Earnings
Industry lobbied for pharmaceuticals to be exempt from Trump’s sweeping US tariffs and the effort appears to have paid off. J&J, Lilly and Merck & Co. even got shout outs.
Strong sales growth for the German group’s SGLT2 inhibitor in 2024
Pharma executives and investors are waiting with bated breath to find out if President Trump will include drugs in a new round of tariffs to be announced on 2 April.
Supply chain disruption fears at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic caused drug over-ordering. Imminent tariffs on drugs may have had a similar effect on pharma sales in Q1 earnings season.
The promise of innovative therapies seems to have been constrained not by efficacy or safety concerns, but because the high price of treatments is incongruous with the reimbursement of short-course therapies.
Obefazimod has been heralded as a potential blockbuster for ulcerative colitis and there will be great interest in the readout of Phase III induction trials in the third quarter of this year.
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.