$500 Billion of Drug Sales Walk Off a Cliff by 2033. The Industry Is Shopping for a Ladder.
Keytruda, the best-selling drug in the world, loses U.S. patent protection in 2028. Novo Nordisk has 77% of its sales exposed. Drugmakers spent $114 billion on deals last quarter, the most since 2019, and Merck added $40 billion of market value in one day when a cancer vaccine worked.
By Sean Anees Saifi · Capital Wealth · Published Tuesday, September 1, 2026 · Source: The Wall Street Journal, August 29–30 and September 1, 2026 editions
Key Points
More than $500 billion of projected global sales are at risk of losing patent protection by 2033 (Norstella) — the biggest wave of expirations in decades.
Keytruda, nearly $32 billion a year, loses U.S. protection in 2028; Merck and Bristol Myers each have more than 65% of last year’s sales exposed. Novo Nordisk: 77%, mostly Ozempic in the early 2030s.
Eliquis — $14 billion, 30% of Bristol’s revenue and 13% of Pfizer’s — is losing exclusivity.
Dealmaking hit $114 billion last quarter, the fourth-most since 2010; biotechs raised nearly $15 billion in the June quarter and the biotech index is up more than 30% this year.
Eli Lilly stands apart: Mounjaro and Zepbound are protected into the latter half of the next decade.
$500B+
sales at risk by 2033
2028
Keytruda’s U.S. patent expiry
$114B
pharma deals, last quarter
+30%
S&P Biotech Select, YTD
Bristol Myers kept generic Revlimid at bay for seven years after the main patent expired. The playbook works, until it does not.
In one line: The industry’s biggest products have expiration dates, the buying spree is how it copes, and the one company without a near-term cliff is the one we already own.
Most companies sell a hit product for as long as customers want it. For a drugmaker, a clock starts before the product is even approved: patents run out, cheaper copies flood in, and billions of dollars of annual sales can vanish within a year. The Journal’s Saturday front page put a number on the wave now arriving — more than $500 billion of projected global sales at risk by 2033, according to research firm Norstella, the largest set of expirations in decades.
The biggest name on the list is Keytruda, Merck’s cancer immunotherapy, used against more than 20 cancers and nearly $32 billion of sales last year. It loses U.S. protection in 2028. Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb each have more than 65% of last year’s sales exposed. Novo Nordisk has 77% — Ozempic alone, nearly $20 billion, expires in the early 2030s, and Canadian generics are already a problem.
How they fight it
The playbook
Example
Settle with generic makers, delay entry
Bristol’s Revlimid: main patent expired 2019, unrestricted competition only in January 2026 — seven years later
Patent thickets
AbbVie filed more than 100 U.S. patents on Humira; copies arrived five years after Europe’s
Buy the replacement
$114 billion of deals last quarter; Merck, AbbVie and GSK each announced deals above $5 billion this year
Partner early
Merck’s 2016 deal with Moderna on a cancer vaccine paid off last week — melanoma spread prevented, $40 billion added to Merck’s market value in a day
That last one explains the strangest chart in the paper: Moderna up more than 150% in August, and biotech shares up more than 30% this year even as the giants face a cliff. Biotechs raised nearly $15 billion in the June quarter, the most since 2021. The cliff is the buyer; the biotechs are the merchandise.
The one without a cliff
Eli Lilly’s obesity and diabetes drugs, Mounjaro and Zepbound, are protected into the latter half of the next decade. That is why Lilly, and not Novo, sits in the Capital Wealth books, and why it stays. The Trump administration’s most-favored-nation pricing deals — 26 companies now, 89% of the branded market — are the other pressure on the sector, and Lilly has already signed one.
For a retiree the story reads differently: the Ozempic patent cliff in the early 2030s is the year the drug gets cheap. The industry’s bad news is, eventually, the patient’s good news.
What It Means For Your Portfolio
Watch — hold LLY; MRK on the cliff-and-ladder watch; no single-molecule bets
Lilly stays as the healthcare anchor because it is the one large drugmaker without a near-term cliff. Merck goes on the watch list: a 2028 cliff on its biggest product against a partnership that just added $40 billion in a day.
We own the industry, not the molecule. A single drug is a binary; a portfolio of them with a $114 billion acquisition budget is a business. The biotech rally this year is the cliff being priced in as a buying spree.
If you take a branded drug for a chronic condition, ask when its patent expires. That date is a line item in your retirement budget, and for the most-prescribed drugs in America it is inside the next ten years.
