Sales of Takeda’s drugs 'acquired by Celltrion' drop 9%

Nesina, Actos, Edarbi all show poor performance

Sales were already decreasing before acquisition and were additionally affected by the prolonged COVID-19 crisis

(clockwise from the upper left corner) Picture of Actos, Nesina, Edarbi, , Whituben, and Madipin

Prescriptions of chronic disease drugs that Celltrion acquired from Takeda Pharmaceuticals dropped 9% year-on-year in the first half of this year.

 

Sales of most of the products were already decreasing in the domestic market at the time of Celltrion’s acquisition, and the prolonged COVID-19 crisis contracted the prescription market and further decreased sales of the products.

 

According to the pharmaceutical market research institution UBIST on the 28th, sales of all the prescription drugs that Celltrion acquired from Takeda Pharmaceutical last year amounted to 33.4 billion won in H1 of this year.

 

This is a 9% drop from the 36.8 billion won earned from prescription drugs in H1 of the previous year.

 

Last June, Celltrion had acquired business rights for Takeda Pharmaceutical’s primary care products in the Asia-Pacific region for 332.4 billion won.

 

Under the deal, Celltrion has the right to 18 products ranging from treatments for diabetes, hypertension, as well as other OTC products in nine Asian Pacific markets including South Korea.

 

Among the 18 brands, ‘Nesina,’ ‘Actos,’ and ‘Basen’ for diabetes, and ‘Edarbi’ and ‘Madipin’ for hypertension, and the OTC drugs ‘Whituben’ and ‘Albothyl’ are currently approved in Korea.

 

Performance of all acquired prescription drugs had fallen in one year.

 

In the case of the Nesina series -Nesina, Nesina Act, and Nesina Met – sales decreased 9% from 16.2 billion won in the H1 last year to 14.7 billion won in H1 this year.

 

Prescription sales of the Actos series -Actos, Actos Met, and Actorsryl – also fell 8% from 12.3 billion won to 11.4 billion won in the same period.

 

Edarbi and Edarbyclor’s prescriptions also decreased 7% from 5.1 billion won to 4.8 billion won, and Mardipin and Basen’s sales also fell 20% (2.1 billion→1.7 billion won) and 16% (1 billion→0.8 billion won), respectively.

 

Most of the products have been in the Korean market for a long time.

 

Mardipin and Basen were approved in 1991 and 1995, and have been in the market for over 30 years.

 

Actos was approved in 2001 and has now been in Korea for 20 years.

 

Nesina was approved in 2013.

 

Their markets have naturally gotten more competitive since then.

 

New products with improved efficacy and safety were released one after another, and generics also entered the market after patent expiry.

 

Due to such various factors, sales of most of the products were already declining or barely maintaining their performance in Korea.

 

Edarbi, which was released in 2017, was also unable to make a significant impact in Korea.

 

In addition, the prolonged COVID-19 crisis had contracted Korea’s outpatient prescription market in general, leading to a larger decline in the performance of these products.

 

Sales performance data on the OTC drugs Whituben and Albothyl for H1 of this year has not been released yet.

 

However, due to the prolonged COVID-19 crisis and the fact that the OTC drug market had contracted more greatly than the prescription drug market, a considerable drop in their sales is expected for H1 this year.

 

Only in the first quarter of this year, sales of the two OTC products had fallen to nearly half of what they made in the first quarter last year (based on IQVIA data).

 

Whituben’s sales fell 51% (1.2 billion won→0.6 billion won), and Albothyl’s sales fell 49% (0.9 billion won → 0.5 billion won).