Four major pharmaceutical companies released their latest financial reports Thursday morning, including Merck, Eli Lilly, Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS).
The results come amid the first earnings season of 2023, where companies like Novartis, GSK, Amgen and Pfizer have already produced their year-end and quarterly financials.
Here are the highlights of the respective earnings reports filed today by each company.
• For the quarter, Merck reported top-line growth, with total worldwide sales increasing 2% year-over-year to $13.8 billion.
• The pharma giant’s full-year worldwide sales topped $59 billion and looking forward, the company expects its 2023 worldwide sales to be between $57.2 billion and $58.7 billion, accounting for around $1 billion in Lagevrio sales.
• Merck’s major transaction during the quarter was its $1.35 billion purchase of Imago BioSciences to boost its hematology portfolio.
• The company, in conjunction with Moderna, also released data in December that found a combination of an investigational personalized mRNA cancer vaccine and Keytruda showed efficacy in patients with Stage III/IV melanoma.
• Lilly’s Q4 revenues fell by 9%, though its much-hyped type 2 diabetes drug Mounjaro generated $279.2 million during the period.
• The company’s net income did grow 12% year-over-year, while its earnings per share (EPS) rose 13%.
• At the end of 2022, Lilly released a 2023 guidance banking on the launch of up to four new medicines to continue its growth trajectory.
• The earnings report was released less than two weeks after the Food and Drug Administration rebuffed the company’s accelerated-approval submission for donanemab in early Alzheimer’s and after Lilly invested $450 million into its Research Triangle Park facility in North Carolina to boost manufacturing for its diabetes products.
• For the period ended December 31, 2022, Takeda reported revenue growth of nearly 14% and core revenue growth of 4.5% at constant exchange rates (CER).
• Additionally, Takeda’s net profit rose 18.4% at CER, while its operating cash flow fell by 8.6%.
• The Japanese company’s biggest deal during the quarter was its $4 billion purchase of an inflammatory disease drug from Nimbus Therapeutics.
• The earnings report was released just over a week after Takeda announced it acquired the rights to develop and commercialize Hutchmed’s experimental cancer drug Fruquintinib outside of mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.
BMS:
• Like Lilly, BMS reported a revenue miss in Q4, with revenues down by about $500 million year-over-year.
• For the full-year, BMS recorded $46.2 billion in revenues, an EPS of $2.95 and a gross margin of 78%.
• Looking ahead, BMS projects its total revenues will increase by about 2%, Revlimid driving revenue of $6.5 billion.
• The company also said it expects its operating expenses to decrease by mid-single digits.
