Comparison of Top 10 Global Prescription Sales Between 2006 and 2016

Treatments for autoimmune diseases and certain cancers were sold more than other medications in 2016. This is a big difference from the 2006 data when the top medication was Lipitor, a treatment for hypercholesterolemia. In 2006, the pharmaceutical sales were focused on cardiovascular, depression, and GERD. In contrast, autoimmune diseases and cancer treatments are the best selling drugs in 2016. Since the cardiovascular drugs and antidepressants from 2006 have now become mostly generic and the treatment regimens are optimized, the pharmaceutical companies are focusing on finding treatments for autoimmune diseases and cancer. 

I believe that in future once the autoimmune disease treatments become generic and treatment regimens are optimized, the pharmaceutical companies will focus more into PD-1 drugs such as Opdivo (Bristol-Myers Squibb) and Keytruda (Merck) and PDL-1 drugs such as Bavencio (Merck and Pfizer) and Tecentriq (Genentech). These drugs are cutting-edge research where it uses body's own immune system to attack the cancer cells. PD-1 and PDL-1 drugs are safer in terms of side effects than traditional chemotherapy because PD-1 and PDL-1 drugs target the cancer cells rather than attacking both normal and cancer cells like the traditional chemotherapy drugs. With ground-breaking researches, I hope that cancer will become treatable disease rather than terminal disease in the near future. 

Table-1 Top 10 Global Prescription medication sales, indication, and company (2016) (1)

Table-2 Top 10 Global Prescription medication sales, indication, and companies (2016) (2)

Sources:
1. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/acschemneuro.7b00253?src=recsys
2. https://www.drugs.com/top200_2006.html

Disclosure: I do not have any monetary relationship with any of the companies listed above.