Some of the world’s biggest pharmaceuticals companies, including GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, face their worst crisis in decades, as their future revenues come are under threat from shrinking drug pipelines, increased competition from generics and a slew of patent expiries.

“For the first time in history, the industry will have negative growth in 2011,” says Alexis de Rosnay, global co-head of healthcare at Lehman Brothers. This is a time-bomb the sector has known about for some time.