New products help lift UCB

UCB’s newer products showed impressive growth in the first six months of this year, helping keep the Belgium-based biopharma firm’s revenues in the black.

The company’s half-year revenue rose 3% to €1.64 billion, thanks to strong performance from Cimzia, Neupro and Vimpat, and its generic Venlafaxine XR.

Sales of Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis treatment Cimzia were up 240% to €83 million and the Neupro patch for Parkinson’s disease and restless leg syndrome saw sales increase by nearly a half to €39 million.

Meanwhile UCB’s new anti-epileptic Vimpat reached net sales of €55 million, up 135%, and Venlafaxine XR, a generic version of Pfizer’s Efexor, rose 134% to €97 million.

Roch Doliveux, chief executive of UCB, said: "We are pleased with the launch trajectories of Cimzia, Vimpat and Neupro as we are on track to become the patient-centric global biopharma leader transforming the lives of people living with serious diseases of the central nervous system and immunology.

"Our solid financial results are in line with our guidance. With the Keppra approval in Japan, the filing of Xyrem in the EU, three clinical phase III programmes to start by the end of this year, and our anti–IL 6 project to enter phase IIb next year, we are building the foundation for sustainable future growth."

But anti-epileptic treatment Keppra - the company’s biggest-seller - saw sales dip by 1% to €460 million, dragged down by generic competition in the US where sales slumped by over a fifth. The product’s sales were only buoyed up by its strong performance in Europe, where sales were up 12% as it extended its market leadership position.

Its second biggest-selling product, allergy treatment Zyrtec, remained stable in Europe but net sales slipped 12% to €150 million due to disinvestment from UCB’s marketing partner GlaxoSmithKline.

The company said in a statement that it expects revenue to reach approximately €3 billion in 2010 with the first full year of generic competition to Keppra in the US, the impact of divested products and further erosion of our mature products being partially offset by the performance of newly launched products.

Ben Adams