Cancer drugs boost Roche
pharmafile | April 12, 2013 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Cancer, Q1, Roche
Roche saw overall sales rise 6% year-on-year in the first three months of this year on the back of a strong performance by its pharma division, with cancer drugs (which rose 10%) and Tamiflu leading the way.
Group sales were up 6% to 11.6 billion Swiss francs in the first quarter of 2013, with pharma rising 7% on the same period in 2012 to 9.2 billion Swiss francs.
Europe remains flat, however, with sales of Roche drugs up just 1 per cent. While this still represents a fifth of the company’s revenue at 2.3 billion Swiss francs, the US remains a far more fruitful region for the company.
Pharma sales there rose 13% to 3.9 billion Swiss francs, more than a third of overall revenue, although an 84% rise in sales of Tamiflu in response to a severe flu season were in part responsible for this.
Roche chief executive Severin Schwan highlighted the launch of Kadcyla in the US and Perjeta in Europe – tipped as a future blockbuster – both of which target HER2-positive breast cancer.
Emerging markets performed strongly, with Roche’s cancer brands rising 20% in China.
Of Roche’s established oncology treatments, Herceptin and Avastin were both up 11%, even though the latter has had its breast cancer licence revoked in the US and its use limited in Europe.
The rise is partly on the back of a new European licence for Avastin in ovarian cancer, and meanwhile Actemra/RoActemra rose 32% due to monotherapy use in rheumatoid arthritis.
“Based on the first-quarter results, I am confident we will meet our full-year targets,” Schwan confirmed.
Roche is pleased by what it calls ‘encouraging’ results from Phase III trials for obinutuzumab (GA101) in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, its most advanced blood cancer medicine.
The company has been active recently as it seeks to boost its pipeline, signing a potential $362 deal with Isis Pharmaceuticals to develop treatments for Huntington’s disease, and binning a three-year old COPD and fibrosis alliance with Belgian drug discovery specialist Galapagos because of a ‘strategic change’.
Sales in Roche’s diagnostics division rose 1% to 2.4 billion Swiss francs in Q1 as a result of demand for tests and platforms used in clinical laboratories.
Adam Hill
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