Sandoz focuses on biosimilars to help double group sales by 2035

By Bhanvi Satija and Marleen Kaesebier

LONDON, Sept 8 (Reuters) – Swiss drug maker Sandoz is switching focus to biosimilars as it shifts away from generics and aims to more than double group net sales by 2035, the company said at its capital markets day on Tuesday.

“Our Bio100 ambitions are set to position biosimilars to become the majority of our sales,” Chief Executive Richard Saynor said of the company’s new strategy.

Biosimilars are biological drugs based on existing medicines for which patents have expired. Like generics, they are usually sold at much cheaper prices than patented drugs as they do not have to factor in significant research and development costs.

Sandoz said it wants to increase its biosimilars portfolio to 100 drugs by 2040, from 13 currently, and said it targets mid-to-high single-digit percentage growth in total group annual net sales at constant currencies from 2025 to 2030.

Its shares were flat at 0930 GMT after gaining as much as 5% in early trading after the strategy update. Including Tuesday, the stock is now up around 19% since the start of the year.

‘GOLDEN DECADE’

RBC analysts said that though the drugmaker’s mid-term targets look light, the 2035 targets are “more ambitious and show an expected acceleration through the early 2030s, a rich period for new biosimilar launches.” Sandoz aims to double its total net sales between 2025 and 2035.

Although most of its sales are currently still generics, the firm has been touting what it calls its “golden decade” for biosimilars, as big drugmakers face patent expiries.

Sandoz opened a biosimilar development centre in Ljubljana in June after committing more than $1.1 billion in investments in Slovenia. On Tuesday, it said it would invest $300 million in a new facility in Ljubljana for in-house biosimilar manufacturing that will add disposable fed-batch technology.

CEO Saynor said earlier this year that in the next 10 years, $650 billion worth of branded products of drugmakers globally are due to lose patent exclusivity.

At its previous capital markets day in 2023, ahead of its spin-off from former parent Novartis, Sandoz had aimed for mid-single digit sales growth by 2028, a goal it says remains unchanged.

(Reporting by Marleen Kaesebier in Zurich and Bhanvi Satija in London; Editing by Dave Graham and Susan Fenton)