Media Thread, page-1015

April 21, 2021 07:31 AM EDT
PharmaCoronavirus
Roche sees a slight dip in Q1 as biosim­i­lars keep bit­ing in­to block­buster on­col­o­gy tri­o's sales
Max Gelman
Associate Editor
With Roche fac­ing a fast de­cline for its on­col­o­gy block­buster trio amid a biosim­i­lar on­slaught, the drug gi­ant is look­ing any­where it can for a pick-me-up. That boost could come from Covid-19 di­ag­nos­tics, the drug­mak­er said in a first-quar­ter up­date — but will it be enough?

The test­ing di­vi­sion saw a marked 55% in­crease in sales, Roche ex­ec­u­tives said on an earn­ings call with an­a­lysts Wednes­day, off­set­ting a slump­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals sec­tor which pulled in 9% less than the same three-month pe­ri­od in 2020. In­clud­ed in that in­crease is Roche’s rapid Covid-19 anti­gen test, as well as re­search for its re­al-time PCR test to help mon­i­tor coro­n­avirus mu­ta­tions.

Roche said that the pan­dem­ic and the emer­gence of biosim­i­lars were the main con­trib­u­tors to the sales hit, see­ing sig­nif­i­cant com­pe­ti­tion to the MabThera/Rit­ux­an, Avastin and Her­ceptin fran­chis­es. Sales went down 14% in the US, though some of the de­cline was off­set by new­er ap­provals in Evrys­di, Ocre­vus, Hem­li­bra and Tecen­triq.