In a preliminary report of its 2025 results, Apellis said sales of its geographic atrophy (GA) drug Syfovre came in at $587 million for the year, a 4% decline from its 2024 figure of $612 million.
As for the fourth quarter of 2025, Syfovre accounted for preliminary sales of $155 million, which was up slightly from $151 million in the third quarter.
With the results, the share price of the San Francisco-based company tumbled by about 14%.
Analysts from Evercore ISI chalked up the decline in sales of the potential blockbuster to “copay assistance headwinds that have hit patient starts all year,” they wrote in a note to clients. Nevertheless, the analysts still believe a sales boost is possible this year.
Apellis shared the preliminary results in conjunction with a corporate update prepared for the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. A detailed company presentation is slated to take place later Monday at the conference.
Reasons for optimism, according to the company, include its advancement of a “best-in-class” prefilled syringe option for Syfovre, which Apellis will submit for approval in the first half of this year. The company also pointed to recently announced positive results from a trial showing five-year results of the treatment.
The company also said that total injection demand grew by 17% year over year for Syfovre, though this did not translate into an increase in sales.
“There’s room to grow for this product—but prefilled syringes and resolution of copay headwind are the biggest levers at this point, and neither looks like a near-term boost,” the Evercore analysts wrote.
Apellis says it holds a 60% market share in GA. It is battling Astellas and its injected GA medicine Izervay, which generated sales of 34.1 billion Japanese yen in the first half of the fiscal year ($216 million), the company reported in October. The figure is up 21% year over year, though the company has had to backtrack on its annual sales projection, slashing it from $750 million to $550 million.
On a positive note, Evercore analysts pointed to the strong performance of Apellis and Sobi-partnered Empaveli. Apellis on Monday reported 267 patient starts, which was up from a 225-plus projection issued last year. The blood disorder and kidney disease drug pulled in $35 million in the fourth quarter and $102 million for 2025, according to the preliminary results.
With consensus projections for 2026 at $90 million, Apellis will blow past that figure with its 267 patient starts, the Evercore team noted.