Bolstered by its portfolio of “revolutionary” therapies, AbbVie remains the top pharma company in the immunology space, according to a new survey of doctors by ZoomRx.
Doctors overwhelmingly consider AbbVie as the leading company in the immunology space, its reputation bolstered by its top-selling drugs Humira (adalimumab) and Skyrizi (risankizumab), according to a new report by healthcare consulting firm ZoomRx.
The results are based on a survey of 52 doctors who routinely treat autoimmune conditions in which they were asked to rank 14 drugmakers according to five main factors: reputation, innovation, patient centricity, HCP (healthcare professional) centricity and promotions. The survey covered the first quarter of 2024.
Most respondents ranked AbbVie as the top company in each category, giving the pharma a total of 100 points on ZoomRx’s scale. The healthcare firm dubbed AbbVie the “perception leader” in immunology, with the pharma leading by a “huge margin” across all perception domains.
AbbVie also held the top spot in the third quarter of 2023, with a score of 100.
AbbVie’s dominant position in the immunology space is driven by its top-selling assets Humira and Skyrizi, which doctors often cited as “revolutionary immunology drugs,” according to ZoomRx.
However, Humira in 2023 brought in more than $14 billion in revenue, representing a steep 32% decline from 2022. The blockbuster drug has been facing stiff biosimilar competition, which earlier this month enjoyed a 36% spike to their prescriptions after CVS Caremark took Humira off of its major national commercial formularies.
Skyrizi, indicated for plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and Crohn’s disease, is a major part of AbbVie’s strategy to shore up its revenues following Humira’s loss of exclusivity. In 2023, Skyrizi brought in more than $7.7 billion, a hefty 50.3% sales jump from the prior year.
Distantly trailing AbbVie is Pfizer, which secured the second spot in ZoomRx’s ranking with an overall score of 70. Driven by its promising and robust pipeline of mid-to-late-stage candidates and its $6.7 billion acquisition of Arena Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer jumped three spots up from its previous ranking during the third quarter of 2023.
Johnson & Johnson, which held the second spot during the last cycle of the survey, dropped to third with an overall perception score of 52. Biosimilar threats to Stelara (Ustekinumab) could be a strong contributing factor to this decline in perception, according to ZoomRx.
In June 2020, results from the Phase III BE VIVID and BE READY studies demonstrated that UCB’s bimekizumab outperformed Stelara in terms of skin clearance in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. UCB launched bimekizumab in October 2023 under the brand name Bimzelx.
Rounding out ZoomRx’s top five are Takeda and Sanofi, which scored 34 and 14 on the perception scale, respectively. Takeda showed “positive perception scores” across all domains while Sanofi demonstrates “strong pipeline momentum” driven by Dupixent (dupilumab) and other strategic investments.
Tristan Manalac is an independent science writer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. Reach out to him on LinkedIn or email him at tristan@tristanmanalac.com or tristan.manalac@biospace.com.
