By Deena Beasley
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Biogen expects revenue from recent launches to exceed its current sales by 2028 and doesn’t feel the necessity to chase additional business development deals, the corporate’s CEO said.
“The view on the market within the analyst community is that the longer term of Biogen relies on the subsequent deal that we do and that is not a view that we share inside Biogen,” CEO Chris Viehbacher told Reuters in an interview on Monday throughout the annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco.
Last Friday, Biogen offered to purchase Sage Therapeutics, its marketing partner on a drug to treat postpartum depression. Sage saw its share price fall around 76% last 12 months after a series of clinical setbacks.
Viehbacher declined to comment on the transaction, citing legal restrictions.
Shares of Biogen have dropped about 42% during the last 12 months.
“While the deal may make financial sense for Biogen, we expect it does little to vary the narrative around the corporate, and extra revenue-generating deals are needed to vary the corporate’s growth profile,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman said in a research note.
Viehbacher said Biogen as “gained conviction” on the strength of its current pipeline, including amyloid-targeting Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi and BIIB080, an experimental drug that targets tau, a special protein present in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
“We’re doubling down in Alzheimer’s,” the CEO said, noting that news is anticipated this 12 months on an FDA filing for subcutaneous Leqembi and use of the drug as maintenance therapy.
He acknowledged that Leqembi sales haven’t lived as much as the loftiest expectations, but said the trajectory is solid and the corporate is shifting its marketing technique to goal newly-diagnosed patients.
Viehbacher said Biogen also has late-stage studies underway with felzartamab in rare immune-related indications including kidney transplant patients and for experimental lupus drugs.
“It is tough to search out assets value paying for … there continues to be an expectation of some pretty high premiums available in the market,” he said.
The CEO said Biogen has “teams of individuals” on the healthcare conference this week. Finally 12 months’s meeting, those teams checked out 100 firms and ended up doing two deals: a collaboration to explore molecular glue degraders with Neomorph and the acquisition of Human Immunology Biosciences.
(Reporting By Deena Beasley)