{"id":61831,"date":"2026-05-07T19:34:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/61831\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T19:34:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:34:40","slug":"roche-facing-biosimilar-threats-puts-faith-in-new-cancer-and-obesity-drugs-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/61831\/","title":{"rendered":"Roche, facing biosimilar threats, puts faith in new cancer and obesity drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This story was originally published on BioPharma Dive<\/a>. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily BioPharma Dive newsletter<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Dive Brief: <\/p>\n

Roche executives believe the Swiss drugmaker could record $9 billion in peak annual sales from an emerging breast cancer pill and four obesity drugs now entering mid- and late-stage development.<\/p>\n

The forecasts came as Roche on Thursday reported its first-quarter earnings<\/a>, which dipped 5% because of the drop in the value of the U.S. dollar versus the Swiss franc. At constant exchange rates, sales climbed by 6% to 14.7 billion Swiss francs, or $18.8 billion. Roche also expects sales growth in the \u201cmid single digit range\u201d in 2026.<\/p>\n

Roche could face a sales decline of 6.7 billion Swiss francs, or 41%, between 2025 and 2030 as a total of eight cancer and immune disease drugs face biosimilar competition. The company is looking to a breast cancer drug called giredestrant and a portfolio of weight loss medicines it\u2019s acquired or licensed to aid future growth, although many Wall Street analysts aren\u2019t convinced of their prospects.<\/p>\n

Dive Insight: <\/p>\n

Giredestrant \u201ccould be our largest selling product,\u201d said Roche Pharmaceuticals head Teresa Graham in a conference call with investors. The reason, she said, is the drug could help patients with ER-positive, HER2-negative tumors \u2014 a much bigger group than those eligible for its one-time blockbuster Herceptin.<\/p>\n

Wall Street analysts and investors aren\u2019t so sure, however. Multiple other, similar drugs are approved, and another could join them on the market shortly. Use of all, so far, has been limited to patients with a particular genetic mutation. A recent setback in a study testing giredestrant\u00a0in the first-line setting<\/a>\u00a0has cast further doubt on its outlook. Analysts at the investment firm Jefferies are projecting just 1.2 billion Swiss francs in peak yearly sales.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Roche remains optimistic. The drug is on track for an FDA approval decision by Dec. 18<\/a>, in people whose ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer has progressed after earlier treatment<\/a>. Roche also has a second submission lined up in the post-surgical \u201cadjuvant\u201d setting<\/a>, and is using a priority review voucher to speed up the drug\u2019s review. In an earnings presentation<\/a> Thursday, the drug was one of a few Roche pegged as having yearly sales potential that can surpass $3 billion.<\/p>\n

The analyst community also isn\u2019t, as of yet, giving much credit to a pipeline of obesity medicines that could break into a market now dominated by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. Roche executives are adamant that a drug called petrelintide<\/a>, which the company licensed from Zealand Pharma, could surpass $3 billion in annual sales because it may be easier to take than available medications. Three other medicines acquired in a buyout of Carmot Therapeutics could also collectively earn $3 billion or more, the company said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published on BioPharma Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[34043,207,2112,1813,134,2048,470,1546,34044],"class_list":{"0":"post-61831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-roche","8":"tag-annual-sales","9":"tag-breast-cancer","10":"tag-cancer","11":"tag-obesity","12":"tag-roche","13":"tag-sales-growth","14":"tag-swiss-franc","15":"tag-wall-street-analysts","16":"tag-weight-loss-medicines"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116534972623630734","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61831","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=61831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}