AstraZeneca last week set another ambitious goal, this time with plans to nearly double its total revenue by the end of the decade. However, it’s easier said than done, according to analysts.
AstraZeneca announced an ambitious goal last week: to reach $80 billion in total revenue and launch 20 new medicines by 2030. The U.K.-based pharma giant said it plans to focus on improving productivity in its operations and initiating other efforts designed to usher in a “new era” of growth. But how feasible is it for AstraZeneca to hit this lofty target?
While AstraZeneca currently has several mid- to late-stage pipeline programs with strong potential, Etzer Darout, a senior biotech analyst at BMO Capital Markets, in an email to BioSpace said the company’s $30 billion goal is “above our and consensus projections.”
Other analysts have also provided cautious estimates. AstraZeneca’s “revenue ambition” is “broadly expected” but Jefferies analysts project the company will only reach $70 billion by 2030, while the consensus is around $66.8 billion, according to the firm’s note to investors last week.
Still, AstraZeneca has delivered strong and consistent growth from 2018 to 2023 with the help of its product launches. A report last week from Zacks Equity Research noted that the company has been “quite successful with its new products, and almost every new product it has launched in recent years has done well,” as AstraZeneca touts 12 blockbuster drugs.
Though the company has a track record of recent success, including delivering last year on its ambitious $45 billion revenue goal set a decade ago, Darout cautioned that past performance is not always an indicator of future results. At the same time, he contends that AstraZeneca’s target for a mid-30% core operating margin by 2026 is achievable, as part of a strategy to focus on improving productivity throughout its operations.
Jefferies reiterated its hold rating on AstraZeneca, noting that assets outside of oncology are “largely being ignored” while offering “significant longer-term upside optionality.”
AstraZeneca “is primarily a top-line growth and pipeline story,” Jefferies analysts concluded. “However, clear aims from management may be needed for stock upside, and 2024 has fewer major pipeline catalysts.”
A major challenge looming on the horizon is patent expirations for AstraZeneca’s key marketed products. Medicines that will lose their exclusivity include the cancer drug Lynparza, which is set to lose its patent this year, as well as the asthma medication Fasenra. The type 2 diabetes therapy Farxiga, which is also used to treat patients with heart failure and chronic kidney disease, will lose its patent in 2025.
“Pharma companies face loss of exclusivity, competition and IRA [drug price negotiations] headwinds, so new product launches [are] critical to sustained growth for these companies,” Darout said. “The $80 billion figure the company disclosed takes these headwinds into account.”
The Path to $80 Billion
CEO Pascal Soriot told investors last week that AstraZeneca will see significant growth from its existing portfolio and that “many” of the 20 new medicines planned for launch by 2030 have the potential to generate more than $5 billion in peak year revenues.
But what new products will get across the finish line for AstraZeneca to start reaching its $80 billion goal? Darout estimates that the company has several programs in the mid-to-late stage of development, with at least seven new drugs from its cohort of over 30 in its pipeline that can deliver on AstraZeneca’s $5 billion-plus peak revenue target.
These products include the Daiichi Sankyo-partnered antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) datopotamab deruxtecan (Dato-DXd), which has a target action date for the second line for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) set for Dec. 20, 2024. The ADC is also being investigated in several types of breast cancer.
Other oncology assets that have the potential to get over $5 billion in peak revenue include: camizestrant, which is being investigated on its own and in combination for breast cancer which is primarily in the later stages of development; rilvegostomig, in clinical trials for solid tumors and in the late stage for biliary tract cancer; volrustomig, in late stage trials for several types of cancer including NSCLC and cervical cancer; and saruparib, which is in a late-stage trial for metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer.
Darout also identified baxdrostat, which has two Phase III trials in chronic kidney disease and hypertension, as a potential blockbuster. AstraZenceca’s recent acquisitions of radiopharma biotech Fusion Pharmaceuticals and cancer biotech Gracell and its partnership with GLP-1 developer Eccogene could all yield lucrative results.
“Like other global pharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca faces competitive, pricing and regulatory risks as well as loss of exclusivities of key programs,” Darout said. “Loss of exclusivities are more predictable but competition, pricing and regulatory risks are dynamic, and so the impact of these factors is less certain and harder to predict.”
Tyler Patchen is a staff writer at BioSpace. You can reach him at tyler.patchen@biospace.com. Follow him on LinkedIn.
