Opioid treatment firm Indivior upgrades outlook and shares take off
FTSE-listed drug maker Indivior saw its shares surge more than 10 per cent this morning after it raised its annual revenue and profit forecast, encouraged by strong sales of its opioid addiction treatments in the first half of the year as patients resumed routine visits to clinics and hospitals.
The US-based pharma now expects full-year net revenue between $705m and $740m, to account for growth in its injectable opioid addiction treatment, Sublocade, and steady sales of its top-selling medicine, Suboxone.
Shares are currently trading up nine per cent t 159p per share.
In February, Indivior forecast sales of up to $625m on the upside that Covid-19 restrictions, which kept patients away from hospitals and limited access to medicines, would be lifted in the second half of the year.
Opioid addiction has been a crisis in the US, Indivior’s biggest market. The USCenters for Disease Control and Prevention has said nearly 500,000 people died from opioid overdoses in the US from 1999 to 2019.
The company also expects Sublocade sales to be in a range of $210m to $230m, an upgrade from $185m to $210m estimated earlier, after it received a large order from an unnamed customer in the criminal justice system.
Indivior, spun off from Reckitt in 2014, has been focusing on growing newer treatments including Sublocade, and Perseris for schizophrenia to boost its fortunes. Earlier this month, it expanded into treatments for cannabis-related disorders.
The drugmaker, which was grappling with drawn-out legal challenges and competition even before the coronavirus outbreak hammered the healthcare sector, will report interim results on July 29