Celltrion posts record-high revenue on overseas drug sales

Celltrion achieved record revenue of 874.7 billion won driven by overseas biosimilar sales.

Seo Jung-jin, Celltrion's founder and chairman, speaks during the Future Leaders' Camp hosted by the Federation of Korean Industries in Gangneung, Gangwon, in January [FKI]

Celltrion raked in an all-time high of 874.7 billion won ($640 million) in revenue in the second quarter driven by boosted overseas sales of its blockbuster biosimilars known as copycat biologics.

The Korean biopharmaceutical company's revenue saw an on-year jump of 67 percent during the April-June period, outperforming the market consensus of 797 billion won compiled by market tracker FnGuide.

The figure marked the first time the firm's quarterly revenue has surpassed 800 billion won since its establishment in 2002.

Operating profit fell 60.4 percent on year to 72.5 billion won — still a whopping 370.8 percent surge from the previous quarter.

Celltrion attributed the better-than-expected figures to “growing sales of biosimilar drugs like Yuflyma and Vegzelma in the U.S. and European markets.”

Biosimilars, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), are biological products that are approved based on their high similarity to other FDA-approved products. The drugs have no clinically meaningful differences in terms of safety or efficacy from the reference product but cost less.

Sales in the biosimilar business surged 103.6 percent to 774 billion won, according to Celltrion.

Celltrion's Zymfentra, an autoimmune disease treatment approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration [CELLTRION]

Remsima, a copycat drug of Janssen Biotech's rheumatoid arthritis treatment Remicade, grabbed a 79 percent market share in five major European countries: France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain.

Truxima, which treats blood cancers, claimed 25 percent and Herzuma, which targets stomach and breast cancers, accounted for 21 percent of the same market.

Celltrion forecast a rosy second half with the U.S. debut of Zymfentra, an inflammatory bowel disease treatment, which became the Korean company's first original drug to get approval from the FDA earlier this year.

The Korean company has already succeeded in registering in three major U.S. pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the third-party intermediaries between insurance providers and pharmaceutical manufacturers that determine which pharmacies are considered “in-network” for prescription drug plans. The three largest PBMs handled close to 80 percent of U.S. prescription claims in 2023, according to the Drug Channels Institute.

The U.S. market for inflammatory bowel disease treatment is valued at 12.8 trillion won, according to data from healthcare researcher IQVIA.

Celltrion shares surged 8.2 percent to close at 197,000 won on Wednesday.

BY SARAH CHEA [chea.sarah@joongang.co.kr]