Study predicts Roche to lead in sales by 2014

LONDON According to the forecasting company EvaluatePharma, Roche will become the world’s biggest drug maker, in terms of sales, in 2014, Reuters reported. Pfizer, currently the No. 1 company, will drop to sixth, according to the study results.

The findings of the study are due mainly to the anticipated results of the next five to six years, during which patent expirations for blockbuster drugs will allow a huge wave of generics to mix into the competition. Roche will be the least affected by this, and also has a booming biotech business that will more than offset the drugs that it will lose to generic competition. Roche might even add to the biotech branch, as it has offered to buy out the rest of biotech company Genentech—44 percent—for $43.7 billion. But even without that deal, according to EvaluatePharma, the company will have drug sales reaching $49.5 billion in 2014.

After Roche, the list goes as follows: Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.