermore it has anticipated It has also predicted what will be the top selling drugs in the future. EP believes that “Humira” (the global flagship product of American biotech giant AbbVie), will exceed its global sales target of 20 billion in 2018. In an unprecedented move almost to underpin or underline the importance of such a prediction Humira’s own management, have set the 2018 sales target at 21 billion.

In the case of the biotech giant Abbvie, the reason that the EP could give such a bold prediction was because of Amgen’s (an American multinational biopharmaceutical company) statement. In this statement Amgen outlined that it will not be releasing a biosimular drug called Adalimumab until September 30th 2023 even though the FDA approved this biosimilar drug. The reason for this is due to the terms of an intellectual property-related litigation with AbbVie. A shrewd move from Abbvie but it does nothing for the millions of sufferers of autoimmune diseases. 

Second on EP’s top ten list was a drug called Revlimid (lenalidomide) an oncology drug from a company called Celegene another global bio-pharmaceutical company. Oncology of course being the study and treatment of tumours. The prediction for Revlimid was for $9.2 billion, the reason for this figure was because of the aggressive price increase strategy employed by Celegene. to date Celegene has increased its price not once not twice but thrice in 2017 carrying the total increase to 19.8%. Revlimid is used in the treatment of multiple Myeloma, (also known as plasma cellmyeloma, is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell normally responsible for producing antibodies. Often, no symptoms are noticed initially. When advanced, bone pain, bleeding, frequent infections, and anemia may occur.)

mantel cell lymphoma (MCL) is a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). It develops when the body makes abnormal B-cells – the lymphoma cells. B-cells are white blood cells that fight infection. The lymphoma cells build up in lymph nodes, which makes them bigger.)

 

and myelodysplastic syndromes. (MDS) are a group of cancers in which immature blood cells in the bone marrow do not mature and therefore do not become healthy blood cells. Early on, there are typically no symptoms. Later symptoms may include feeling tired, shortness of breath, easy bleeding, or frequent infections.

In 2017, Revlimid’s worldwide sales were $7 billion.

Behind Humira and Revlimid we have Amgen and Pfizer’s anti-inflamatory drug Enbrel (entanercept) finished third with $7.3 billion in sales followed by opthalmic (relating to or resembling the eye) drug Eylea (aflibercept) from Bayer and REGN. Eylea is now the worlds best selling opthalmic drug with expected sales of 6.5 billion US Dollars in 2018.

On the list, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche is particularly eye catching. The company has three drugs on the list, Avastin (bevacizumab), Rituxan (rituximab) and Herceptin ( Trastuzumab), which ranked 5th, 6th and 7th respectively. Each product is expected to generate $6.4 billion in sales in 2018. Over the years these three products have provided Roche and its corporate Genetech with a consistent and stable cash flow.