Gilead Sciences And GlaxoSmithKline Lead The Anti-Infective Drugs Market

The global anti-infective drugs market is relatively consolidated, with a small number of large players. The top ten competitors in the market made up to 50.99% of the total market in 2018. This consolidation is attributed to large entry barriers in terms of high drug development costs and stringent drug approval regulations by regulatory authorities. This is likely to continue in the near future with the increase in number of mergers and acquisitions by the companies to have a cost benefit and reduced risk of drug research and development.

Gilead Sciences was the largest competitor with a 21.67% share of the total market share in 2018, followed by GlaxoSmithKline with 7.98%. Other major players in the anti-infective drugs market are Merck & Co, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Pfizer, Mylan N.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Allergan Plc, Novartis AG, AbbVie Inc., Sun Pharmaceuticals, and Sanofi SA.

Gilead, the largest competitor in the global anti-infective drugs market, is an American biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops and commercializes therapeutics for areas such as cardiovascular and inflammation/respiratory diseases, hematology/oncology, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), liver diseases such as chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. The company was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Foster City, California, United States. Gilead Sciences’ growth strategy aims to focus on the development of products for HIV, viral hepatitis and other diseases through collaborations with other companies, medical research institutions and universities. In 2016, the company partnered with more than 2,000 organizations for the clinical development of certain products and support for research programs. Gilead made a total funding of about $460 million to support the collaborations.

GlaxoSmithKline plc was the second largest competitor in the anti-infective drugs market. GlaxoSmithKline plc is a healthcare company, involved in developing, manufacturing, and marketing of vaccines and health-related consumer products globally. The company was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Brentford, United Kingdom. GlaxoSmithKline’s growth strategy is also focused on developing new anti-infective drugs, by investing in research and development activities. In 2018, the company invested EUR 3.9 billion ($4.4 billion) in research and development activities. In November 2018, GlaxoSmithKline received approval from the Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, for marketing authorization of Juluca (dolutegravir/rilpivirine), a drug for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection.

The anti-infective drugs market can be segmented by product type into antibiotics (ß-lactams, quinolones, macrolides, aminoglycosides and others), antivirals (HIV AIDS therapeutics, hepatitis therapeutics, herpes therapeutics and influenza therapeutics), antifungals (azoles and others) and others (anthelminthic, antiprotozoal).