Roche Profit Growth Boosted by New Drugs -- Update
January 30 2020 - 2:53AM
Dow Jones News
By Denise Roland
New drugs for multiple sclerosis and hemophilia drove growth at
Roche Holding AG (ROG.EB) last year, a sign the company's efforts
to move beyond cancer treatments are paying off.
The Swiss healthcare giant on Thursday said that sales rose 9%
to 61.5 billion Swiss francs ($63.2 billion) in 2019. Core
operating profit, a closely-watched measure that strips out some
one-time items, rose 11% to CHF22.5 billion.
Net income climbed 32% to CHF14.1 billion, partly because of an
impairment charge in the prior-year period.
For years, Roche leaned heavily on three cancer
drugs--Herceptin, Rituxan and Avastin--to drive growth. But with
those drugs now facing generic competition and expected to lose
billions in sales in the coming years, the company is looking
elsewhere for growth.
Those efforts have proven successful so far. Last year, two of
the most significant growth drivers were Ocrevus, for multiple
sclerosis, and Hemlibra, for hemophilia. Roche hasn't backed out of
cancer entirely: two oncology drugs, Tecentriq and Perjeta, were
also strong growth drivers.
"Based on the progress we made in rejuvenating our portfolio,
Roche is very well positioned to grow going forward," said Chief
Executive Severin Schwan.
Roche is also branching into gene therapy, a new area of
medicine that holds the potential to cure serious inherited
diseases by providing a working copy of a defective gene. The Swiss
company has inked two deals in the last year, including the $4.8
billion acquisition of Spark Therapeutics, that handed it a
marketed gene therapy and several under development.
Within Roche's pharmaceuticals division, sales rose 11% to
CHF48.5 billion. The smaller diagnostics division reported growth
of 3% to CHF13 billion.
The company said it expects sales to grow in the low to mid
single digits in 2020, despite increased competition from low-cost
competitors to its historic best-sellers.
Write to Denise Roland at denise.roland@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 30, 2020 02:38 ET (07:38 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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