IQVIA study: World medicine spending to hit $1.6 trillion in 2025

The global medicine market is expected to reach $1.6 trillion in 2025 as spending grows at 3 to 6 percent CAGR, excluding spending on the COVID-19 vaccines.

According to a news release, The Global Spending and Usage of Medicines report from the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science used invoice price levels to calculate the estimate. The total cumulative spending on COVID-19 vaccines through 2025 are expected to hit $157 billion as the initial rounds of vaccination are expected to be completed by 2022 with biannual booster shots expected to follow.

“While the pandemic has been extremely disruptive, the pre-pandemic forces of medicine use and spending remain significant drivers of the outlook, and these forces have only been modestly impacted by the immediate effects of COVID-19,” Murray Aitken, IQVIA senior vice president and executive director of the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science, says in the release. “The success of countries around the world in implementing a global vaccination program — unprecedented in speed and scope — will be key to the outlook for all medicine use through 2025 and beyond.”

Other takeaways from the report include:

• Global medicine spending will be buoyed by a stronger pharmerging market growth through 2025 and will be offset by slower growth in developed countries due to the loss of exclusivity for original brands.
• Savings from biosimilars are expected to reach $285 billion over the next five years.
• The two leading global therapy areas, oncology and immunology, are forecasted to grow 9 to 12 percent CAGR through 2025, due to significant increases in new treatments and medicine use.