Background

Over the past 2 decades there has been a substantial increase in the number of new cancer medicines; this has been accompanied by a dramatic rise in drug costs. It is unknown how these trends impact the revenue of the pharmaceutical sector.

Methods

Retrospective cohort study to characterize temporal trends of revenue generated from cancer medicines as a proportion of total drug revenue among 10 large pharmaceutical companies from 2010 to 2019. Itemized product-sales data publicly available through company websites or annual filings were used to identify annual drug revenue. Revenue data were adjusted for inflation and converted to 2019 US dollars.

Results

During the study period, cumulative annual revenue generated from cancer drugs increased by 70%: from $55.8 billion to $95.1 billion, while cumulative revenue from nononcology drugs decreased 18%: from $342.2 billion to $281.5 billion. The proportion of total drug revenue generated from oncology drugs increased substantially over the study period: from 14% in 2010 to 25% in 2019 (τ = 1.0, P < .001).

Conclusions

Among 10 of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, revenues generated from the sale of cancer drugs have increased by 70% over the past decade, while revenues from other medicines have decreased by 18%. Revenues from cancer drugs now account for one-quarter of the net revenues from these companies. Further work is needed to understand if this increase in sales revenue reflects industry profit, and to what extent increased spending has translated into improvements in patient and population outcomes.