Pharmaceutical Industry at a Glance Nationalities of companies generating the top pharmaceutical products in terms of global sales -2019 Trends-.

In the technical classification of active ingredients (synthetic chemical ^drugs4) and ^{biopharmaceuticals5)} ), there were 55 synthetic chemical drugs and 45 biopharmaceuticals, an increase of 4 biopharmaceuticals from the 2018 survey (59 and 41, respectively). In the top categories, there were 10 replacements from 2018, of which the replacement of synthetic chemical pharmaceuticals increased by 5 and decreased by 9, while the replacement of biopharmaceuticals increased by 5 and decreased by 1, indicating that the number of biopharmaceuticals continues to increase year after year. Biopharmaceuticals accounted for $209.7 billion in sales, or 52% of top-line sales, and although synthetic chemical drugs outnumber biopharmaceuticals in number of items, biopharmaceuticals accounted for more than half of sales for the first time in the survey to date (Figure 2). The fact that seven of the top ten drugs are biopharmaceuticals may have contributed to this result.

For each of the top drugs, we surveyed the basic patents for each drug, and the number of drugs by company nationality at the time of application is shown in a pie chart (Fig. 3). The nationality of the creating company to which the rights to the pharmaceutical products belong is the nationality of the applicant/assignee company as stated in the above patent, but in the case of companies with multinational operations, the nationality of the parent company is ^used2). Therefore, the nationality of the applicant's company does not necessarily coincide with the nationality of the applicant's company if a parent company exists at the time of application. This is because we considered the contribution of the parent company in terms of resources such as human resources and funds in the process of inventing key substances, applications, technologies, and other elements.

Compared to the 2018 survey, the United States had the highest number of drugs by nationality with 49, up one item from last year; Switzerland was second with 10, unchanged from last year; Japan was third with nine, down one item; Germany was fourth with eight, up one item; and the United Kingdom was in the same position with eight, down one item. Denmark was sixth with 7 items, up 1 item from last year. There was little change in the ranking since then, but Luxembourg was out of the top 10 this year. 10 items were replaced from 2018: the United States increased by 4 items and decreased by 3; Switzerland increased by 2 items and decreased by 2; Japan decreased by 1 item; Germany increased by 1 item; the United Kingdom increased by 2 items and decreased by 3 items; Denmark increased by 1 item; and Luxembourg decreased by 2 items and decreased by 3 items. Germany increased by 1, the U.K. increased by 2 but decreased by 3, Denmark increased by 1, and Luxembourg decreased by 1. The replacement of products in the U.S., Switzerland, and the U.K. was more pronounced.

Figure 7 shows the percentage of total global sales of the top products by nationality. The U.S. accounted for 49 products, or 51% of total sales of the top products. Japan has 9 products, accounting for 7% of total sales, while Germany has 8 products, accounting for 15% of total sales, more than Japan. Germany has three products in the top 10 in terms of sales, and their contribution is significant.

Figure 8 shows the number of products by nationality of the main sales company. The nationality of the main sales company here refers to the nationality of the company with the largest amount of product sales when multiple companies sell a single product in IQVIA's data. As with the nationality of the creating company, the United States (45 products) had a particularly large number of products; Switzerland (12 products), with an increase of one product since 2018, was second, and the United Kingdom (11 products), with a decrease of one product, came in third. Japan was in fourth place with 7 commodities, up one commodity from 2018. For the other countries, Germany, Denmark, France, Belgium, Ireland, Israel, Australia, and Canada remained unchanged from last year.

In 2019, Japan had nine products, and the number of medicines marketed by Japanese nationals' main distributors was seven. Four of these products were self-discovered, while the remaining three were of U.S. origin, which were acquired through product in-licensing or corporate acquisitions. On the other hand, the remaining five Japanese products were mainly marketed by U.S. companies (one product) or European companies (four products). As in the previous ^survey2), more than half of the Japanese-origin drugs are dependent on foreign companies for their overseas sales.

As mentioned in the previous section, in terms of the nationality of the creating company, the nationality of the parent company is used in the case of companies with multinational operations. On the other hand, examining the nationality of the company that actually discovered the key element may help us to know in which country the actual "place of drug discovery" is located. Figure 9 shows the results of the tabulation of the top products by the nationality of the applicant company. The U.S. was again the top country with 54 products, followed by Japan with 9 products, and Germany with 8 products. Although the number of items has changed somewhat since then, the trend in terms of nationality and number of items is the same as in Figure 3. The number of nationalities increased by two countries from Figure 3 to 14, but North America, Europe, and Japan were the regions that produced pharmaceuticals, and as in previous surveys, Japan seems to be demonstrating its presence in the limited number of countries and regions that can produce pharmaceuticals. One of the key points of the survey results is that Switzerland has significantly reduced the number of products to three, indicating that key elements are being invented by companies under its umbrella located outside Switzerland. Although not created in the parent company's home country, it can be considered that the parent company has the ability to identify or nurture companies that create the top products and bring them under its umbrella at an early stage. This result is a glimpse of the difference in drug discovery strategies.