Half-Year Report: achieving an inflection point and embarking on a new growth phase

Today we announced our half-year financial results.  To start off, I’m happy to announce that we’re seeing the end of the immediate impact of the loss of exclusivities of some of our epilepsy medicines and can now look forward to a new period of growth. While we’re still waiting for feedback from the FDA to our medicine in psoriasis expected in Q3, we’ve received the green light for 4 approvals this semester – and have 10 regulatory filings underway in the US, the EU and Japan which I call a great foundation for growth.

I’m also pleased to report that our current portfolio of medicines has delivered robust growth across both our neurology and immunology units. In fact, taking aside the aforementioned impact of the loss of exclusivity this semester, our portfolio shows the underlying growth – confirming that we reached the inflection point.

Please allow me to focus a bit more on the approvals and launches. This includes new treatment options for targeting Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS), psoriatic arthritis (PsA), and axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) in the EU, and generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG) in the U.S. This is also on top of positive news for a number of other patient groups:

• An accepted EU marketing authorization review for a therapy treating moderate to severe hidradenitis suppurativa
• An orphan drug designation in Japan for the treatment of patients with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS)
• Japan also accepted the review filing for a treatment for adults with generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG)
• Finally, we have a new treatment in Japan targeting partial-onset epileptic seizures in young patients (1m-<4years of age).

As you can imagine, we’re pleased with these latest developments. Bringing new options and therapies to people living with severe diseases is one of the most rewarding parts of this field, and I’m looking forward to seeing the feedback and discussion. We consider that innovation to develop new therapies for unmet patient needs is one of the foundations of UCB’s mission. To that end, we’ll continue to build on our strong heritage and expertise in neurology and immunology solutions in order to expand to rarer neurological diseases and underserved immunological diseases where significant unmet need remains.

As 2023 continues, we’ll continue to invest behind ongoing and upcoming launches, helping people suffering from severe diseases live their best possible lives. At the same time, we confirm our financial guidance 2023.

With that in mind, I wish you a restful and healthy summer period! I leave you with these key figures from the first half of the year:

• Revenue reached € 2.6 billion (-11%; -13% CER), net sales were € 2.4 billion (-12%; -14% CER)
• Underlying profitability (adj. EBITDA) was € 801 million (-2%; -9% CER), 31% of revenue.