South Korea’s Celltrion said Thursday that its first-quarter operating profit jumped 231.3 percent on-year to 89.39 billion won ($79 million), led by successful global sales of Remsima, its biosimilar copy of Johnson & Johnson’s blockbuster drug Remicade.
Celltrion’s revenue during the January-March period reached 196.6 billion won, up 81.2 percent on-year, while net profit soared 468.5 percent on-year to 67.09 billion won, the company said in its earnings report.
(Celltrion)
The Korean drugmaker credited the steep earnings hike to the expanded sales of Remsima in Europe, where the biosimilar has taken away roughly 40 percent of the original drug’s market share, and in the US, where Remsima began sales under the name Inflectra from November 2016 via Pfizer.
Pfizer’s sales of Inflectra in the US reached $17 million in the first quarter, jumping by more than 300 percent from just $4 million in the fourth quarter of last year, Pfizer said in its earnings report last month.
By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)