Omicron’s surge over January drove Roche’s diagnostics sales to new highs in the first quarter of this year, up 24% versus the same period in 2021. The sales bump came as the high demand for rapid COVID-19 tests joined forces with the momentum in the division’s base businesses.
But that midwinter spike, when the U.S. was seeing more than 5 million newly reported COVID cases per week, could have been a one-time deal. Like the rest of the industry, Roche is preparing (and, perhaps, hoping) for the public’s need for coronavirus tests to significantly decline through the remainder of the year.
The company raised 1.9 billion Swiss francs, or about $2 billion, from its portfolio of antigen- and PCR-based COVID tests in the first three months of this year—a hefty contribution to its total diagnostics revenue of 5.3 billion Swiss francs, or about $5.5 billion.
One main growth driver was sales of its rapid antigen home-based test for COVID, especially in North America, which helped power up its point-of-care sales to 84%, Roche said in its earnings release.
The coronavirus test haul also tops the 1.2 billion Swiss francs it brought in during the first quarter of 2021. Meanwhile, the division’s base business grew by 10%, with key contributions from immunodiagnostics and cardiac tests as well as the company’s virology offerings in Europe and Asia.
However, Roche said it anticipates sales across its COVID-19 holdings to fall quickly starting in this year’s second quarter—including among diagnostics and medicines such as its Actemra immunosuppressant given for COVID pneumonia as well as the Ronapreve antibody cocktail that Roche sells in Europe, Japan and elsewhere, while its partner Regeneron distributes it in the U.S.
Roche reconfirmed its financial forecast for 2022, with companywide COVID revenues projected to drop by 2 billion Swiss francs to about 5 billion for the year, including its first-quarter totals. At the same time, CEO Severin Schwan said he thinks Roche’s full-year revenue may come in flat compared to 2021, despite the early boosts.
The steep downward slope is expected to come even after Roche and its recently acquired diagnostics subsidiary TIB Molbiol put forward research tests designed to identify the different subvariants of the coronavirus’s delta and omicron strains including the BA.2 lineage that is currently behind the majority of COVID infections in the U.S. and rising around the world. Roche said in March that these tests will be needed to track the spread of variants and monitor for impacts on drugs and vaccines.
Last month also saw Roche pair up with Bristol Myers Squibb to develop artificial intelligence programs for its digital pathology suite, including algorithms designed for use in BMS’ clinical trials for targeted cancer drugs and companion diagnostic tests.