[Reporter's view] COVID-19 demand has disappeared

The boom of pharmaceutical companies, which had benefited from COVID-19, has subsided since the third quarter.

 

Representatively, Roche Group suffered a sharp drop in sales of diagnostic kits and treatments in the third quarter.

 

Roche Group supplies Actemra and Ronapreve, a treatment for COVID-19, and Roche Diagnostics manufactures a COVID-19 diagnostic kit.

 

In the third quarter of this year, Actemra fell 42% year-on-year.

 

Ronapreve's sales also shrank by 36%.

 

Sales of Roche Diagnostics' COVID-19 diagnostic kit, which introduced the first COVID-19 diagnostic kit at the time of the outbreak of COVID-19, also fell sharply.

 

Roche believes that it is no longer possible to benefit from COVID-19 from the third quarter.

 

Roche CEO Severin Schwan said, "COVID-19 demand completely disappeared in the third quarter." It was judged that sales related to COVID-19, which had been on a roll until the end of last year, would not continue this year.

 

Pfizer and Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine sales have also peaked in the fourth quarter of last year and have been on the decline in the first quarter of this year.

 

Although the two companies were the fastest to respond to the COVID-19 mutation among the developers of the COVID-19 vaccine, a drop in sales was inevitable.

 

Overall, the need for vaccination was lowered as the fatigue level of vaccination increased and the severity rate decreased as the coronavirus mutated.

 

The situation of domestic pharmaceutical companies, which benefited from the COVID-19 vaccine and diagnostic kits, is similar.

 

SK Bioscience, which focused on the production of COVID-19 vaccines, saw its sales and operating profit fall 59% and 79% in the third quarter, respectively.

 

The company gave up the flu vaccine, which was its main source of sales, to produce the COVID-19 vaccine.

 

It has also succeeded in developing the first domestic COVID-19 vaccine but has not yet led to profits.

 

Domestic diagnostic kit companies, which recorded all-time sales with COVID-19 diagnostic kits, are also expected to receive sluggish report cards in the second half of the year.

 

The only companies that still benefit from COVID-19 are Pfizer and MSD, which have developed COVID-19 treatments, and pharmaceutical companies that manufacture cold medicines.

 

They are mainly companies that supply treatments for patients with mild COVID-19.

 

In fact, SK Bioscience is considering resuming the production of flu vaccines next year.

 

This is a measure to prepare for a decrease in the production of COVID-19 vaccines.

 

Pfizer is expanding its sales excluding COVID-19-related sales as its existing flagship products are on a roll.

 

However, market concerns are increasing for diagnostic kit companies that have seen the COVID-19 vaccine as the only source of sales or have excessively expanded sales to COVID-19.

 

Countries have supported COVID-19-related diagnosis, prevention, and treatment at the government level, but the situation is expected to change next year.

 

The United States and Japan are already considering charging COVID-19 vaccines or treatments.

 

The loss of government support means that related companies will find it difficult to generate as many sales as they do now.

 

It remains to be seen whether pharmaceutical and bio companies, which have benefited from the COVID-19 special for about two years, will be able to quickly prepare new growth engines.