Select top biotech drugs based on revenue 2023

As of today, the majority of the world's top revenue-generating drugs are derived from biotechnology and are part of the so-called large molecule drugs. This statistic shows the best-selling biotech drugs worldwide, ranked by their sales in 2023. In that year, Keytruda generated a total revenue of 25 billion U.S. dollars, and thus, it was among the world's top biotech drug based on sales.

Best-selling biotech drugs worldwide

AbbVie’s Humira is among the top selling biotechnology drugs in the world, generating over 14 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Biotechnology has become more prevalent within the pharmaceutical industry. One of the first uses of biotechnology was for human insulin. The United States had over 1,400 dedicated biotechnology companies in 2021. Among the largest biotechnology companies in the world is Switzerland-based company Roche. The company generated some 41 billion U.S. dollars in biotech prescription drug revenues in 2019 and is expected to reach over 48 billion U.S. dollars in 2026. One of its long-time best-selling drugs, Avastin, generated about 1.6 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2023. Avastin is a drug derived from biotechnology that is used to inhibit the growth of new blood vessels to treat some types of cancer.

The United States spent about 103 billion U.S. dollars on research and development in the biotechnology sector in 2021. The United States also had about 37 percent of the world’s share of filed biotechnology patents in 2020, in comparison, Germany filed around five percent of global biotech patents.