By Ludwig Burger
FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Roche said first-half core operating profit fell 14% as the Swiss drugs and diagnostics maker was hit by a sharp decline in sales of COVID-19 products but the strong launch of a new eye drug mitigated the decline.
It said in a statement on Thursday that core operating profit came in at 10.9 billion Swiss francs ($12.68 billion), in line with analysts’ expectations,
Half-year sales of Vabysmo, an injection against a common form of blindness in the elderly that won approval early last year, came in at 1 billion francs, above an analysts’ consensus of about 890 million francs.
Roche is marketing injection drug Vabysmo, the strongest growth driver in the pharmaceuticals division, as a treatment option that can be given at longer intervals than the conventional regimen of established Eylea by Bayer and Regeneron.
The rivals have been working on a high-dose version of Eylea that can also be injected less frequently but U.S. health regulators in June declined to approve it, raising expectations of a faster ramp-up of Vabysmo sales.
Roche said it still expects a decrease in group sales in the low single-digit percentage range in 2023, without the effect of currency swings.
That is driven by a sharp decline in sales of COVID-19 products of about 5 billion Swiss francs, as demand drops for COVID-19 lab testing, antibody treatment Ronapreve as well as repurposed arthritis drug Actemra.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, Editing by Rachel More)
