Roche strengthened by swine flu
pharmafile | July 29, 2009 | News story | Sales and Marketing |Â Â RocheÂ
The effect of the swine flu pandemic has boosted Roche's half-year results, adding to figures already strengthened by the company's showing in oncology.
Sales of Tamiflu leapt more than 200%, accounting for four percentage points of the company's pharma growth after demand for the drug increased markedly in the second quarter.
Production capacity is to be expanded to 400 million packs annually by the start of next year.
Overall, the manufacturer's turnover was up 9% to 24 billion Swiss francs, with the pharma division sales climbing 11% to 19.1 billion francs and its operating profit before exceptional items up 13% to 7.5 billion francs.
Commenting on the results, Roche chief executive Severin Schwan noted they continued the company's positive trend of recent years, with double-digit increases in sales and operating profit.
He added that excellent progress was being made integrating Roche and Genentech.
"The Genentech transaction further strengthens our ability to deliver on our long-term strategy of innovation in our core pharmaceuticals and diagnostics businesses. The combined company has one of the strongest development portfolios in the industry, with ten new molecular entities in ongoing or planned late-stage clinical development."
Oncology strength
Even without Tamiflu the division's sales were up 7%, with Roche's strong showing driven by its oncology portfolio.
Colorectal, breast and lung cancer drug Avastin rose 29% to 3.1 billion francs, with sales up 116% in Japan.
The company says this "reflects increasing acceptance of Avastin for the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer" there.
HER2-positive breast cancer drug Herceptin was up 10% to 2.6 billion francs, partly because of continued uptake in early breast cancer in Japan.
MabThera/Rituxan, for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), chronic lymphocytic leukemia and rheumatoid arthritis (RA), climbed 8% to 3.1 billion francs.
The company said uptake continues to increase in the first-line NHL setting while in RA, sales are driven by prescribing following a single inadequate response to anti-TNF therapy.
Meanwhile Tarceva, for advanced lung and pancreatic cancer, rose 10% to 643 million francs in the first half, mainly due to sales in western Europe, Japan and China.
Pegasys (hepatitis) and Lucentis (ophthalmology) also performed well, with the former up 10% to 842 million francs and the latter rising 21% to 573 million.
The company's sales were particularly strong in the US (7.5 billion francs) and western Europe (5.1 billion francs).
There were few clouds in the results for Roche, including organ door rejection treatment CellCept's patent loss in May and subsequent 8% drop in sales to 927 million francs.
But Roche said in a statement that the performance of other brands such as its cancer products and Lucentis "more than compensated for the negative impact".
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