With sluggish pharmaceutical sales in the third quarter coming in below analysts’ expectations, Bayer is acutely aware of the challenges facing its key unit.
Nevertheless, at least as far as prescription drugs are concerned, the German conglomerate has reasons to be excited, including a fresh launch that is just now taking flight in the U.S.
For the three months that ended in September, Bayer’s prescription drug sales grew a slim 0.4% on an adjusted basis to 4.3 billion euros (around $5 billion), with that showing working out to a 3.9% decline as reported, according to a Nov. 12 earnings presentation (PDF).
Bayer’s branded drug sales missed Wall Street expectations, as well as the earnings forecasts set by analysts at Jefferies and ODDO BHF, according to notes reviewed by Fierce Pharma Wednesday.
The sales stall can be chalked up in large part to tough quarters for Bayer’s blood and heart med Xarelto—which is facing generic competition—and its Regeneron-partnered ophthalmology blockbuster Eylea.
Xarelto sales fell a steep 32.7% as reported in the third quarter to 540 million euros ($625 million), while Eylea’s haul of 731 million euros ($846 million) represented a 13.8% decline from the same period last year.
Despite the largely stagnant performance this past quarter, Bayer remains “encouraged by the resilience of our top line” in pharmaceuticals, CEO Bill Anderson said on a conference call Wednesday. Anderson pointed to the strength of newer launches like prostate cancer med Nubeqa and the chronic kidney disease (CKD) therapy Kerendia, which recently scored an FDA nod in heart failure and benefited from increasing sales momentum in both China and the U.S.
“[W]e’re aware that we have challenges to navigate, including declines in Xarelto sales, currency headwinds and some trade uncertainties,” Anderson caveated at the top of the call.
Nevertheless, the company is “on track” to meet the upgraded guidance range it laid out this summer, Anderson said, which estimates that full-year sales will clock in between 45 billion euros and 47 billion euros.
Looking ahead, Bayer anticipates 2026 Xarelto sales declines “in a similar percentage range as this year,” the company’s chief financial officer, Wolfgang Nickl, said on the earnings call. The situation around Eylea is murkier, Wolfgang admitted, suggesting that Bayer will continue to develop an understanding of the market dynamics as it strives to push the drug’s newer high-dose formulation, Eylea HD.
Although Eylea may have had a choppy quarter, Stefan Oelrich, the head of Bayer’s pharmaceutical division, stressed that the company is “quite happy” with the performance of the drug’s high-dose formulation, noting that he expects Eylea HD “to take second place in the ophthalmology market” in Q4 behind the drug’s 2-mg dose. “The dynamics are intact,” he emphasized on the call.
Still, one variable that remains “difficult to estimate” for Oelrich is “what’s going to happen everywhere around pricing,” which he noted is “somewhat outside of our control.”
In recent weeks, several prominent drugmakers—including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly—have forged drug pricing deals with the United States government. The deals fall under President Donald Trump’s “most favored nation” pricing strategy and have prompted introspection about potential drug cost shifts in other geographies like continental Europe and the U.K.
Launches gain steam
It wasn’t all bad news for Bayer’s pharma division in the third quarter, with the German conglomerate’s newer launches Nubeqa and Kerendia continuing to deliver on the sales front.
Nubeqa—first cleared in 2019 to treat prostate cancer—grew third-quarter sales nearly 50% to 622 million euros ($721 million), while Kerendia’s 221 million euro ($256 million) haul for the period amounted to roughly 75% sales growth over 2024.
The newer meds’ growth looks here to stay, Oelrich stressed, with Bayer’s pharma chief forecasting “continuing good quarters” for Nubeqa in the coming months. Regarding Kerendia, Oelrich noted that he’s long stood behind the CKD and heart failure med’s “tremendous potential,” despite the drug suffering from a “slow start.”
Initially approved for kidney disease in 2021, Kerendia picked up its second indication in heart failure over the summer.
“When talking to my reps, especially in the U.S., we’re seeing very good reception of Kerendia in heart failure,” Oelrich said. Add to that the fact that the med is “synergistic to other therapies like SGLT2,” and Bayer believes that it has hit a sales “sweet spot” between the med’s two indications, Oelrich added.
Bayer is also kicking off a fresh launch in its nonhormonal menopause symptom treatment Lynkuet, which passed muster with the FDA in late October. Oelrich was optimistic yet reserved about the drug’s market prospects, noting that “we’ll have to see a little bit how that goes.”
That said, Bayer is “very bullish” on the product given its track record in women’s health, Oelrich said, commenting that he feels the timing to roll out a new menopause treatment is ideal and highlighting “quite surprising media response to our approval.”
The first U.S. sales of Lynkuet were registered this week, and Bayer is now “getting ready to look at sequencing this into the rest of the world,” Oelrich explained.
“This could be a good one,” Oelrich said of Lynkuet’s debut. “But it’s early days,” he cautioned, “so, let’s first do the work—and then let’s also celebrate a little bit like we’ve been doing on some of these other launches.”
Bayer’s performance in the third quarter largely tracks with the rest of 2025; despite a stronger first quarter (PDF), Bayer’s pharma sales began to stall (PDF) in the second quarter and continued to chug along from July through September.
The company has been undergoing a transformation under CEO Anderson, who took over in early 2023. In a bid to cut annual costs at the German conglomerate, Bayer had reduced its head count by more than 13,500 people under Anderson’s stewardship.
But in what is undoubtedly a piece of good news for the remaining Bayer workforce, major cuts are likely in the rear view for now.
“In terms of headcount reduction, we did the major surgery to get ourselves in the right place,” Anderson said of the restructure during Bayer’s call on Wednesday. With that in mind, the company still has “a lot of opportunities to go faster to make the system work for us,” the CEO explained.
He caveated that there may still be “some continued reduction in total head count numbers” but stressed that the cuts will be more akin to “incremental attrition” than another “major surgery.”