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Africa’s biggest pharmaceutical manufacturer, Aspen Pharmacare, on Wednesday reported a 22% increase in normalised headline earnings per share, buoyed by sales of Eli Lilly’s blockbuster weight loss drug Mounjaro.Aspen has an agreement with Eli Lilly to promote and distribute Mounjaro in South Africa and other Sub-Saharan African countries.The strong demand for Mounjaro affirmed Aspen’s strategy to invest in the rapidly growing market for GLP-1 weight loss medicines, said CEO Stephen Saad.“Consumers really want this product. I’ve never seen a category grow like this, both here and globally,” he said in an interview with Business Day shortly after the company released its annual results for the year to June 30.Aspen is awaiting registration for Mounjaro with medicine regulators in Nigeria and Kenya and will then pursue markets in West Africa, said Saad.Aspen is also pursuing the market for generic semaglutide, which came off patent earlier this year in many parts of the world. It has already obtained regulatory approval in Canada and is awaiting registration in “about 20″ countries, including Brazil and South Africa, said Saad. Consumers really want this product. I’ve never seen a category grow like this, both here and globally.— Stephen Saad, Aspen CEOSemaglutide was developed by Danish pharmaceutical manufacturer Novo Nordisk and branded Ozempic. The timing of Aspen’s launch of semaglutide in Canada was uncertain, as it was still awaiting supplies of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) from Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, it said. The company did not anticipate similar problems with its launch in Brazil, as it had sourced APIs from a different manufacturer for that product, said Saad. Aspen did not anticipate sales of generic semaglutide to dent demand for Mounjaro, said Saad. “If you’re on the product and it’s working for you, it’s changing the world. Why would you go off it? I don’t see cannibalisation; I see an expansion of the market,” he said. Aspen reported a flat revenue base of R34.87bn but delivered a 22% increase in normalised headline earnings per share, which rose to 801.5 cents, up from 659.2c the year before.Growth was driven by a strong performance in its commercial pharmaceuticals division, which reported a 3% increase in revenue to R25.4bn, up from R24.8bn last year, and a 9% increase in normalised earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda), which rose to R6.875bn.The performance of its commercial pharmaceuticals division offset weaker sales in its manufacturing segment, which last year lost a contract to make mRNA vaccines for an undisclosed company. The division reported an 11% drop in revenue to R9.5bn. The manufacturing division, however, reported improved profitability, with normalised ebitda rising 9% to R828m. Aspen declared a dividend per share of 232c, a 10% increase on last year.Earlier in the day Aspen announced that it had repurchased 13.3-million shares, representing about 3% of its issued share capital. The shares were bought between May 29 and August 31 at an average price of R148.17 per share, said Aspen. The share repurchases reflected Aspen’s confidence in its long-term value creation prospects, it said in a statement.Aspen’s shares closed the day’s trade down 7.35% at R145. Business Day
