Dive Brief:
- Sector & Sovereign undertook an R&D ranking project to provide a benchmarking opportunity to pharma companies.
- There is unanimous agreement that the current rate of drug approvals and innovation in the industry is dismal.
- According to analyst, Richard Evans, who did the analysis, luck plays a major role.
Dive Insight:
Top analyst Richard Evans ranked the R&D productivity of 22 firms based on five metrics including economic returns on R&D; the number of patents filed for every $1 million spent on R&D; how often a company’s patents are cited by other companies in patents or publications; whether the company is a leader or laggard; and a ranking of internal bias.
Based on this methodology, the top five companies are Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Vertex, Gilead and Allergan.