With a focus on a 2030 revenue target, AstraZeneca Plc presented 2024 financial results on 6 February which exceeded expectations but also threw up some risks. Group revenue for 2024 was $54.1 billion, up by 18% at actual exchange rates and by 21% at constant rates, buoyed by double-digit increases across the portfolio. This included sales of drugs for cancer, cardiovascular, renal, metabolic, and respiratory diseases as well as for rare conditions.
GSK Plc has upgraded its forecast for long-term growth following a year in which specialty medicines for oncology and HIV delivered double-digit increases in sales. At the end of 2024 the company had 19 new products in Phase 3 or registration. Emma Walmsley, the chief executive, told journalists on 5 February that the company now expects to achieve more than £40 billion in sales by 2031, up from the company’s previous forecast of £38 billion. At the same time, GSK announced plans to buy back £2 billion of its shares over the next 18 months.
Sanofi SA increased its spending on research and development in 2024 as it moved into new technologies and advanced its position in diabetes in order to strengthen its position as a proprietary drug producer. This is ahead of the spin-out of its consumer healthcare business Opella which is expected to take place, at the earliest, in the second quarter. The company’s R&D spend in 2024 was €7.4 billion, up by more than 14% from a year earlier and represented 18% of sales.
A German biotech company with genome editing technology has raised €8 million in seed financing to progress a nuclease-based product for cancer. Akribion Therapeutics GmbH is a 2024 spin-out of the industrial company BRAIN Biotech AG which supplies enzymes and proteins to the biotech industry. Akribion has in-licensed a nuclease from BRAIN which it says has promise for treating cancers. Its lead product will be developed for HPV-induced oropharyngeal head and neck cancer.
The Roche Group launched two new medicines in 2024 and expanded its portfolio with the acquisition in November of Poseida Therapeutics Inc, a developer of allogeneic cell therapies. The deal, valued at $1.5 billion, capped a year of expansion for the Swiss company which grew sales by 3% in Swiss francs and by 7% at constant exchange rates. This was despite the loss of exclusivity for six legacy medicines which saw a sales decline of CHF 1 billion.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a new non-opioid treatment for pain that targets a signalling pathway in the peripheral nervous system before pain signals reach the brain. The drug, Journavx (suzetrigine), is the first drug in a new class of medicines for the treatment of moderate to severe acute pain arising from trauma or surgery. Typically, these cases may be treated with prescription opioids.
“The world is not waiting for us,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president told journalists on 29 January as she introduced new proposals to improve the competitive position of European industry. The Commission president outlined three goals for the coming year. They include providing incentives for new companies, especially in artificial intelligence; advancing clean energy; and expanding commercial partnerships with companies and countries across the globe. The measures for companies include incentives for generating risk capital.
A radiopharmaceutical which is being developed for patients with neuroendocrine tumours, a rare form of cancer, has delivered positive data from a Phase 3 trial paving the way for a possible regulatory submission this year, according to the developer ITM Isotope Technologies Munich SE. The therapy, ITM-11, achieved statistically significant progression- free survival for patients compared with everolimus, a small molecule immunosuppressant that was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2009.
Two oligonucleotide drugs are to enter the clinic this year for the treatment of Huntington’s disease and epilepsy using a technology that directly targets the brain and spinal cord. The developer, Atalanta Therapeutics Inc of Boston, US, announced the prospective trials on 28 January alongside the close of a $97 million Series B financing round which will bring the candidate therapies up to the clinical proof-of-concept stage. The financing was co-led by the private equity group EQT Life Sciences and Sanofi Ventures.
The Alzheimer’s disease drug, Leqembi (lecanemab), has been approved in the US for a new dosing schedule enabling patients to continue taking it after 18 months of treatment. The new maintenance indication will enable dosing once every four weeks using an intravenous administration. It will take effect after the 18-month initiation phase of bi-weekly dosing finishes. Leqembi has been approved for patients with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia, also known as early Alzheimer’s disease.