Global sales in the pharmaceutical industry are set to go over the $1 trillion mark (£616 billion) this year, according to a report by Thomson Reuters.

In the CMR Pharmaceutical R&D Factbook, an annual report which compiles metrics on the pharma industry, analysts predicted the current trend of year-on-year growth will continue. In 2013, the report said, sales reached an all-time high of $980 billion, and they are expected to hit $1 trillion in 2014. It also reported that the number of new drugs launched last year was the third highest in the last decade, and that lower success rates of early-phase drug candidate trials, coupled with stable success rates at later stages, suggested pharma was improving the ability to ‘fail fast and cheaply’ and improve the chances of advanced drug candidates succeeding.

‘With much of the recent conversation focused on the hurdles in the pharma space, it is reassuring to see positive developments and an encouraging future landscape,’ Jon Brett-Harris, managing director of Thomson Reuters Life Sciences, said in a statement.