Dive Brief:
- Driven by the continued success of key growth products, including blockbuster blood-thinner Xarelto (rivaroxaban), Bayer said Feb. 22 that its 2016 pharma sales climbed 9% year-over-year to nearly €16.4 billion ($17.35 billion).
- Overall, last year the German company’s pharmaceutical sales "advanced by a gratifying amount. We expanded business markedly in all regions," said Bayer CEO Werner Baumann.
- Business from Bayer’s key pharma growth products developed particularly robustly, the company said. Combined, these five products —including Xarelto, Eylea, Xofigo and Stivarga, and Adempas— generated €5.4 billion in sales last year, up 29% over 2015.
Dive Insight:
During a Feb. 22 earnings call, Bayer CEO Werner Baumann led off by focusing on pharma’s performance, noting that the division "achieved substantial sales and earnings increases" in 2016. For 2017 Bayer expects its pharma division’s overall sales to surpass €17 billion, Baumann said.
And for its key pharma growth products—Xarelto, Eylea, Xofigo and Stivarga, and Adempas—Bayer raised its estimate of the combined annual peak sales potential to €10 billion-plus, up from €7.5 billion.
Baumann said his company anticipates the release of complete data analysis later in 2017 of the Phase 3 Compass study evaluating Xarelto to prevent major adverse cardiac events (MACE), including heart attack and stroke. The study was halted earlier than planned due to overwhelming efficacy.
"Obviously we’re extremely excited about the fact that not only were we able to demonstrate superiority on the primary end point of MACE. We were able to do it earlier than previously anticipated," said Dieter Weinand, head of Bayer's pharmaceutical division. "And as you can imagine that being the largest of our life cycle management indications that we are looking at approximately the size of the SPAF indication, our currently largest indication significantly derisks our life cycle management program that we have in place."
Last year Xarelto had sales of €2.9 billion, up 31% over 2015. Bayer posted significant gains for its license revenues, recognized as sales, in the U.S., where Xarelto is marketed by Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.
Eylea generated sales last year of €1.6 billion, up 33% over the prior year, Baumann said, noting the eye medicine did especially well in Europe, Canada and Japan. With its cancer drugs, Xofigo ended 2016 with €331 million in sales, up 29%. Stivarga finished the year with €275 million in sales: a 12% decrease year-over-year. Sales of Adempas, a pulmonary hypertension treatment, attributable to Bayer totaled €254 million in 2016.
Weinand said the company considers itself well-positioned in hemophilia, a historical area of strength for the company. Bayer recently launched Kovaltry, "our longer-acting product, to compete with these newer or more recently launched longer-acting products such as Eloctate. We’re off to a good start, the launch meets our expectations and we look forward to continued contribution from Kovaltry to our Kogenate franchise," he said.
Bayer is also "obviously looking" at the Recombinant Factor VIII market, still plans to file in mid-2017, and expects to be "positioned very well to compete in that market as we believe Factor VIII replacement therapy" will be "a mainstay" in treating hemophilia, Weinand said.
Baumann also gave an update on Bayer’s agreement to acquire Monsanto, announced in September 2016. He said the companies are "making good progress in obtaining antitrust approvals for the transaction," having already applied for clearance from about two-thirds of 30-odd authorities. "We are currently responding to a second request from the U.S. Department of Justice," he added.