Major Drug Database Page

Welcome to my FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page. This is a compilation of the most frequently asked questions and answers for my page. This is still a work in progress so if you still have questions, feel free to EMAIL me them and I will add them to the list. As they say, the only dumb questions are unasked ones.

The Major Drug Database is a database that I first began working on in January of 2002 for stock/investment analysis purposes. It originally only contained the sales data for pharmaceutical products with over $400 million in annual revenues. Over the past year, the database has expanded to include patent expiration data, sales projections, and medical information. The database presently contains information on more than 360 pharmaceutical products from 31 pharmaceutical and biotech companies including:

Abbot Laboratories	Bristol-Meyers-Squibb	Genentech	Novartis	Shire
Allergan	Cephalon	Gilead Sciences	Pfizer	Teva
Amgen	Chiron	GlaxoSmithKline	Pharmacia	Wyeth
AstraZeneca	Elan	Johnson & Johnson	Roche
Aventis	Eli Lilly	King	Sanofi-Synthelabo
Bayer	Forest	MedImmune	Schering-Plough
Biogen	Fujisawa	Merck	Serono

As far as I know, this is the most comprehensive resource of its kind publicly and freely available on the Internet. I have included financial information for every single medically related product that I can find.

I obtained all the information from company press releases, annual reports, SEC filings, FDA records, and other publicly available information. I do not have any inside contacts at any of the pharmaceutical companies or anything like that.

If you find the information on this site useful and informative, I would encourage you to donate some money to help support this site through either the PayPal or Amazon Honor System links. This information is provided for free of charge and that will continue so long as I can pay for the bandwidth that is required to maintain this site. I think that you will agree that there is nowhere else on the Internet where you can find such information organized and analyzed in such a detailed manner for free.

There are some pharmaceutical research consultancy companies that produce research that is similar to this but charge hundreds of dollars. Consider this report that lists the consolidated sales for just the top 20 pharmaceutical products from 1999 and 2000 that is priced at $200.00. My database currently has information on more than 360 pharmaceutical products with the most recent data from 2002. Indeed if you look at the prices of reports from IMS Health, you will see that I'm providing information that they would provide for hundreds or thousands of dollars.

5. Why are there ranges of dates for the patent expiration and exclusivity data?

Many pharmaceutical products have different uses or indications. In fact, pharmaceutical companies are always discovering and applying for new indications for their products even if they've been on the market for several years. Usually they are disease states or indications that are similar to the original indication of the compound. In other cases, they may be radical differences. For example, bupropion was originally marketed at Wellbutrin for depression but GlaxoSmithKline soon discovered that it also worked very well for smoking cessation and so they marketed it also as Zyban. In some of these secondary application cases, the FDA may grant an extension in patent life or exclusivity if it is justified. e.g. for pediatric use. This is how there can be a range of dates. In most cases, companies should expect to see the greatest drop in revenues due to generic competition after the first patent expires since that is usually the primary indication for the product.

In most cases, these are compounds that cannot be patented because they are recombinant compounds that already exist in nature. For example, Epogen is simply a copy of erythropoietin that is produced by natural kidneys in that it promotes red blood cell production.

I am currently a 3rd year medical student enrolled at the New York University School of Medicine in New York City, New York. While I love medicine, I am also have a side interest in business, finance, and investing. I have been the President of the Finance and Investment Organization at school for the past three years and am contemplating doing an MBA at some point after graduation and/or residency. In terms of medical interest, I probably envision myself doing primary care pediatrics at some point in the future.

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