By Ron Chen, Correspondent ASEAN Region

The multinational pharmaceutical group, Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC Thursday provided an update on its current trading, showing it has posted stellar performance.

Hikma’s CEO, Siggi Olafsson said: “Hikma is performing well, maintaining the positive momentum of the first half. The breadth of our portfolio, the flexibility of our manufacturing capabilities and the strength of our commercial and distribution channels are enabling us to supply the medicines most needed by our customers, including those used in the treatment of COVID-19. We continue to see good demand for our marketed products and are delivering a strong performance from new launches. As a result of this solid progress, we are raising our full year guidance for Generics and reiterating our current guidance for Injectables and Branded. Alongside the health and safety of our employees, Hikma is committed to its purpose of providing high-quality, affordable medicines and we look forward to the rest of the year with confidence.”

Injectables

We are delivering a good performance in our global Injectables business. In the US, we have seen lower demand for COVID-19 related products compared to the first half. Whilst we are seeing the gradual return of elective surgeries, we do not expect these to return to normal levels until 2021. In MENA, we are seeing good demand across our portfolio, including our biosimilar products. In Europe, we are delivering strong growth from our marketed products and new launches and are benefitting from increased demand for contract manufacturing. As COVID-19 cases have risen again across our geographies, we are working closely with our customers to ensure a consistent supply of our products.

We are reiterating our guidance for global Injectables core revenue of between US$950 million and US$980 million for 2020, with core operating margin in the range of 38 per cent to 40 per cent.

Generics

Following a strong first half, our Generics business continues to perform well, supported by a better than expected contribution from new launches and strong demand across our differentiated portfolio. We are making good progress on the execution of our pipeline and are pleased to have launched icosapent ethyl capsules in the US market. Following approval by the US FDA in September, and a swift resolution of outstanding patent litigation, we have accelerated our launch preparations and are now releasing limited quantities of icosapent ethyl to our customers. We are working to increase capacity and expect to be able to provide greater availability in 2021. We have also made progress with our pending approval for generic Advair Diskus®, which we expect to launch in early 2021.

To reflect the stronger-than-expected performance in the year to date, we are increasing our full year guidance for Generics revenue to US$720 million to US$740 million, from our previous guidance range of US$710 million to US$730 million. We continue to expect core operating margin in the range of 18 per cent to 19 per cent for the full year.

Branded

Our Branded business is also performing well. Good demand across our markets, particularly Egypt, Algeria and Saudi Arabia is helping to offset some disruptions related to COVID-19. While we may see some impact on reported revenues from negative exchange rate movements, we continue to expect Branded revenue growth in constant currency to be in the mid-single digits for the full year in 2020.