Thinning revenues: inside the $14bn Eliquis patent cliff

GlobalData Healthcare

Thu, April 30, 2026 astatine 11:08 AM CDT 3 min read

Eliquis (apixaban) is 1 of the astir commercially consequential loss-of-exclusivity (LOE) events successful caller pharmaceutical history, with patent expiries expected this twelvemonth for Europe and successful 2027 for the US and Japan. With planetary income of $14.4bn successful 2025, the Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) and Pfizer-partnered anticoagulant ranks among the industry’s highest-grossing tiny molecules. Its long-standing objective adoption and expansive prescriber basal person made it the ascendant oral anticoagulant globally, but besides a marque whose exclusivity nonaccomplishment carries outsized gross implications for BMS.

First approved successful the EU successful May 2011 and by the FDA successful December 2012, Eliquis is simply a tiny molecule nonstop origin Xa inhibitor indicated crossed changeable prevention, atrial fibrillation, and venous thromboembolic conditions, including heavy vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. As illustrated successful Figure 1, planetary Eliquis income are forecast to autumn from $14.4bn successful 2025 to $205m successful 2031, a near-total erosion of 98.6% and 1 of the largest single-asset LOE events successful the industry. The diminution is not gradual but geographically sequenced: European exclusivity nonaccomplishment successful May 2026 triggers the archetypal question of compression, followed by the acold larger US cliff successful 2028, which drives the steepest implicit gross destruction. In total, the marque is projected to shed $14.2bn implicit six years.

Eliquis planetary income forecast by geography, 2025-2031

The archetypal signifier of erosion is concentrated successful ex-US markets. Rest of World revenues are forecast to autumn by astir 75% betwixt 2025 and 2027 arsenic European generic introduction takes hold, driven by tendering systems and formulary-level switching that tin displace branded measurement rapidly erstwhile exclusivity lapses. The US, by contrast, is expected to stay mostly insulated done this period, its stock of full portfolio revenues rising to astir 90% by 2027 arsenic the marque becomes progressively concentrated successful its past high-value geography.

US gross erosion is expected to statesman earlier generic entry. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, a Medicare maximum just terms of $231 per 30-day proviso took effect successful January 2026, reducing nett revenues 2 years up of the patent cliff. When US exclusivity falls successful 2028, the interaction is projected to beryllium contiguous and severe—a near-50% single-year diminution driven by the accelerated generic substitution dynamics of the US market, wherever formulary switches and substitution-at-dispensing tin displacement measurement wrong quarters of launch. By 2031, US revenues are forecast to person fallen 99% from their highest successful 2025, accounting for implicit $10bn of full losses crossed the forecast period.