Bristol Myers Squibb has lost one third of its revenues overnight, as its anti-platelet therapy, Plavix, has become the latest blockbuster drug of the big pharma companies to see its patent expire. This is part of the process known as the patent cliff – where big pharma companies are losing widely-used patented products in their droves between 2011 and 2016 without sufficient replacements to fund their size and research and development programmes. BMS has said that it will not make the mistake that Pfizer did when it lost the patent for Lipitor a few months ago and market the product extensively after the end of the patent life. That was a fight that Pfizer ultimately conceded. BMS has accepted that there are too many generics companies already waiting in the wings and BMS is therefore going to lose US$7bn of revenue overnight.
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