Roche is in the midst of a revamp. As it cuts some R&D areas to streamline its pipeline, the Swiss drugmaker is betting on sales growth from its portfolio and a new stream of acquisitions to offset headwinds.
By 2028, Roche anticipates sales from a handful of aging biologic blockbusters will be 6.8 billion Swiss francs, or roughly $8 billion, less than what the Swiss pharmaceutical company recorded last year, according to an investor presentation.
However, Roche thinks it can more than compensate for that sales shortfall. According to CEO Thomas Shinecker, the company can cover the anticipated sales erosion with “the momentum we have in our portfolio,” he told investors at a Monday event. Its portfolio of newer drugs has the potential for more than $16 billion in sales growth, the company projects, and its pipeline could contribute over $4 billion by then.
Shinecker said the expected growth will far outstrip the expected losses from biosimilar competition. “We went from eight blockbusters in 2013 to 16 blockbusters this year,” he said. “By the end of the year, we may have 17 blockbusters.”
A decade’s ambitions
As part of the presentation, Shinecker revealed Roche’s 10-year vision, which includes delivering “20 transformative medicines addressing diseases with a higher societal burden.” The company is focusing on five therapeutic areas, including three — cardiometabolic, oncology and neurology — that make up 50% of disease burden in the world, Shinecker said. The new focus areas also include immunology and ophthalmology.
“We've been reallocating money, looking for areas where we can reduce our spending in order to shift into areas that are much more valuable to our business,” Shinecker said Monday. “And we've been very, very stringent in doing that.”
Roche unveiled plans to cut about 25% of its pipeline, The Wall Street Journal reported in September. The company shared more details to those plans in February.
At the same time, Roche is filling in its pipeline with some new assets it’s acquired. The company bought two next generation CDK inhibitor drugs for breast cancer from Regor Pharmaceuticals for $850 million. Roche has another breast cancer drug candidate, inavolisib, that could get an FDA nod Nov. 27.
Additionally, Roche announced its subsidiary Genentech will acquire AntlerA Therapeutics, a biotech specializing in Wnt signaling with several ophthalmology drug candidates.
New markets
Roche executives were also bullish on their move into the burgeoning obesity drug market, which came about after the Swiss drugmaker picked up three diabetes and weight loss drugs as part of its $2.7 billion acquisition of Carmot Therapeutics at the end of 2023. Roche announced positive Phase 1 trial results in July from one of the candidates, an oral GLP-1 dubbed CT-996, as well as positive Phase 1 news on an injectable GLP-1 in May.
However, data released in September for CT-996 also revealed side effects that triggered concerns among some investors that it ultimately won’t be sufficiently competitive in the fast-growing obesity market.
Still, executives said Monday they expect combined annual sales from these drugs to reach $3.6 billion in annual sales, Reuters reported. Execs are betting on the drugs having reduced adverse side effects compared to market leaders — Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Mounjaro — according to the presentation.
Several other drugmakers are also pursuing oral GLP-1s that could offer a convenience advantage over injectables, which some patients may be averse to taking.
