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More than half of big pharma’s top products were acquired or licensed
Big pharma’s top-selling drugs were more often bought or licensed than built in-house. In Sleuth’s August 2023 analysis of the top five products by FY22 sales at 14 large pharma companies, 39 of the 70 (about 56%) were acquired or licensed, 23 through acquisitions and 16 through licensing. The finding fits earlier work by Atlas Venture’s Bruce Booth, who reported in 2016 that most new drugs approved since 2011 were discovered outside the 25 largest companies, even though those companies market most of them.
Collaboration between the companies that discover drugs and the companies that sell them drives much of the industry’s progress. Even at the largest scale, success in biopharma is a story of outliers: outlier assets, outlier companies and the deals that bring them together.
No single sourcing model dominates
Reliance on outside assets ranged from none to all. All five of Bristol Myers Squibb’s top products (Eliquis, Revlimid, Opdivo, Pomalyst and Orencia) were acquired, and AbbVie, Gilead, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer each sourced four of five externally. At the other end, Novo Nordisk developed all five of its top products in-house, and Eli Lilly and Novartis sourced one each from outside: Jardiance, licensed by Lilly, and Promacta, acquired by Novartis.
Building organically did not lead to one outcome. Lilly and Novo Nordisk, two of the most organically built, had seen their stock prices surge on their obesity drugs, with market caps of $525 billion and $328 billion on August 23, 2023. Novartis also leaned organic but had struggled over the same period, with a market cap of $235 billion. The two obesity leaders later diverged: Lilly’s market value briefly passed $1 trillion in November 2025, while by February 2026 Novo Nordisk had given back nearly all the market value it gained after Wegovy’s 2021 approval.
Sourcing strategy alone does not predict performance; what matters is which assets a company owns, however they arrived. Lilly, one of the most organically built companies in this set, became the most frequent buyer among the top 15 pharma companies in 2026, as Sleuth’s T15 pharma buyout map shows.
A handful of products carries most of the business
The top five products accounted for between 30.6% (Novartis) and 80.9% (BMS) of each company’s FY22 sales, about 56% on average. Concentration was also high at Merck (74.5%), Pfizer (74.4%), Gilead (73.7%) and AbbVie (66.9%), and Pfizer’s top two products that year, Comirnaty and Paxlovid, were COVID-19 products.
The companies that relied more on in-licensing and M&A, including AbbVie, BMS, Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Pfizer, own the products of some of the highest-return deals in the industry’s history. The top products at AbbVie and Merck, Humira and Keytruda, were both acquired.
When a few products carry more than half of sales, replacing them before they lose exclusivity becomes the central strategic problem, one Sleuth examines in how big pharma valuations trend around major LOEs.
Products are ranked by FY22 sales, and market caps are as of August 23, 2023. This page is a dated snapshot; the Lilly and Novo Nordisk market value developments are as of February 2026, and the 2026 buyout reference is as of September 2026.
Frequently asked questions about where pharma’s top drugs come from
How many of big pharma’s top drugs were acquired or licensed?
In Sleuth’s August 2023 analysis of the top five products at 14 large pharma companies, ranked by FY22 sales, 39 of 70 (about 56%) were acquired or licensed: 23 through acquisitions and 16 through licensing. The other 31 were developed in-house.
Which pharma companies relied most on acquired drugs?
Bristol Myers Squibb, whose top five products by FY22 sales were all acquired, in Sleuth’s August 2023 analysis of 14 large pharma companies. AbbVie, Gilead, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer each sourced four of their top five externally.
Which pharma companies built their top drugs in-house?
In Sleuth’s August 2023 analysis, Novo Nordisk had developed all five of its top products by FY22 sales in-house. Eli Lilly and Novartis each sourced only one of five from outside, Jardiance (licensed) and Promacta (acquired).
How much of pharma sales comes from the top five products?
Between 30.6% at Novartis and 80.9% at Bristol Myers Squibb in FY22, about 56% on average across the 14 companies in Sleuth’s August 2023 analysis.
