PharmaceuticalsRoche grows in 2024 and shakes off legacy issues
SDA
30.1.2025 - 07:04
The Basel-based pharmaceutical company Roche generated sales of 60.5 billion Swiss francs last year. (archive picture)
Keystone
The pharmaceutical company Roche met its own growth targets in the 2024 financial year and thus drew a line under the late effects of Covid. Shareholders will receive more dividends as usual. The Basel-based company is forecasting further growth for 2025.
Keystone-SDA
30.01.2025, 07:04
30.01.2025, 07:44
SDA
Roche generated total sales of 60.5 billion Swiss francs last year, an increase of 3 percent, as the Group announced on Thursday. At constant exchange rates, growth amounted to 7 percent. While the loss of sales of Covid-19 products in the current year was again felt in the first quarter, the Group no longer expects any impact in 2025.
At 46.2 billion, the larger pharma division generated 4 percent more revenue last year. Revenue in the diagnostics business fell by 1 percent to 14.3 billion Swiss francs. The smaller division in particular had seen a real boom in corona times due to the tests.
As Roche itself writes, the strong demand for medicines and diagnostics more than compensated for the expected decline in Covid-19 sales of 1.1 billion and the loss of a further billion due to the loss of patent protection for various blockbusters.
Impairments weigh on profit
Roche puts net income at 9.2 billion Swiss francs, compared with 12.4 billion in the previous year. According to Roche, this was mainly due to impairment losses on goodwill in connection with Flatiron Health and Spark Therapeutics. By contrast, the core operating result, which analysts use as a benchmark, rose by 8 percent.
According to the Group, the appreciation of the Swiss franc against most currencies had a significant impact on the results reported in Swiss francs.
Further growth expected
As usual, Roche is not venturing too far out of the window when it comes to the outlook for the current financial year 2025. CEO Thomas Schinecker and his management team expect sales to increase by a mid-single-digit percentage at constant exchange rates. Core earnings per share are expected to increase in the high single-digit percentage range.
Growth is to be driven by further new drugs. As can be seen from the presentation of the annual figures, data from 12 important studies are due in 2025 alone. Roche expects seven of these candidates to generate peak sales of more than three billion Swiss francs. For four other candidates, peak sales could be between two and three billion Swiss francs, according to Roche.
On the other hand, Roche's management anticipates a loss in sales of around 1.2 billion Swiss francs in 2025 due to the loss of patent protection.
The Group is also continuing its efforts to increase the dividend in Swiss francs. For 2024, shareholders are to receive an increased dividend of 9.70 francs (previous year: 9.60 francs).