Lacklustre sales hit Lilly again
pharmafile | October 24, 2014 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Q3, cymbalta, humilin, lilly, sales, zyprexa
Lilly is enduring one of the bleakest financial years in its history as patent expiries continue to take chunks out of its balance sheet.
In its latest third quarter results Lilly says its sales were down an eye-watering 16% to $4.85 billion, with much of these losses down to the generic erosion of its once biggest selling drug Cymbalta (duloxetine).
The medicine, which is used for various types of depression and anxiety, saw sales of $1.37 billon this time last year, but this has dropped 73% to just $368 million today, due to its patent loss in the US – its biggest market.
In fact US sales of Cymbalta decreased 94% to just $69.4 million, after the drug came up against generic competition in December last year.
The sales slide of its antipsychotic Zyprexa (olanzapine) also continued and were down by 8% to $257 million, with US sales of the drug decreasing by 43% to $18.8 million for the quarter.
On the plus side however, its diabetes medicines continued to perform well with its insulin brand Humulin seeing revenue rise by a steady 9% to $335 million. Its other insulin offering Humalog performed even better with a 15% growth rate, up to $706 million.
Still, a 16% drop in overall sales is a major one for the firm, and even fell short of analyst earnings estimates.
Lilly’s chief executive John Lechleiter tells Bloomberg he was never under any illusion that 2014 would be anything other than an annus horribilis: “We knew going into this year this was going to be one of the toughest years in our history,” he explains.
Given this, and the fact that the third quarter results were even more dire than first thought, Lechleiter says that he now expects 2014 sales to be from $19.4 billion to $19.8 billion, after previously forecasting revenue of as much as $20 billion.
But he is quick to add that the current sales decline will be offset by new drugs, including three products approved by the FDA this quarter.
These include recent approvals for type 2 diabetes treatments Jardiance (empagliflozin) and Trulicity (dulaglutide) as well as its new insulin offering Basaglar (insulin glargine injection), which the firm is co-marketing with partner Boehringer.
“I cannot remember a quarter with so many positive developments in our pipeline,” Lechleiter adds.
Ben Adams
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