{"id":114993,"date":"2026-08-13T11:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T11:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/114993\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T11:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T11:38:19","slug":"novartis-ceo-shrugs-off-oral-pcsk9-threat-amid-q2-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/114993\/","title":{"rendered":"Novartis CEO shrugs off oral PCSK9 threat amid Q2 growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novartis’ CEO remains unfazed by the threat of a newly approved oral PCSK9 inhibitor in Merck & Co.\u2019s Lipfendra<\/a>, doubling down on the long-term potential of his company’s injectable cholesterol drug, Leqvio.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the company\u2019s Q2 earnings call, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan brushed off fears that daily pills could stall Leqvio. As Novartis moves past key patent expirations to deliver a return to top-line growth\u2014partly thanks to strong performance from Leqvio\u2014Narasimhan argued that Leqvio\u2019s twice-yearly dosing offers a unique opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven with orals launching, our opportunity remains for driving strong growth in the segment that wants infrequently administered, physician-administered medicines for lipid lowering in the United States, and we see this as an attractive and growing segment that supports our peak sales potential in the U.S. and beyond,\u201d Narasimhan said.<\/p>\n

Novartis has pegged Leqvio peak sales at above $4 billion, based on the fact that many of the more than 70 million U.S. patients with elevated LDL cholesterol were not able to reach their lipid-lowering targets with older treatments.<\/p>\n

Initially struggling with a slow launch<\/a> as doctors got accustomed to the \u201cbuy-and-bill\u201d reimbursement model, Leqvio reached blockbuster status in 2025 with $1.2 billion in sales. In this year’s second quarter, the small interfering RNA therapy grew sales by 59% at constant currencies, reaching $480 million, landing 5% above analysts\u2019 expectations.<\/p>\n

In the U.S., Narasimhan highlighted monthly total prescription growth of 49%, as Leqvio \u201coutpaced the advanced lipid-lowering market.\u201d With Medicare Part B use, which the CEO said represents Leqvio\u2019s most important segment, Novartis currently keeps a 23.3% share, up 3.6% year to date.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

With Lipfendra\u2019s launch, the buy-and-bill pathway for physician-administered drugs now works in Leqvio\u2019s favor, insulating the Novartis med from the potentially brutal price battle between orals and self-injected antibody therapies, Narasimhan noted.<\/p>\n

Outside the U.S., Narasimhan predicts Leqvio could become Novartis\u2019 largest medicine ever in China, even ahead of the company\u2019s megablockbuster heart failure treatment Entresto.<\/p>\n

Following its recent inclusion in China\u2019s National Reimbursement Drug List, Leqvio has now doubled its market share, with strong performance in both the hospital setting and other market segments, according to Narasimhan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think there\u2019s an opportunity in cardiovascular, hypertension and [cardiovascular] risk reduction for our follow-on siRNAs in China, where there seems to be a high demand for infrequently administered therapies with very clean safety profiles,\u201d Narasimhan said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To potentially further bolster Leqvio\u2019s clinical profile, Novartis is on track to report data from two cardiovascular outcomes studies in 2027.<\/p>\n

Leqvio is among several new medicines that drove Novartis\u2019 Q2 sales to 1% growth at constant exchange rates, a surprisingly strong showing coming off of a 5% decline<\/a> in Q1.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Entresto, which was once Novartis\u2019 top-selling drug, continued to see significant sales erosion thanks to its U.S. loss of exclusivity. Sales from the drug plummeted 51% in Q2, tumbling below $1.2 billion and missing Wall Street consensus estimates by 9%.<\/p>\n

In contrast, immunotherapy asset Cosentyx chalked up a 10% increase at an unchanged exchange rate, reaching $1.8 billion. Breast cancer drug Kisqali brought in $1.7 billion in sales in Q2, representing 43% year-over-year growth, and Kesimpta\u2019s $1.4 billion in sales marked a 32% jump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite a 5% overall groupwide top-line beat versus consensus, Novartis maintained its full-year sales guidance. As CFO Mukul Mehta noted on Tuesday\u2019s call, the company\u2019s Q2 revenue benefited 1 percentage point from some \u201cone-time phasing items, which will reverse in the second half.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novartis’ CEO remains unfazed by the threat of a newly approved oral PCSK9 inhibitor in Merck & Co.\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[127],"tags":[56069,230,41939,625,56067,146,9073,206,56066,56068,2536,44395,9827],"class_list":["post-114993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-novartis","tag-cholesterol-drug","tag-earnings","tag-fierce-pharma-homepage","tag-financials","tag-leqvio","tag-marketing","tag-merck-co","tag-novartis","tag-pcsk9","tag-pcsk9-drugs","tag-pharma","tag-pharma-ceo","tag-vas-narasimhan"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117088007106427431","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}