Roche buoyed by 6% sales growth
pharmafile | October 22, 2015 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Roche, financial results
Roche has reported strong sales growth for the first nine months of 2015 and revised its sales outlook to reflect the upturn in performance.
The Group’s sales rose 6% to CHF 35.5 billion (US$36.94bn at today’s conversion rate) in this period, despite a 4% negative currency impact of the Swiss franc weakening against the US dollar. Roche says the growth was driven by all regions in the pharmaceuticals division and professional diagnostics sales.
In the company’s pharma division, oncology and immunology products performed strongest, with sales of the HER2-positive breast cancer medicines, Herceptin (trastuzumab), Perjeta (pertuzumab) and Kadcyla (trastuzumab emtansine) growing 19%.
The outlook for this franchise was further strengthened in July after the European Commission approved Perjeta combination therapy for use before surgery. Sales of Avastin (bevacizumab) climbed 9% and MabThera/Rituxan (rituximab) by 5%.
In immunology, sales of the rheumatoid arthritis treatment Actemra/RoActemra (tocilizumab) jumped 22%, and chronic hives as well as asthma drug Xolair (omalizumab) climbed 25%.
Sales declines were also seen for the now off-patent anti-viral medicine Valcyte and oral chemotherapy Xeloda. The performance of the hepatitis medicine Pegasys (peginterferon alfa-2a) and eye treatment Lucentis (ranibizumab) were negatively impacted by increased competition. Sales in diabetes care declined 3% due to what Roche described as “ongoing challenging market conditions.”
Strong demand for Esbriet (pirfenidone), a treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), continued throughout Q3 and sales totalled CHF 386 million in the first nine months. In September, Roche presented additional data from a pooled analysis of three Phase III studies that suggested a reduction in treatment-emergent risk of death for IPF patients on Esbriet for more than two years. In the same month, Esbriet received approval in Switzerland.
Commenting on the Group’s first nine months, Roche chief executive Severin Schwan says: “With sales continuing to grow strongly, we are raising our outlook for the full year. I am very pleased about the positive news-flow coming from our product pipeline.
“This includes data on our cancer immunotherapy medicine atezolizumab in bladder and lung cancer and, in particular, strong data on ocrelizumab in both relapsing and primary progressive forms of MS. These medicines have the potential to make a big difference to people living with these terrible diseases.”
Joel Levy
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