By Connor Hart
DOW JONES–Bayer expects its pharmaceutical business to return to growth in 2027, CEO Stefan Oelrich said on Monday.
The pharmaceutical company plans to bring new therapies onto the market this year – one to treat a rare heart disease and a non-hormonal treatment for menopause symptoms.
The company hopes these new drugs can offset falling sales of its blockbuster blood thinner Xarelto, which brought in about $4 billion annually before losing exclusivity last year and having to compete with generics.
“Therefore, we expect that the years 2025 and 2026 will be negative for Xarelto,” said Oelrich. “We hope to be able to compensate for this loss and when this effect is offset from 2027 onwards, we expect growth to return across the portfolio.”
Bayer plans to launch Acoramidis, a drug for the treatment of the rare heart disease transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy, late in the first quarter and Elinzanetant, a non-hormonal drug for the treatment of menopausal symptoms, which is expected to be approved by the middle of the year. Elinzanetant represents a blockbuster opportunity, Oelrich continued, and Acoramidis has already had a good start in the USA.
BridgeBio Pharma, a Palo Alto, California-based biotechnology company that owns the U.S. rights to acoramidis, said Monday that the drug has been prescribed by 248 doctors to 430 patients since it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in November.
While these upcoming launches won’t add to Bayer’s sales until later in the year, Oelrich said other drugs the company has already brought to market are starting to make up for the revenue lost to Xarelto.
Nubeqa, a drug used to treat prostate cancer, is exceeding the company’s expectations and will generate sales of about $1.5 billion in 2024, Oelrich said. Kerendia, a drug used to treat kidney disease and diabetes, had sales of about $500 million last year. The drug is currently undergoing trials that could expand its market to patients with heart failure.
In the long term, Bayer is working to strengthen its pipeline of drugs in development, including a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease that is nearing the start of a Phase III clinical trial. Depending on the results, this treatment could be in the hands of customers and generating revenue before the end of the decade, Oelrich said.
These developments are part of a broader restructuring at Bayer, which aims to reduce costs by around 2 billion euros. These savings will be achieved in part by cutting jobs as part of CEO Bill Anderson’s workforce management program, which involves recruiting employees from different departments into teams that decide on projects and work together for 90 days.
This restructuring is already underway, said Oelrich, who did not want to say how many jobs have been cut so far. He noted that Bayer’s pharmaceutical division accounts for about 40% of the company’s total workforce and that cost savings will be proportional to the size of each division.
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January 13, 2025 5:10 p.m. ET (10:10 p.m. GMT)
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