NEW YORK – Roche reported on Wednesday that its first quarter pharmaceutical revenue grew 9 percent at constant exchange rates (CER), driven in part by strong uptake of its anti-PD-L1 and HER2-targeted drugs.
Roche's overall revenue for the three months ended March 31 fell 3 percent at CER to CHF 15.32 billion ($17.18 billion) compared to CHF 16.45 billion for the same quarter in 2022, largely due to declining sales of COVID-19 tests, Roche Group CEO Thomas Schinecker said in a conference call to discuss the company's financials. Revenues from the Swiss drugmaker's pharmaceuticals division increased 9 percent to CHF 11.70 billion from CHF 11.16 billion in the year-ago period, while revenues from the diagnostics division fell 28 percent to CHF 3.62 billion from CHF 5.29 billion.
Roche Pharmaceuticals CEO Teresa Graham, who took over the role in March, said in an earnings call that revenues from Roche's oncology portfolio grew 4 percent at CER compared to the first quarter of 2023.
Sales of the PD-L1 inhibitor Tecentriq (atezolizumab) contributed CHF 920 million to Q1 2023 revenues, a 15 percent increase at CER compared to Q1 2022. Tecentriq's growth was driven by increased sales in the adjuvant non-small cell lung cancer and first-line hepatocellular carcinoma settings.
Roche's IMpassion030 Phase III trial of Tecentriq and chemotherapy in adjuvant triple-negative breast cancer had a negative outcome, and the company has terminated the trial, Roche executives said during the call. Roche voluntarily withdrew Tecentriq's indication in PD-L1-positive metastatic TNBC in 2021 following results from the Phase III IMpassion131 trial, in which the checkpoint inhibitor and paclitaxel failed to produce a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival over paclitaxel alone as a first-line therapy. This was after the US Food and Drug Administration's Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted 7 to 2 in favor of maintaining the drug's approval in that indication.
Graham said Roche hasn't received unblinded data from the IMpassion030 trial, and therefore, the firm has yet to determine the reason for the trial's failure.
In Roche's HER2 franchise, Perjeta (pertuzumab) sales were CHF $1.05 billion, an 11 percent increase at CER from Q1 2022. Kadcyla (trastuzumab emtansine) sales during the same period grew 5 percent at CER to CHF 509 million. The fixed-dose combination regimen Phesgo (pertuzumab/trastuzumab/hyaluronidase) recorded CHF 241 million in sales, up 72 percent at CER from the year-ago period.
Sales of Alecensa (alectinib), a treatment for ALK-positive metastatic NSCLC, contributed CHF 372 million in Q1 2023, a 9 percent increase at CER from Q1 2022. Graham said Roche is "anxiously awaiting" data from the ALINA trial in adjuvant ALK-positive NSCLC this year, which is expected to drive "significant new growth for Alecensa," Graham said.
Since sales of its COVID-19 products have declined "sharply" by roughly CHF 5 billion, Roche said in 2023 it continues to expect overall sales in the low-single-digit range at constant exchange rates. Excluding this impact, Roche anticipates "solid sales growth" in both its pharmaceutical and diagnostics divisions.