UCB 2020 Financial Results: Continued growth while looking to the future

While 2020 has been a year like no other, UCB achieved a lot despite the pandemic. Our employees and partners showed strong resilience throughout. Together we continued to serve our patients, took good care of each other, and joined forces in the global response to COVID-19.

I’m proud to say that 2020 was another year of strong delivery and growth as you can see from our latest financial results. We also kept all pipeline projects on track after the pause in spring due to the pandemic. In September 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) accepted our marketing application submissions for our drug in the pipeline to treat adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. We’re now excited to be preparing for its launch.

With our growth ambitions focused on creating value for patients both now and into the future, we share for the first time our projections for 2025. With a robust product portfolio and promising late-stage pipeline assets, we aim to lead in specific patient populations by 2025. Despite upcoming patent expirations, we expect revenue in 2025 to reach at least € 6 billion and underlying profitability (adjusted EBITDA) to reach the low- to mid-thirties in per cent of revenue.

Over the past year, we also made progress in the sustainability areas critical to our long-term success and contribution to society. We progressed access to medicines, launched our health, safety and well-being index, and established a Sustainability Governance Committee and an External Sustainability Advisory Board. Moreover, we also committed to the United Nations (UN) Global Compact.

Key numbers
It has been a busy period for our Finance, Sustainability, Communications and Investor Relations teams preparing this report. They remain on hand to answer any questions you may have. I am looking forward to e-meeting you in March and April at different events (conferences & roadshow) already in our diaries. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the teams at UCB for this great experience of collaboration.

I wish you all to stay safe and will leave you with these key figures from 2020, meeting our financial outlook for the past year:

• Revenue increased to € 5.3 billion (+9%, +8% CER) net sales € 5.1 billion (+8%, +7% CER)
• Underlying profitability (adjusted EBITDA) was € 1.4 billion (+1%, -4% CER) or 27% of revenue
• Financial outlook for 2021: Revenue expected to reach € 5.45 – 5.65 billion, adjusted EBITDA 27 - 28% of revenue, Core EPS of € 5.60 – 6.10 expected.