Almirall has lost 39.4 million euros during the first nine months of the year compared to the net profit of 57 million it obtained during the same period of 2020. The announcement of red numbers in the results of the Catalan pharmaceutical company this Monday has made mid-morning its shares will plummet by about 10%. The company points out that the losses are due to the deterioration of 103 million of the book value of the intangible asset of the drug against acne Seysara (69 million), whose commercialization has slowed down in the United States due to the pandemic. Almirall alleges two other factors: the damage to the portfolio called legacy (mature drugs), also on the other side of the Atlantic with 22 million, and the payment for the purchase option of the American Bioniz, which was not finally executed as the company already announced in its first results of the year. The pharmaceutical company increased its sales by 6.2%, (to 601.7 million), which is partly explained by the results in Europe of the drug Ilumetri against psoriasis.
The antibiotic Seysara, acquired in 2018 by Almirall before its launch, has been affected by the health crisis. “The difficulty of commercial activity to visit doctors and reach patients” does not allow meeting the initial expectations of the drug, explain company sources. Almirall has detailed that it allocates resources to highlight the microbiological drug label to differentiate the product, with the intention “of recovering total prescriptions and increasing market share as face-to-face interactions with doctors grow once they leave. normalizing the pandemic ”. Despite not following previous forecasts, Seysara has grown 40% in sales in the United States in one year (from 13.1 to 18.4 million) and is in phase 3 of trials in China. Dermatology sales have fallen, in the US globally, by 9% in their year-on-year value.
The EBITDA of Almirall’s main business amounts to 164.2 million thanks “to the good results of the dermatology business in the European Union,” the company explains. This branch has grown by 21% in one year (from 171.5 to 207.5 million in sales) with a relevant role of Ilumetri which, with a variation of 93%, has reached 56.8 million, a 27.4 % of Almirall’s sales in the old continent. The company is optimistic about its brand new product for actinic keratosis Klisyri, which has accounted for 2.2 million in sales in the United States, and launched this quarter in the United Kingdom and Germany. In the German country it has obtained 5,200 prescriptions during the first month of its launch.
“We are satisfied to see that the business core continues to perform well, with strong operating performance in line with our expectations. We see excellent momentum towards the fourth quarter, in which we are confident that Almirall’s growth engines will maintain their solid track record, ”said the company’s CEO, Gianfranco Nazzi, who took office in February. The cash flow of the Catalan company has grown to 161.4 million (38.1 in 2020) after the issuance of a senior bond for an amount of 300 million maturing in 2026. “The new simple senior-rank obligations, which they will accrue an annual fixed interest rate of 2.125% payable semi-annually, they will be used to amortize 250 million euros of senior convertible bonds that mature at the end of the year ”, the company has detailed.