{"id":23850,"date":"2023-04-26T12:26:52","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T12:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/roche-q1-sales-down\/"},"modified":"2023-04-26T12:28:59","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T12:28:59","slug":"roche-q1-sales-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/roche-q1-sales-decline\/","title":{"rendered":"Roche Q1 sales decline tempered by swift uptake of new eye drug"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Ludwig Burger<\/p>\n<p>(Reuters) -Switzerland&#8217;s Roche said first-quarter sales dropped 7% on falling demand for its COVID-19 therapies and tests, less steep than analysts had expected thanks to strong revenue growth from a new eye drug.<\/p>\n<p>Group revenue fell to 15.3 billion Swiss francs ($17.2 billion), the company reported on Wednesday, beating a market view of 14.8 billion francs on a strong launch of anti-blindness treatment Vabysmo and better-than-expected sales of COVID antibody treatment Ronapreve. <\/p>\n<p>The company, which does not report earnings for its first quarter, reiterated that pandemic-related sales &#8211; mainly lab testing, Ronapreve and repurposed arthritis drug Actemra &#8211; would drop by 5 billion francs this year. <\/p>\n<p>But quarterly sales of Vabysmo, an injection against a common form of blindness in the elderly that won approval last year, came in at 432 million francs, making it the strongest growth driver in the pharmaceuticals division, Roche said.<\/p>\n<p>CEO Thomas Schinecker, previously head of diagnostics and in the top job since March, said Vabysmo sales beat consensus by more than 100 million francs in the quarter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are very happy with the very rapid and significant uptake in the different markets around the world,&#8221; he said on a media call.<\/p>\n<p>Roche&#8217;s Vabysmo is a challenger to Eylea, a rival product for a common age-related degeneration of the macula in the back of the eye, made by an alliance between Bayer and Regeneron.<\/p>\n<p>Vabysmo can be given at longer intervals between injections than the standard Eylea regimen, but Bayer and Regeneron are working on a high-dose version of their shot to offer the same advantage.<\/p>\n<p>Roche shares dropped 1.8% at 1135 GMT, following initial gains, on concern that the strong performance of COVID treatment Ronapreve is not sustainable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have some of the important pharma growth products beating expectations,&#8221; said Terence McManus, portfolio manager at Bellevue Asset Management in Kuesnacht, Switzerland.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But a mixed element is Ronapreve. That contributed to the beat but you expect that to decline significantly over time because COVID is going away.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Roche said that sales and core earnings per share were still expected to decrease at a &#8220;low single-digit&#8221; percentage in 2023.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Kirsti Knolle, Friederike Heine and Sharon Singleton)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/roche-q1-sales-decline\/file-photo-logo-of-swiss-drugmaker-roche-is-seen-in\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3P05R-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3P05R-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ludwig Burger (Reuters) -Switzerland&#8217;s Roche said first-quarter sales dropped 7% on falling demand for its COVID-19 therapies and tests, less steep than analysts had expected thanks to strong revenue growth from a new eye drug. Group revenue fell to 15.3 billion Swiss francs ($17.2 billion), the company reported on Wednesday, beating a market view [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":23865,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-23850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3P05R-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23850"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24435,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23850\/revisions\/24435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}