- The sharp decline in corona-related sales has left a clear mark on the accounts of the pharmaceutical company Roche.
- In the first quarter of 2023, Group sales shrank by 6.8 percent to 15.3 billion francs, Roche announced.
- However, analysts had expected a stronger decline.
The lack of corona sales in the diagnostics division was particularly noticeable, with sales falling by 31 percent to CHF 3.6 billion. The business with corona tests had brought the smaller Roche division a flight of fancy in recent years.
The pharmaceuticals division, on the other hand, achieved sales of 11.7 billion Swiss francs in the first quarter, an increase of five percent. Here, the eye drug Vabysmo, which was only launched at the beginning of 2022, has turned out to be the division’s biggest growth driver, as Roche reported.
Cautious outlook for the year as a whole
The reported figures are mostly above the expected range of the analysts’ estimates. Roche traditionally does not present profit figures after three months. The new CEO Thomas Schinecker, who has been in office since mid-March, reiterated the cautious annual targets formulated by his predecessor Severin Schwan. At constant exchange rates, the Group expects sales to decline in the low single-digit percentage range.
Legend:
Thomas Schinecker at the Annual General Meeting in Basel: These are the first quarterly figures that he is presenting as the new CEO.
KEYSTONE/Georgios Kefalas
Excluding the sharp decline in Covid-19 sales, Roche management continues to expect solid underlying sales growth in both divisions.
With a view to the stress factors, Roche had previously expected a drop in sales of around five billion francs due to the declining corona business. Copycat products for the long-serving blockbusters Avastin, Herceptin and Rituxan are likely to reduce sales by around 1.6 billion.