Novartis Korea surpassed ₩500 billion in annual sales

Last year's sales were ₩532 billion

Growth in sales of new products such as Entresto and Cosentyx

Synergy with Exforge

Novartis Korea has surpassed ₩500 billion in annual sales for the first time since entering Korea.

 

Despite the confusion of COVID-19, representative medicines and new products generated synergy, which led to the highest sales ever.

 

According to the Financial Supervisory Service on the 15th, Novartis Korea last year recorded ₩532 billion.

 

With a 7.8% increase in sales compared to the previous year, it achieved the most sales among multinational pharmaceutical companies that entered Korea for the second consecutive year following 2019.

 

This is the first time Novartis Korea has exceeded the annual sales of ₩500 billion since the inauguration of Novartis Korea in 1997.

 

Operating profit was aggregated to ₩5.3 billion, down 12.4% from the previous year.

 

Novartis Korea

Novartis Korea is a foreign-invested company established in September 1984 under a joint venture agreement between Dongwha and Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz (now Novartis AG).

 

In April 1997, the company changed its name from Sandoz Korea to Novartis Korea.

 

Novartis AG and Novartis Pharma AG own 98.3% of the shares, while Dongwha owns the remaining 1.7%.

 

Among the bad news for Corona 19, new products that were recently released showed high growth, generating the largest sales ever.

 

According to IQVIA, a drug market research organization, the sales of Entresto, a chronic heart failure treatment, were ₩21.7 billion last year, up 64.7% from the previous year.

 

Entresto is a combination drug consisting of two ingredients: Valsartan, an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) family, and Sacubitril, a neprilysin inhibitor (NEPI).

 

It is prescribed to reduce the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and hospitalization due to heart failure for chronic heart patients with decreased left ventricular contractile function (NYHA class II-IV).

 

In Korea, since October 2017, it has been receiving benefits as a treatment for chronic heart failure patients whose left ventricular ejection rate has decreased to 40% or less.

 

Psoriasis treatment Cosentyx (Secukinumab) has established itself as a blockbuster product with annual sales of ₩20 billion by introducing a self-injectable pen in addition to the existing PFS.

 

The two types of Cosentyx and Cosentyx Sensoready Pen made a joint venture of ₩20.9 billion, with a 51.5% increase in sales from the previous year.

 

The metastatic breast cancer drug Kisqali (Ribociclib), launched at the end of last year, made the first sales of ₩1.7 billion.

 

Existing representative products are also performing well.

 

ARB-based hypertension combination drug Exforge (Amlodipine Besylate/Valsartan) sold ₩71.4 billion last year.

 

Novartis has the largest sales volume among products sold in Korea.

 

In July 2018, the impurity isuue gave a reflective profit.

 

Macular degeneration treatment Lucentis (Ranibizumab) is also on the rise in sales with the release of PFS type.

 

Last year's sales of Lucentis were ₩37 billion, up 23.0% from the previous year.

 

The DPP-4 inhibitor-based diabetes combination drug Galvusmet (Metformin HCl/Vildagliptin) sold worth ₩31.5 billion last year.

 

Glivec, a leukemia drug, posted sales of ₩41.2 billion.

 

In the process of launching new products, expenditures increased and profitability decreased slightly, but it is evaluated that the sales of existing products and new products harmonized, resulting in stable performance.

 

Novartis Korea is focusing on improving earnings by sorting out some items with relatively low profitability.

 

It handed over the domestic copyright of the anti-epileptic drug Trileptal and the Alzheimer-type dementia treatment Exelon to Handok, and also stopped investing in sales marketing for the rest of the items, including the anti-epileptic drug Tegretol and Parkinson's disease treatment Stalevo and Comtan.

 

It is expected to focus on introducing biologics known as ultra-high-priced drugs such as Zolgensma, a treatment for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), starting with Kymriah, the first licensed CAR-T treatment in Korea.