Investors, simmer down: Blockbusters takes years

Biopharma investors may be getting a little spoiled by the spoils of blockbuster drugs: They're asking companies to queue up a new slew of fancy therapies even before the current crop of top sellers have hit peak profitability, Bloomberg writes.

This is an issue, for instance, with the new $74 billion Bristol-Myers Squibb merger with Celgene. Although Celgene’s still minting billions off its blockbuster Revlimid, Bristol is now on the hook for coaxing a new money-maker out of the Celgene assets. Revlimid will make tens of billions for a few more years before the drug goes off patent, but investors want more.

“They need blockbusters. It’s a perpetual chase,” one fund manager said. “The assumption is that every year you’re going to find a fantastic product; it doesn’t work like that.”

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