Drug makers Roche and Sanofi Company Recent gains have largely been as expected, with companies touting the potential of experimental drugs the coming “patent cliff” For Big Pharma.
Shares of both companies fell less than 1% after reporting earnings before the bell on Thursday.
Both are among pharmaceutical companies that will see their revenues plummet in the coming years unless they develop drugs in-house or acquire drug candidates developed by others.
“On the pipeline side, we’ve had an amazing run of several Phase 3 readings that will be important for future growth,” CNBC CEO Thomas Schinecker told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday.
“We now have a number of drugs in late-stage development, and we will have 19 new drugs that we can launch by the end of the decade.”
Innovation is the focus
Sanofi reported quarterly figures on both the top and bottom lines and issued guidance for 2026 largely in line with expectations.
It reported a 13% rise in fourth-quarter sales in constant currencies and earnings per share of 1.53 euros ($1.20), beating both forecasts, even thanks to opposition from its vaccine business. Changes in US vaccine policy.
“Growth was supported by new drugs and Dupixent, which reached the highest quarterly level,” CEO Paul Hudson said in a statement.
Like Roche, Sanofi also sees sales growth in the high single digits in 2026, with profit growth “slightly higher than revenue.”
“We expect profitable growth to continue for at least five years,” the company said.
Despite the blow and the newly announced €1 billion share buyback, the focus of Sanofi investors remains on the company’s research and development.
The need to expand the pipeline will bring long-term R&D spending and future M&A front and center at Sanofi’s Thursday afternoon earnings call, Jefferies analyst Michael Leichten said in a post-earnings note.
Access to obesity
In addition to treatments for experimental breast cancer drugs geligestrant and fenebrutinib, Roche is betting big on a piece of the lucrative anti-obesity market in the coming years.
The company has faced losing exclusivity on some of its best-selling drugs, but CEO Schinker told CNBC that was “totally manageable.”
On Tuesday, the company reported positive results from a Phase 2 clinical trial for its weight loss candidate CT-388. This drug has been shown to reduce weight by 22.5% compared to competitors on the market within 48 weeks. Novo Nordisk Vegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound. The company hopes to compete in an increasingly crowded market through differentiation.
Last year, Roche also announced a A partnership with Danish Zealand Pharma Development of Zeeland’s petrelintide, an amylin analog, independently as well as in combination with CT-388.
“We’re not investing in the first generation of these drugs, we’re investing in the next generation,” CEO Schinker told CNBC on Thursday.
“We can differentiate in combination with other treatments at home because there are more than 200 comorbidities in neurology, immunology, cancer, and none of the other players have the portfolio we have for combinations,” he said, adding that there are windows of differentiation with the long-lasting molecule itself as well as diagnostics.