Earnings

The world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies mostly saw growth in 2024 but 2025 promises to be more of a mixed bag with headwinds including losses of exclusivity, Medicare Part D redesign and challenges in the Chinese market.

CSL’s US influenza vaccine sales were a window into wider issues for vaccine manufacturers that had already impacted the fourth-quarter results of Merck, Pfizer and GSK. There could also be a correlation between lower vaccine sales and the measles outbreak in Texas.

Increasingly focused on maximizing and accelerating the progress of its PD-L1 x VEGF inhibitor BNT357, the company expects new partnerships to be announced this year.

J&J’s Stelara, Amgen’s Prolia, Novartis’s Entresto and AstraZeneca’s Brilinta are among the drugs that will likely face generic or biosimilar competition for the first time this year.

The late-stage cupboard is looking bare but the German firm has its eyes on products with peak sales potential of over €500m.

Pharma revenues are going to fall this year as a result of deeper generic competition for the German group’s top-selling drug, Xarelto, but it should return to growth from 2027 onwards.

The vaccine maker also reacted to news of the FDA’s annual flu vaccine meeting being canceled and the postponement of the CDC’s ACIP meeting.

The Belgian firm has posted a healthy set of financials for 2024, buoyed by strong uptake in the US across all indications for Bimzelx.

With $180m in sales during its first nine months on the US market, the first approved MASH drug still tops projections. Madrigal predicts continued growth in 2025, with EU entry expected.

Novo, Sanofi, Gilead, Lilly and Bayer are among the big pharmas with the fewest expected US exclusivity losses from 2026-2030.

CEO Christophe Bourdon tells Scrip that the Danish dermatology specialist is delivering consistently strong sales while maintaining financial discipline and has created the foundation for long-term growth.

The Spanish group has upped its peak sales guidance for Ilumetri to €300m and believes the arrival of Stelara biosimilars will take a while to have much of an impact on the originator IL-23 class.

Attruby is making fast inroads thanks to its edge over Pfizer’s established Vyndaqel, but will soon face competition from Alnylam.

Several major South Korean pharma firms benefited from solid sales of new drugs, and in some cases M&A deals, outside the country, although overall growth was generally weak. Meanwhile, a long-running leadership dispute at Hanmi has been resolved.

Sales for the drug grew significantly, with an exec telling the fourth-quarter earnings call that patients with achondroplasia tend to stick with the drugs they are using.

Amylin analogs could well match the weight loss seen with Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly’s GLP-1-based blockbusters with less fewer tolerability issues. The Danish company believes petrelintide will lead the pack and is vetting potential big pharma partners very carefully.

Two pharmaceutical companies reporting bumper sales in the hot areas of diabetes and obesity may have helped a thaw in sector sentiment.

The biotech disclosed that its norovirus vaccine program was under US FDA hold due to a case of Guillain-Barré syndrome, but said this would not affect timelines.

Sales of spinal muscular atrophy drug Spinraza had an unexpected US boost in Q4 and Biogen may win US FDA approval for a high dose version this year, but Roche’s Evrysdi was just approved in a new tablet formulation.

The Paris-headquartered group has been reflecting on a solid performance last year.