#8 - F. Hoffman - La Roche
4070 Basel (Switzerland)
Tel: (41) 61 688 1111
Fax: (41) 61 691 9391
www.roche.com
Headcount | 74,372 | |
Year Established | 1896 | |
Pharma Revenues* | $19,300 | +16% |
Total Revenues* | $33,5782 | +18% |
Net Income | $7,324 | +33% |
R&D Budget | $5,262 | +15% |
Top Selling Drugs | |||
Drug | Indication | Sales | (+/-%) |
tamiflu | influenza | $2,098 | +67% |
herceptin* | breast cancer | $1,902 | +94% |
mabthera/rituxan* | NHL | $1,793 | -2% |
neorecormon/epogin | anemia | $1,778 | -2% |
cellcept | transplantation | $1,471 | +7% |
pegasys/copegus | hepatitis C | $1,171 | -20% |
xeloda | oncology | $775 | +21% |
avastin* | oncology | $619 | +200% |
xenical | weight loss/management | $553 | +8% |
rocephin | antibiotic | $332 | -55% |
Account for 63% of total pharma sales, up from 59% in 2005.
* Figures only include Roche’s portion, not those of Genentech, which is 60% owned by Roche and co-markets several major products.
PROFILE
We're all afraid of cancer, and we're all afraid of a flu pandemic, so it looks like Roche is set for another strong year. The company's oncology drugs posted huge sales growth, with Herceptin's total numbers blasting past the $3 billion mark (Genentech booked $1.2 billion of that, leaving Roche's "share" at $1.9 billion) and Avastin adding $1 billion to reach a total of $2.4 (Roche's share of that was $619 million, while Genentech booked $1.7 billion).
The company has filed sNDAs in new oncology indications for both of these drugs. First approved for treatment of colorectal cancer, Avastin is showing plenty of potential in other fields, including kidney, lung (approved in October 2006) and breast cancers. Roche is ramping up its supply of both Avastin and Herceptin with new biomanufacturing facilities in Basel and Germany. In May 2007, the company announced completion of the Avastin API site, in Basel while the facility for Herceptin is due for completion in July. Validation and certification are expected to be wrapped up in 2009, at which point Avastin commercial manufacturing will commence. Roche has taken pains to insist that the Basel facility isn't dedicated to Avastin, but hasn't said what other programs it may accommodate.
Total Avastin sales grew 44% to $749 million in 1Q2007 ($216 million sans Genentech's portion), while Herceptin was up 43% to $947 million in the quarter ($636 million for Roche). And that's not even mentioning Roche and Genentech's biggest seller, MabThera/Rituxan, which was up 16% in 2006 to $3.8 billion ($2.0 billion of which was booked by Genentech), and posted $1.1 billion in 1Q2007 sales ($527 million of which were booked by Roche).
The Lowe Down: Roche
Roche is a difficult company to ignore, if you know the industry. They’re strong in many different therapeutic areas, and they’ve come up with some very interesting ideas over the years. They’re also active on an unusually broad front: small molecules, peptides, antibodies, diagnostics: they do them all. They also do deals with everyone from the big players down to companies that you’d swear that someone just made up for the press release. You wonder if anyone actually sleeps over there. But like a couple of other companies on this list, they keep a low profile with the broader public, which is probably a good idea in the current climate. I’m not looking for a Roche vehicle on the stock car racing circuit any time soon, for example. They’ve been strong in cancer, which has been a good market to be strong in the last few years. Their current move into arthritis could be a big one, since they’re off to the side of the vicious anti-TNF market space. But since it’s a new mechanism, here’s hoping that they don’t end up joining the Colossal Clinical Failure Society, which they’ve so far dodged. I don’t see any reason for any bad news, but the whole problem with joining the CCFS is that you never see it coming. --Derek Lowe |
Infectious
Tamiflu, meanwhile, didn't match up to 2005's jump of 371%, but it still added $845 million in sales to reach $2.1 billion in 2006. Governments continue to stockpile the flu medication as a bulwark against an H5N1 outbreak. At its 1Q2007 announcement, Roche contended that it "successfully established and tested a supply capacity capable of annually producing 400 million treatment courses, well in excess of government orders received to date," noting that 80 nations have ordered stockpiles so far.
Roche and Chugai announced in June 2007 that they will conduct new clinical trials for their flu medication, after reports of suicides by teenage Japanese Tamiflu users. The companies contend that there's no causal link between Tamiflu and the urge to jump off buildings, but will conduct both clinical research on the drug's influence on sleep and a review of its preclinical animal tox studies. The FDA required psychiatric warnings on Tamiflu's label last fall.
Buy Small, Think Big
In April, the company made a series of small acquisitions, topping out with the $600 million purchase of BioVeris. Chairman and chief executive officer Franz Humer ruled out making any major acquisitions with Roche's cash reserves, which reached nearly $20 billion before the April spree. In an interview with SwissRadioInternational, he remarked, "The money is there for small and medium-sized acquisitions. A big acquisition makes no sense for us. The cash is not burning a hole in our pocket."
Instead, it looks like some of that cash will be used to buttress Roche's R&D efforts. In February 2007, the company announced a restructuring of its global R&D, centered on Disease Biology Areas (DBA). Each DBA will be managed by a "cross-functional leadership team with representatives from Discovery, Clinical Research and Exploratory Development, Clinical Development and Strategic Marketing co-located at one site," according to Roche. DBAs were established for the following therapeutic areas:
- Oncology - Nutley, NJ
- Virology - Palo Alto, CA
- Inflammation - Palo Alto, CA
- Metabolism - Basel, Switzerland
- Central nervous system - Basel, Switzerland
The company is going great guns in several of those areas, and with Actemra (rheumatoid arthritis) giving a strong Phase III performance, Mircera's approvable ruling in renal anemia (pending FDA review of its entire class), and new oncology indications for its top drugs, Roche and its "partners" are poised for serious growth.