The Upcoming Crowded Pipeline Crisis and What to Do About It

A look at why pharmaceutical pipelines are doubling without matching sales growth, and the modern forecasting tools needed to value pipeline assets in increasingly crowded markets.

Overview

Pharmaceutical pipelines have doubled over the past decade, while sales have not kept pace, leaving forecasters with a new problem: how to value assets in markets where dozens of similar drugs may launch within years of each other. We examine why traditional fixed-profile and conjoint research methods break down in these markets, using ulcerative colitis as a case study with more than ten approved therapies and a dense pipeline. The paper introduces share-of-volume models and Monte Carlo simulation as modern tools for capturing the full range of commercial outcomes for a pipeline asset.

Key Takeaways

• Traditional conjoint methods produce implausible market shares when extrapolated from small survey designs to large future markets
• Share-of-volume models offer a more realistic alternative by accounting for product similarity across crowded pipelines
• Pairing share-of-volume with Monte Carlo simulation captures the full range of peak sales outcomes under clinical, timing, and competitive uncertainty