Extending patent protection doesn’t just stretch a drug’s profits — in some cases, doing so can lead to its most significant revenue period, according to a recent analysis published by the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge, or I-MAK, a nonprofit advocating for drug pricing reforms.
The organization looked at four blockbuster drugs — Humira, Avastin, Rituxan, and Lantus — that had biosimilars launched between 2019 and 2023. On average, each of the drugs in the analysis earned three times the revenue during the patent extension period as they did during the original patent protection period, which gave them an average 13.2 years of unchallenged market presence.
Overall, the drugs made 56% of their overall revenue in the years after the end of the initial patent. In the first 20 years, they made $126 billion of the total $284 billion they earned up until competitors entered the market.