With quarterly earnings underway, BioPharma Dive is providing a snapshot of some companies’ results and how they’re being received by investors. Today, we’re offering insight into the latest numbers from AstraZeneca, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals.

AstraZeneca’s cost cuts

Since 2024, AstraZeneca has zeroed in on a key number: $80 billion. Executives have been adamant full-year revenue will hit that target by 2030, even in the face of multiple clinical setbacks that have slowed the company’s momentum.

AstraZeneca reiterated in its latest earnings report it is “on track” to meet that goal. Since February, the company has reported positive results from 12 late-stage programs and brought four new drugs to market, CEO Pascal Soriot told analysts. Over the next year, 20 “high-value trial readouts” could, if positive, yield peak annual revenue opportunities surpassing $20 billion.

“A significant part” of that total should “become reality over the next few years,” Soriot proclaimed.

Yet a different number — $1.5 billion — caught Wall Street’s attention on Friday. That’s a figure associated with a new cost-savings program, “Reshaping for Sustainable Growth,” that AstraZeneca revealed alongside its June-to-September results. Through it, the company will save $1.5 billion annually and “reinvest” that money largely back into drug research, according to a presentation.

When speaking with analysts, CEO Soriot claimed AstraZeneca has been working on this plan since the beginning of the year. The company believes it has to “redeploy resources” to support its pipeline, in part by embedding artificial intelligence more deeply into its operations, he said.

AI is helping “make us faster, smarter,” Soriot said. AstraZeneca can “grow without growing,” meaning it can “grow without adding as many people as you would have if you didn't have the use of AI.”

Finance chief Aradhana Sarin reportedly said on a separate media call that she doesn’t expect the initiative to lead to a net reduction in the size of AstraZeneca’s workforce. The company projects a one-time $2 billion restructuring charge in connection with the program.

AstraZeneca shares climbed 7% on Friday.

Alnylam’s slump

Two years ago, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals triumphantly declared that Amvuttra, a drug critical to its future, succeeded in an important trial in a deadly heart disease. To Wall Street, the result made Amvuttra a surefire blockbuster and positioned Alnylam for profitability. Company shares rocketed from around $160 in June 2024 to record highs of more than $480 as Amvuttra’s launch in that disease, transthyretin amyloidosis cardiomyopathy, got off to a very fast start.

With the release of its latest earnings report on Thursday, though, Alnylam has now given all of that value back. Earlier this year, the company cut guidance after conceding that Amvuttra’s early launch spike benefited from pent-up demand that’s since normalized. And though Alnylam on Thursday reported $1.13 billion in third-quarter Amvuttra revenue — in line with Wall Street expectations — investors came away even more skeptical of its sales trajectory.

Analysts believe one reason for the cynicism is a proposed rule change that, if finalized, would substantially cut Medicare reimbursement for medicines acquired through the 340B drug discount program. Another is that UnitedHealth, one of the nation’s largest insurers, adopted a more “restrictive” policy for first-line Amvuttra use in certain patients. These disclosures reflected a “weaker-than-anticipated outlook” for Amvuttra and heightened the chances that the drug’s 2026 revenue ends up on the lower end of Alnylam’s financial forecasts, wrote William Blair analyst Myles Minter.

“The back-to-back quarters of headwinds undoubtedly call into question the growth outlook for the franchise and make it difficult to assess near-term 2027 revenue estimates as well as the longer-term trajectory,” Minter added.

Alnylam shares tumbled more than 20% as investors digested the news and its implications for Amvuttra. The near-term numbers for the drug “are likely to come down — probably significantly,” wrote Stifel analyst Paul Matteis. “[I]t’s hard to see a path for the stock with it not being a beat-and-raise story.”

Regeneron’s resilience

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ outlook appeared shaky only months ago. A procession of newly launched biosimilar medicines posed a budding threat to its Eylea eye drug business. A high-dose form of Eylea wasn’t selling as well as investors had hoped. And a top oncology prospect fell short in an anticipated study in melanoma, wiping out a revenue opportunity the company had been counting on. In early June, shares traded around $612 apiece, their lowest levels since late last year. Some analysts called on management to make a deal to change the narrative.

Yet Regeneron’s market value has steadily crept back up since then. And on Friday, shares shot up by another 13% on an earnings report lauded by Wall Street analysts. Between June and September, global net sales of top moneymaker Dupixent spiked 35% to $6.5 billion — and Regeneron is now seeing more of that cash after wrapping up research payments it had owed to partner Sanofi. High-dose Eylea generated $700 million, topping Wall Street estimates. The cancer immunotherapy Libtayo followed with $550 million, also beating expectations.

All three numbers represented record totals, which “underscores the health of Regeneron’s core businesses” and reflects the company’s “successful defense” against biosimilar competition, wrote RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Abrahams in a Friday note. Investors are “undoubtedly rewarding this performance.”

“Biosimilar and branded competition to Eylea is still worth watching for '27,” Abrahams wrote. But “for now we expect the headline beat to dominate optics.”

TD Cowen analyst Tyler Van Buren added that Regeneron’s drug pipeline, which includes an autoimmune therapy in late-stage testing, a blood thinner in Phase 3 trials and a longer-acting form of Dupixent “continues to see very little value” from investors.

One prospect he and others are watching is an RNA-based medicine Regeneron licensed from Alnylam. Regeneron is developing the drug, “ALN-CIDEB,” for the liver disease “MASH.” On a Friday conference call, executives described the drug’s effects on liver-fat levels in an early-stage trial as “game-changing,” though Regeneron hasn’t yet proved that the treatment can affect the inflammation and scarring that characterizes the disease.

The drug appears “differentiated,” but “we think it is premature to call CIDEB’s efficacy best-in-class,” wrote Leerink Partners analyst David Risinger.

Early data will be presented at a medical meeting this month. Phase 3 testing should start by the end of the year.