Excluding major milestones (EUR 30 million in 2023 and EUR 130 million in 2024), net sales increased by 16.6% to EUR 978.0 (838.5) million, and operating profit increased by 27.5% to EUR 193.8 (152.0) million.
Published on 29 October 2024
"In January–September 2024, our net sales increased by 27.6 percent to EUR 1,108.0 (868.5) million and operating profit increased by 77.9 percent to EUR 323.8 (182.0) million.
Two significant milestone payments, totalling EUR 130 million (EUR 70 million related to Nubeqa® sales and EUR 60 million related to contract conversion with MSD), contributed significantly to the strong growth in net sales and operating profit. Excluding major milestones (EUR 30 million in 2023 and EUR 130 million in 2024), net sales increased by 16.6% to EUR 978.0 (838.5) million, and operating profit increased by 27.5% to EUR 193.8 (152.0) million.
Of the individual products or product groups, Nubeqa® and Easyhaler® continued to perform well. The Animal Health business division benefited from the recovery in partner and market demand compared to the comparison period. I'm also glad that the revenue of the Generics and Consumer Health business division showed positive development. There is still work to be done to stabilise the growth of the business division, but we are heading in the right direction in implementing our strategy.
In July we, together with MSD, converted the co-development and co-commercialisation agreement for opevesostat and other candidates targeting CYP11A1 to an exclusive global license for MSD. The conversion of this collaboration into a license agreement allows Orion to focus our resources to progress our other promising development candidates while both remaining well positioned to benefit from the development and potential commercialisation of opevesostat and meeting our financial objectives. We believe MSD provides the best choice to maximise the potential of opevesostat, a compound discovered by Orion’s scientists. As a result of the contract conversion, we released a EUR 60 million item from our balance sheet to the net sales and operating profit of third quarter of 2024.
The results of the ARANOTE trial, conducted together with our partner Bayer, were presented during the review period at the ESMO 2024 Congress and in The Journal of Clinical Oncology. Based on the results, Bayer has already submitted applications in the US and the EU to extend the marketing authorisation for darolutamide.
In September, we received historic news for Orion, when Bayer announced that Nubeqa's in-market sales exceeded the EUR 1 billion mark this year. This is the first time in history that an Orion-originated product reaches this significant milestone. In addition, we recorded a milestone payment of EUR 70 million related to the sale of Nubeqa for the review period. Nubeqa's sales milestone payments still have one milestone payment of EUR 180 million remaining, which we currently estimate could be achieved in 2026.
After the reporting period, in October, we decided to terminate the ODM-111 development program. Recent findings from a non-clinical toxicology study indicate that the profile of ODM-111 does not support long-term use of the molecule. Altogether we consider the therapeutic window of ODM-111 too narrow, and thus it is not feasible for Orion to continue the development program but rather focus on other promising programs in our pipeline. Also in October, our partner Marinus announced that their phase III TrustTSC trial with ganaxolone did not meet its primary endpoint, and that Marinus is discontinuing further ganaxolone clinical development. We are currently assessing our strategic next steps with ganaxolone.
We continue to strengthen Orion's early-stage research as part of our growth strategy. One indication of this is the agreement with Aitia aimed to benefit from the Gemini Digital Twins platform to discover new cancer treatments. During the reporting period, we also took an important step forward in our sustainability agenda, as the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) confirmed Orion's science-based near-term climate targets.
Orion's third quarter of 2024 was very eventful and I am very proud of what we at Orion have achieved ourselves and together with our great partners.”