South Korean biopharmaceutical firm Celltrion Inc. said Thursday its fourth-quarter net income plunged 99.4 percent from a year earlier due to sluggish sales.
Net profit came to 453 million won (US$340,218) in the last three months of 2023, compared with 70.4 billion won a year ago, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Operating profit for the October-December period fell 81.7 percent on-year to 18.4 billion won, and sales decreased 25.1 percent to 382.6 billion won.
For the whole of 2023, Celltrion reported a net profit of 539.7 billion won, down 0.5 percent from the previous year.
Operating income rose 0.7 percent on-year to 651.5 billion won last year, but annual revenue decreased 4.7 percent to 2.17 trillion won.
Celltrion said sales of its flagship biosimilar business decreased in the fourth quarter as it sold the minimum amount of its biosimilar products to its sales and marketing affiliate Celltrion Healthcare Co. ahead of their planned merger.
Celltrion completed its acquisition of Celltrion
Healthcare in December as part of the company’s broader plan to become a global drugmaker that produces both biosimilars and new drugs.
The company also plans to integrate with its chemical drug-producing affiliate Celltrion Pharm Inc. later this year for the plan.
The company said, however, its biosimilar drug sales jumped 11.6 percent on-year to 1.45 trillion won in the whole of 2023 thanks to high global demand of Remsima, a biosimilar drug to treat autoimmune diseases, and subcutaneous injection formulation of the drug, Remsima SC.
Celltrion’s other blockbuster biosimilars, Truxima and Herzuma, also had a market share of 23 percent and 29 percent in Europe, respectively.
The company said it expects to see robust growth this year with the diversification of its pipeline, and the development of new drugs and biosimilars.
Source: Yonhap News Agency