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Pricing Pressure, Competition Remain Headwinds for Pharma Stocks

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While the drug pricing issue no longer remains a major headwind for pharma and biotech stocks, it will nevertheless remain a headline risk until the Trump administration comes out with a policy for controlling drug prices. The sector, previously a Wall Street favorite, was hit hard by political rhetoric and increasing media and public focus on the high prices of drugs. With the drug pricing controversy gaining steam since September 2015, companies like Valeant saw their share prices plunging as they found themselves in the midst of the controversy.

According to the April 2017 Kaiser Health Tracking poll, six in ten Americans believe affordability of prescription drugs should be a top priority for the President and Congress - focus should be on ensuring the affordability of high-cost drugs to people who need them and taking steps to lower prescription drug prices.

Some of the options favored by the public for drug price control include getting drug companies to reduce prices for medications for people on Medicare, making it easier for generics to enter the market, and requiring drug companies to provide information on how drug prices are set.

Although the pharma and biotech sectors have rebounded in 2017, drug companies may find it a bit difficult to justify their high prices by citing the years and funds that go into bringing new treatments to market and the need to invest in R&D to bring additional treatments to market.

Biosimilars a Key Headwind

Another challenge being faced by the sector is the recent entry of biosimilar competition in the United States. While a relatively new area, the market for biosimilars is huge and highly lucrative with several blockbuster biologics including Humira and Lantus slated to lose patent protection by 2020. Biosimilars are expected to reduce healthcare costs and provide a large number of patients with access to much needed biologic treatments.

According to research released by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics last year, increasing acceptance of biosimilars across different therapeutic areas plus an active pipeline of 56 candidates are expected to lead to total savings of about $110 billion to health systems across Europe and the United States through 2020. The report further says that by 2020, biosimilars will start competing with biologics that have annual sales of $50 billion.

Biosimilars are also gaining acceptance across formularies. Although there is still low visibility on how well biosimilars will perform or how much of the market they will be able to capture, the focus on making expensive drugs more affordable and formulary coverage for biosimilars could very well make it challenging for innovator companies to hold on to market share for their blockbuster drugs.

Generics Pose a Threat

Quite a few of the big players in the drug industry are looking at loss of patent protection for major blockbuster drugs. With generics and biosimilars breathing down their necks, many of these companies are looking towards new products to pick up pace and make up for lost sales. However, products like Repatha and Praluent are yet to ramp up significantly. With efforts on to control drug prices, the FDA is focusing on speeding up the generic drug approval process especially for third, fourth, or fifth generics which leads to rapid erosion of branded drug sales.

Slowdown in Sales of Mature Products

Many companies like Amgen are facing a slowdown in sales of mature products in their portfolios. At the same time, new product sales are yet to pick up significantly. Many of these companies are also facing loss of patent protection, which means generics or biosimilars, as the case may be, could enter the market soon and lead to price erosion.

Pricing Pressure to Hit Sales

While concerns regarding the drug pricing issue may have taken a backseat for the time-being, pharma and biotech companies remain wary of increasing scrutiny of drug prices. Moreover, with increasing competition in the market and the entry of innovative treatments, pricing pressure is expected to hit sales.

Regulatory Setbacks

Although the FDA has already surpassed last year’s tally of new drug approvals, there were a few companies that failed to gain approval for their drugs this year and were issued complete response letters (CRLs) by the agency. A CRL is issued by the FDA to inform the company that its application will not be approved in its present form. There could be several reasons for the same including insufficient data to support approval as well as manufacturing issues.

Some of the companies that are facing a delay in getting their drugs approved include Mylan (biosimilar version of Amgen’s Neulasta), Johnson & Johnson (sirukumab for the treatment of moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis), Valeant (Vesneo - eye drug), and Amgen and UCB (Evenity for the treatment of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis).

Mylan NV is a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) stock - you can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here.

Stocks to Avoid

As concerns regarding pricing pressure, slowdown in legacy product sales and biosimilar competition continue to keep the sector volatile, it would be prudent to stay away from stocks that have not been able to win analysts’ confidence and carry an unfavorable Zacks Rank.

Companies like Acorda Therapeutics (ACOR - Free Report) , BioMarin Pharmaceutical (BMRN - Free Report) , Valeant Pharmaceuticals International , Merck (MRK - Free Report) , Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA - Free Report) and Sanofi (SNY - Free Report) are all sell-ranked stocks. While Merck and BioMarin are Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) stocks, Sanofi, Teva, Acorda and Valeant carry a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). To know more about this sector, check out our latest Pharma Industry Outlook.

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