Bayer has added almost €2bn to its peak sales predictions for a clutch of five recently-launched products amid buoyant pharma division growth in the last quarter of 2013.
The new products – anticoagulant Xarelto (rivaroxaban), eye medicine Eylea (aflibercept), cancer drugs Stivarga (regorafenib) and Xofigo (radium Ra 223 dichloride) and pulmonary hypertension therapy Adempas (riociguat) – are now expected to add around €7.5bn a year to Bayer’s turnover at peak, according to chief executive Marijn Dekkers.
Over the course of 2013 as a whole the five posted sales of €1.52bn – four times the level of 2012 – helping Bayer’s pharma unit to grow more than 9 per cent to €11.19bn out of total group sales up by one point to €40.16bn.
Most of the predicted sales increase has been attributed to Xarelto, and expected peak sales have increased from €2bn to €3.5bn a year, said Dekkers. In the fourth quarter Xarelto became Bayer’s top-selling drug with sales of €316m, up from €131m a year ago.
The picture was not entirely positive in the fourth quarter, with Bayer’s former biggest-selling pharma product Betaseron (interferon beta-1b) for multiple sclerosis falling more than 21 per cent to €259m on higher levels of competition from new, orally active drugs, while the Yaz/Yasmin birth control franchise fell 19 per cent to €219m.
Haemophilia therapy Kogenate (antihemophilic factor) added €294m to the tally, down 8 per cent, which the company attributed to shifts in ordering patterns.
Fresh from announcing a deal to buy Chinese over-the-counter drugmaker Dihon Pharmaceutical, Bayer also reported a 4 per cent sales decline for its consumer health division to €1.96bn – in line with expectations. Growth in Europe was offset by declines in North America, Asia-Pacific and other areas of the world.
For 2014 Bayer is predicting another high single-digit growth rate for its pharma business, with overall group sales expected to rise 5 per cent to €41bn-€42bn. Consumer health should return to low- to mid-single-digit growth in the wake of the Dihon deal, it added.