AstraZeneca Tops the Pharmaceutical Innovation Index for the First Time

The Pharmaceutical Innovation Index measures, scores and celebrates a company's ability to deliver innovation to patients, by objectively evaluating performance based on a rolling five year period (2012-2017), and operates on the simple premise: if you gave the same molecule to two different companies in early phase, which would make the best of it?

The biggest shaker this year is AstraZeneca, coming from the middle of the pack in 2017 to take the 2018 PII crown. Gilead also continued their PII ascent, to second place, advancing from 2017's 3rd. Johnson & Johnson, having ceded the top spot last year after a 4 year run on top, was able to regain some of the lost ground in 2018, landing in a joint 3rd spot with a rapidly-improving Novartis.

Pharmaceutical Innovation Index 2018 SORTED BY 2018 PII RANKING PII 2018 PII 2017 Change Ranking Company Name Ranking from 2017 1 AstraZeneca 15 +14 2 Gilead 3 +1 3 Johnson & Johnson 4 +1 3 Novartis 12 +9 5 AbbVie 2 -3 6 Bristol-Myers Squibb 9 +3 7 Merck & Co 7 No change 8 Roche 11 +3 9 Pfizer 19 +10 10 Biogen 1 -9 10 Novo Nordisk 8 -2 12 Amgen 13 +1 13 Eli Lilly 21 +8 13 GlaxoSmithKline 16 +3 15 Sanofi 20 +5 16 Allergan New 17 Celgene 10 -7 18 Valeant New 19 Bayer 18 -1 20 Otsuka 14 -6 20 Regeneron 24 +4 22 Boehringer Ingelheim 25 +3 23 Eisai 26 +3 23 Teva 30 +7 25 Lundbeck 27 +2 26 Merck KGaA 28 +2 27 Sumitomo New 28 Astellas 23 -5 29 UCB 29 No change 30 Shire 22 -8 31 Takeda 5 -26 32 Mylan New

How did AstraZeneca catapult from 15th spot in 2017 all the way to the top of the Pharmaceutical Innovation Index? A series of strategic decisions that helped generate a substantial amount of robust positive data for their pipeline began to stem the company's downward trend since the loss of several product exclusivities between 2011 and 2017. AstraZeneca managed to launch five significant new medicines in 2017, across their primary therapy areas, which is a remarkable achievement.

Commenting on the index, IDEA Pharma's CEO, Mike Rea said: "There is no gaming the Pharmaceutical Innovation Index -success is achieved by discovering and developing meaningfully great medicines and getting those medicines to market, and to patients. It is wonderful to see a company of AstraZeneca's scale and history able to turnaround its fortunes in a relatively short period of time."

Register as Visitor to CPhI China 2018!