Estrogen receptor alpha modulating benzopyranes(Celgene)

Bristol Myers Squibb CEO Giovanni Caforio is shifting his focus to newer products as generic sales continue to gnaw at the company’s blockbuster myeloma drug Revlimid. Both Revlimid and Abraxane sales took a dive last year thanks to generic rivals, BMS reported in its Q4 and full-year results on Thursday. As a result, Q4 sales dipped 5% and full-year sales remained flat. However, Caforio sees a silver lining — or rather, two of them. Losses from generics last quarter were partially offset by the company’s new product portfolio, “primarily Opdualag and Abecma,” BMS said on Thursday. Opdualag, approved last March in metastatic melanoma, raked in $252 million last year, while Abecma, approved the year before in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, earned $388 million. That’s nowhere close to the $9.9 billion Revlimid took in, but CFO David Elkins isn’t too worried. He expects sales to pick up in 2023, leading to a 2% growth in revenue. “This reflects our confidence that our in-line and new product portfolios will more than offset the LOE impact from Revlimid and Abraxane,” he said on the quarterly earnings call. BMS launched its first Opdualag campaign earlier this year, featuring a camper who touts “two medicines in one treatment.” The drug is a combination of BMS’ blockbuster PD-1 Opdivo and relatlimab. As for Abecma, Caforio touted plans to move into earlier lines of therapy, including a Phase III trial launching this year in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients who have a suboptimal response to transplant. Meanwhile, Revlimid sales are expected to slip down to $6.5 billion in 2023. The former Celgene drug was initially approved back in 2005 for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes, and has since racked up a handful of indications in multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma. It got its first generic contender back last March, when Teva released its generic lenalidomide capsules. “With the momentum of our new product portfolio, we expect it to roughly double versus last year and will be approximately $4 billion,” Elkins said. Reblozyl sales also grew by about 30% last year, totaling $717 million. Caforio hinted at potential dealmaking on the last earnings call, and Elkins reaffirmed on Thursday that the balance sheet is strong and those priorities are “unchanged.” “Business development remains a top priority to further renew and diversify our portfolio and strengthen our growth outlook,” he said. PwC predicted an upwing in deals activity in its latest deals outlook report , with “M&A to more closely resemble prior years with a total deal value in the $225 billion to $275 billion range across all subsectors.” While Caforio boasted a “younger and more diversified portfolio,” the company will have to progress the pipeline without head of research and early development Rupert Vessey, who announced his plans to retire earlier this week. Vessey came to BMS by way of Celgene, and has been in his current position for just over three years, according to his LinkedIn account. “I want to thank Rupert for his extraordinary contributions since he joined BMS,” Caforio said on the call, adding that early- and late-stage development will now be combined under the leadership of CMO Samit Hirawat. Bristol Myers revealed a series of recent program cuts, most notably two programs from its CytomX partnership on CTLA-4 antibodies. It’s also pumping the brakes on its atopic dermatitis antibody cendakimab, which recently completed a Phase II study. “We have seen the data, we do meet the primary endpoint, but we don’t think that it has a competitive advantage over what is available to the patients at this time,” Hirawat said.