[Updated: 8:40 am PT, 8/9/12] Seattle Genetics generated steady sales of its cancer drug for the first two quarters of this year, and that disappointed some investors who were expecting to see more growth.
The Bothell, WA-based biotech company (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SGEN]]) said today it pulled in $34.7 million in sales of brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) in the quarter that ended June 30. That was almost identical to the $34.5 million in sales it reported in the first quarter of the year. The performance keeps the company on pace to reach its full-year sales goal of $140 million to $150 million, but analysts were expecting a little more in the quarter, with an average estimate of about $36 million in second-quarter sales, JP Morgan’s Cory Kasimov said in a note to clients. [Updated with analyst comment.]
“We expect Adcetris commercial trends to remain relatively stagnant until additional indications begin to come on line,” Kasimov wrote in a note to clients.
The drug won FDA approval last August, as the company’s first cancer treatment cleared for sale in the U.S. The product is cleared for patients with relapsed forms of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and anaplastic large cell lymphoma, which both carry a molecular target known as CD30. Although the drug is currently approved for a small population of patients, the company has aggressive plans to turn it into a new option for patients with earlier forms of cancer, for use in re-treatment, and for other malignancies that overexpress the CD30 marker. CEO Clay Siegall has said previously he thinks the product has potential to grow into a $1 billion a year blockbuster.
“The commercialization of Adcetris continues to be strong, and we are pleased by the acceptance and utilization of Adcetris among oncologists and patients with relapsed Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma (sALCL),” Siegall said in a statement.
The company ended June with about $330 million in cash and investments on its balance sheet, almost exactly the same amount it had at the beginning of the year.
