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The Korea Herald
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THE INVESTOR
March 19, 2024

Bio

[AGM] Celltrion Healthcare sales to jump 70% this year: Seo

  • PUBLISHED :March 23, 2018 - 21:48
  • UPDATED :March 23, 2018 - 21:48
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[THE INVESTOR] Celltrion Chairman Seo Jung-jin said on March 23 that the firm’s global marketing and distribution arm Celltrion Healthcare will likely see a big jump in revenue this year on the back of a solid biosimilar pipeline.

“Conservatively speaking, I would say Celltrion Healthcare sales will reach between 1.6 trillion (US$1.48 billion) and 2 trillion won in sales,” Seo said in a telephone interaction with 27,000 shareholders during a general shareholders meeting in Songdo, Incheon.

The projection is more than 70 percent higher than the 921.1 billion won in 2017. 


Signage of Celltrion HQ in Songdo, Incheon



Seo’s ambitious sales target comes as Celltrion’s three biosimilars – Remsima, Truxima and Herzuma – are showing stronger market penetration in the European markets.

Launched in 2015, Celltrion’s first biosimilar Remsima has attained a 49 percent market share in Europe as of the end of September 2017, according to market researcher IMS Health. The growth rate of Truxima -- a copycat of Roche’s Rituxan -- is even faster than that of Remsima.

Following approval by the European Commission in February, Truxima began selling in the UK and Germany in April.

In the US, where Remsima is called Inflectra and sold by Pfizer with a 5.6 percent market share, the biosimilar will post strong performance after the second quarter, according to the chairman.

“It won’t be difficult to gain additional market share in Europe, given that other biosimilars have insignificant presence,” Seo said.

The chairman added that in the future, Celltrion Healthcare will implement a direct sales model instead of hiring local distribution partners for products to be developed after the three biosimilars in which already have distributors like Pfizer and MundiPharma.

“Except for Europe and middle eastern countries showing quite robust sales performances, Celltrion Healthcare will handle all global sales to cut retail costs,” he said.

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

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