April 27, 2024

• 

[THE INVESTOR] Sales of Remicade, the blockbuster anti-inflammatory treatment from US pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson plunged by double-digits in the second quarter amid increasing competition from biosimilar copies, according to the company in an earnings call on July 19.

Global sales sank about 14 percent on-year to US$1.35 billion in the April-June period. 

J&J attributed it to rebate adjustments from the second quarter last year. Accounting for them, Remicade is down only about 5 percent, said J&J’s CFO Dominic Caruso.

Industry watchers say the recent wave of biosimilar competitors, such as Celltrion’s Inflectra and Samsung Bioepis’ Renflixis, is also undermining the strength of the original drug. Earlier this year, J&J had predicted a 10-15 percent erosion in sales in 2017 following the US launch of Inflectra in November last year. Adding to J&J’s concerns, Samsung Bioepis is poised to launch Renflixis, another copy referencing Remicade that was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in April.

“In terms of what impact (Renflixis) might have, I think it depends on the price discounts they offer,” said Caruso at the earnings call.

Meanwhile, for firms like Celltrion which sells the biosimilar version via Pfizer in the US and multiple partners in European markets, falling Remicade sales can be an indication of their performance.

“The decline in Remicade sales appear to have been affected by Inflectra. We expect to see a rise in Inflectra sales when Pfizer announces its second-quarter earnings on Aug. 1,” said Shin Jae-hoon, an analyst at eBest Investment & Securities.

In May, Celltrion said Inflectra had sales of US$17 million in the US from last November to March this year.

By Park Han-na (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)