After the patent expires, those revenues will dwindle virtually overnight, as generic competitors enter the marketplace.
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Pfizer and Lilly lost big name-brand drugs to generic competitors a little over a year ago.
Bristol-Myers Squibb (59, BMY), whose shares have tumbled 20% since December, also faces problems with new generic competitors.
Without the protection of a patent, drugs lose at least 50% of their value in the U.S. to generic competitors.
Once the patent expires, 80% of the brand name sales can vanish within a year as generic competitors reach the market.
You can survive the arrival of me-too generic competitors: They put an end to your sunk-cost recovery only after the patent expires.
Claritin, an allergy pill that was once a blockbuster, is now an over-the-counter medicine that could soon face even more generic competitors.
Part of the decline came from generic competitors taking market share away from some of the company's top sellers, but there was another problem.
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We'd surmise that it wouldn't, but you can rest assured that it'll perform at a high level for far longer than most generic competitors.
Pfizer is making a big push to keep patients on Lipitor during the 180 days following the drug's loss of patent protection, when there will be few generic competitors available.
U.S. District Court Judge Edward Korman has said that politics was behind efforts by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to block the unrestricted sale of the Plan B One-Step morning-after pill and its generic competitors.
The Obama administration wants Big Pharma to stop paying generic drug competitors to delay releasing cheaper versions of brand-name drugs.
When a drug loses patent protection, competition from cheaper generic products developed by competitors inevitably eats into these businesses.
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Billions of dollars could be lost to competitors or generic versions if a drugmaker fails to entice most patients into switching ahead of time.
For Lilly, the day of reckoning was Oct. 25, 2011, when competitors announced a generic version of Zyprexa, an antipsychotic medication.
In the meantime, AstraZeneca has filed patent infringement suits in several countries challenging competitors' plans to sell a generic version of Losec.
After that time span, other competitors can jump in, which tends to push down the prices of both the original formulation and generic copies.
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