By Puyaan Singh and Kunal Das
April 29 (Reuters) – Regeneron Pharmaceuticals beat Wall Street estimates for first-quarter revenue and profit on Wednesday, helped by strong demand for its eczema drug, Dupixent.
The company’s shares, however, fell nearly 6% due to issues with its eye drug, Eylea, including weak sales of a higher-dose version and a delay by the U.S. drug regulator in approving a pre-filled syringe version.
The company has been relying on Dupixent, which it co-develops with French drugmaker Sanofi, to counter weakness for eye drug Eylea, which faces competition from cheaper versions and rival treatments such as Roche’s Vabysmo.
Regeneron is trying to switch more patients to Eylea HD, the higher-dose version of the drug.
Bernstein analyst William Pickering told Reuters that a “lack of incremental details that could give investors more confidence in the pipeline, especially the development timelines for a successor to Dupixent” was also reflected in the stock’s weakness.
Total Eylea sales, including the high dose, fell 10% to $941 million. Eylea HD sales rose 52% to $468 million, but fell sequentially due to lower wholesaler inventory levels.
Regeneron’s product commercialization head, Marion McCourt, said the company expects to achieve “sequential unit demand growth” for the higher-dose version in the current quarter.
The modest reduction in Eylea inventory is expected to impact second-quarter sales by around $20 million, McCourt added.
Quarterly Dupixent sales of $4.88 billion, recorded by Sanofi, beat analysts’ estimates of $4.59 billion, according to LSEG data.
Last year, the FDA declined to approve a pre-filled syringe version of Eylea HD due to issues at contract manufacturer Catalent’s Indiana filling facility, now owned by Novo Holdings.
Regeneron said the regulator did not act by its April 2026 target date on the company’s application for a second contract manufacturer. The company anticipates a regulatory decision during the second quarter.
The Tarrytown, New York-based company posted quarterly adjusted profit of $9.47 per share, beating analysts’ estimate of $8.94.
(Reporting by Kunal Das and Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
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