While Roche touted sales and market share increases for eye disease drug Vabysmo on Thursday, there is evidence of a slowdown of its momentum as it battles Regeneron and Bayer\u2019s powerhouse Eylea franchise.<\/p>\n
April through June, worldwide sales of Vabysmo reached 947 million Swiss francs ($1.1 billion) as the drug achieved blockbuster status in a quarter for the first time. This brings Vabysmo sales for the first half of the year to 1.8 billion Swiss francs ($2 billion), a 93% increase year over year.<\/p>\n
A look at sequential performance of Vabysmo, however, tells a different tale. From the first to the second quarter, sales increased a modest 11% compared to the 54% boom Roche enjoyed between the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of this year.<\/p>\n
Could Eylea, with its new high-dose (HD) formula, be regaining some of the momentum it has lost since Vabysmo hit the market in early 2022? It will become clearer when Regeneron reports its second-quarter sales Aug. 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cVabysmo, what can I say\u2014doing fantastically well. There is really strong momentum here,\u201d Roche CEO Thomas Schinecker said during a conference call.<\/p>\n
Roche\u2019s pharma chief Teresa Graham added that Vabysmo\u2019s market share rose from 24% to 27% in wet-age macular degeneration, from 18% to 19% in diabetic macular edema (DME) and from 8% to 15% in retinal vein occlusion during the quarter.<\/p>\n
The increases are key considering Regeneron’s Eylea HD received its permanent J-code from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on April 1, facilitating the reimbursement process. Regeneron had said it expected sales of Eylea HD to increase when the J-code was established. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t see any impact from the J-codes,\u201d Schinecker said.<\/p>\n
Roche expects to get another sales bump for Vabysmo based on the FDA\u2019s approval earlier this month of its delivery in a prefilled syringe. The company also recently presented four-year data in DME that back up Vabysmo\u2019s efficacy and safety profile.<\/p>\n
Roche reported overall sales in the first half at 29.8 billion Swiss francs ($33.9 billion), which matched the figure from the first half of last year. Excluding sales of COVID products, however, sales were up 8%, with the group\u2019s pharma and diagnostic divisions sharing equally in the rise.<\/p>\n
While Roche stuck with its full-year projection of sales growth in the mid-single-digit range, the company did raise its\u00a0full-year earnings forecast to a high single-digit increase, up from a mid-single-digit projection. Profit was up 4% in the first half to 11.3 billion Swiss francs ($12.8 billion), topping the analyst consensus of 10.5 billion Swiss francs.<\/p>\n
In addition to Vabysmo, other products on the rise for Roche include breast cancer drug Phesgo, which was up 60% for the first half to 799 million Swiss francs ($908 million), and blood cancer drug Polivy, which saw a 54% rise to 513 million Swiss francs ($583 million).<\/p>\n
Roche\u2019s top sellers also continued their steady climb. Multiple sclerosis treatment Ocrevus was up 8% to 3.36 billion Swiss francs ($3.8 billion) for the first half, while hemophilia A drug Hemlibra was up 7% to 2.14 billion Swiss francs ($2.4 billion).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Roche touted sales and market share increases for eye disease drug Vabysmo on Thursday, there is evidence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[124],"tags":[39810,44135,41499,41939,156,2536,31756,6117,134,32276],"class_list":["post-86518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-roche","tag-bayer","tag-eye-diseases","tag-eylea","tag-fierce-pharma-homepage","tag-ocrevus","tag-pharma","tag-quarterly-sales","tag-regeneron-pharmaceuticals","tag-roche","tag-vabysmo"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116769494482620396","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86518","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=86518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}