Celltrion logs strong Q2 earnings powered by biosimilars

South Korea’s biopharmaceutical maker Celltrion Inc. on Friday reported strong quarterly earnings thanks to healthy demand for its biosimilar product overseas.

Celltrion aims to ramp up its market presence in the US by selling its subsidiary in New Jersey to its global marketing affiliate Celltrion Healthcare Co., which is set to handle sales there.

Celltrion said its operating profit rose 21.3% to 198.9 billion won ($153.3 million) on a consolidated basis in the second quarter from a year earlier with sales up 38% to 596 billion won. Its operating profit margin stood at 33.4%.

That came on the growing demand for its Remsima IV, a biosimilar of Janssen Pharmaceuticals’ anti-inflammatory medicine Remicade.

Remsima IV, an intravenous injection type, accounted for 30.8% of the US market in the second quarter, 13.6 percentage points higher than a year earlier, according to a pharmaceutical market data provider Symphony Health. Revenue from the biosimilar made up 41% of Celltrion’s total sales, up from 23% in the second quarter of 2021 and 27% in the first quarter of 2022.

The company is preparing for a release of Remsima SC, a hypodermic injection type of Remsima IV, in the US with expectations of further growth in its market share there.

CELLTRION HEALTHCARE TO HANDLE US SALES

Celltrion Healthcare said it agreed to take over a 100% stake in Celltrion USA Inc. at $13.4 million in a deal that allows the biopharmaceutical maker’s global marketing affiliate to immediately use the subsidiary’s sales license.

Celltrion USA, founded in July 2018 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Celltrion, has been responsible for the parent company’s entry into the US chemical drug market. The subsidiary has also been building up its own supply networks mainly for generic drugs, acquiring the license to sell products including COVID-19 detection kits across the country.

Celltrion Healthcare plans to directly sell Celltrion’s products in the US with Celltrion USA’s license, sales networks and employees. The marketing company also aims to recruit key manpower from major global drugmakers.

“We will prepare for direct sales in the US based on our experience in selling bio drugs in Europe and Asia,” said a Celltrion Healthcare official. “The company’s business size and capabilities are expected to significantly grow from next year when we expand our product launches.”

Celltrion Healthcare is scheduled to release its biosimilar Vegzelma, a treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer, in the first half of 2023 in the US, followed by other products such as Yuflyma, a biosimilar for autoimmune diseases, in July of next year as the company aims to launch at least one drug a year and expand its market presence.

Earlier this year, Celltrion decided to sell all of its biosimilar products in Europe through Celltrion Healthcare in a move for each company to concentrate on its own business to improve the profitability of the group.

Write to Jae-Young Han and In-Hyuk Park at jyhan@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.