Hyundai Motor Securities said on the 6th that Celltrion recorded an earnings surprise in the second quarter on the back of rapid growth in new product lines and projected that profit growth will gather pace in the second half of this year. It maintained its "Buy" investment opinion and a target price of 270,000 won. The previous session's closing price was 183,600 won.
According to Hyundai Motor Securities, Celltrion's consolidated revenue in the second quarter of this year came to 1.3 trillion won, up 35% from a year earlier, and operating profit rose 77% to 430 billion won, with an operating margin of 33%. Following the first quarter, both revenue and operating profit in the second quarter beat market expectations (consensus).
Kim Hyun-seok, an analyst at Hyundai Motor Securities, said, "Sales of the new product lines appear to be growing faster than expected," and noted, "In particular, 'Zymfentra,' launched in the U.S. market, continues to hit record-high prescription results, and sales of 'OMLYCLO,' a XOLAIR biosimilar with no competing products at present, likely increased sharply."
Hyundai Motor Securities predicted that Celltrion's new product performance growth will strengthen further toward the second half. As most of the new product lines were launched in the second half of last year, it had expected performance growth to pick up in the second half of this year, but steep growth is already evident from the second quarter. In particular, in the second half, major new product lines such as Steqeyma, Eydenzelt, and OMLYCLO are slated for large-scale launches in the United States.
Kim assessed that momentum is ample not only for biosimilars but also for the in-house new drug pipeline. Phase 1 clinical results for Celltrion's in-house c-MET–targeted ADC (antibody-drug conjugate) therapy 'CT-P70' and the Nectin-4–targeted ADC 'CT-P71' are scheduled to be released in the second half of this year.
Development through open innovation and partnerships is also on track. 'CT-P77,' an FcRn-targeted autoimmune disease therapy being co-developed with Kyogen, is aiming to submit an investigational new drug (IND) application this year. With MustBio, it is developing a triple-fusion protein oncology pipeline. It is also continuing collaborations to discover new antibodies with companies possessing artificial intelligence (AI) technology, including Portrait and Galux.