Since Roche launched its long-acting eye disease medicine Vabysmo in 2022, Bayer and Regeneron have seen the impact on sales of their rival treatment Eylea, with the U.S. biotech taking a bigger hit.
Bayer has managed to keep its annual Eylea sales relatively stable as they have toggled between 3.1 billion euros and 3.3 billion euros in each of the last four years. But that’s coming to an end this year as biosimilar competition is hitting the German company with full force.
In the first quarter (PDF), Bayer’s Eylea sales were down 24% year over year to 623 million euros ($731 million). They also declined sequentially by 11%. None of this is a surprise as Bayer has projected Eylea sales to drop 20% to 25% this year.
However, it wasn’t all bad news for Bayer’s Eylea franchise, as Chief Financial Officer Wolfgang Nickl cited “continued positive volume development” for Eylea’s longer-acting 8 mg formulation, which now accounts for 46% of the company’s overall Eylea sales.
“We continue to see pricing pressure from the market entry of biosimilars and that’s especially on pricing,” Nickl added.
While the company expects sales to continue falling this year, Bayer Pharmaceuticals Division President Stefan Oelrich said there is also an expectation of “some sustained Eylea business” from the eventual uptake of the 8 mg option.
Bayer held off the Eylea slide longer than Regeneron, which saw sales for the franchise plummet from $6 billion in 2024 to $4.4 billion in 2025. Last month, the New York drugmaker reported that its macular degeneration treatment generated $941 million in Q1, marking the first time in eight years that its sales dipped below $1 billion in a quarter.
Last week, Bayer addressed its declining presence in the eye disease market with a potential answer as it acquired San Francisco-based Perfuse and its mid-phase eye disease implant PER-001. Bayer will pay $300 million up front, with $2.15 billion in potential milestones attached to the deal.
“You have to see this as not just a commercial play but also as something where we leverage our knowledge in the space. When I talk about knowledge, it’s both on the science side but also in our KOL network and hopefully setting up a good and fast late-stage clinical development for this new medicine,” Oelrich said. “Please also be reminded that we don’t have a commercial infrastructure for ophthalmology in the U.S. so a lot of this needs to be built.”
With Bayer also bearing the brunt of a rapid sales decline for blood thinner Xarelto, which was down 43% in the quarter, the company’s pharma division saw overall sales decline by 7%.
There was a symbolic passing of the torch for Bayer as its new top-selling product is Nubeqa. The prostate cancer treatment has leapfrogged Eylea and Xarelto, generating 749 million euros ($879 million) in the quarter, for a 45% increase year-over-year. Bayer’s other growth standout, cardiovascular and kidney drug Kerendia, achieved sales of $274 million ($321 million) in Q1 for a 70% increase.
Bayer’s other two business divisions—crop science and consumer health—exceeded expectations in the first quarter, with sales flat. As a result, Bayer’s share price ticked up by 4%.