Roche Group has suffered setback during the first half ended June 2011 and its topline as well as bottomline declined by 12 per cent and 5 per cent respectively. The net income declined to Swiss Francs (CHF) 5,259 million from CHF 5,565 million in the corresponding period of last year. Its sales also moved down by 12 per cent to CHF 21.7 billion from CHF 24.6 million. The pharmaceutical sales declined by 13.3 per cent to CHF 16.8 billion from CHF 19.4 billion and that of diagnostics division declined by 7.5 per cent to CHF 4.9 billion from CHF 5.3 billion in the similar period of last year.

The pharmaceutical sales, excluding Tamiflu, increased by one per cent. Sales of Avastin were lower due to the regulatory and reimbursement uncertainty regarding the metastatic breast cancer indication. In addition the impacts of US healthcare reforms, European austerity measures and price cuts in Japan introduced in 2010, amounted to a reduction in sales of CHF 509 million in the first half of 2011 compared to CHF 292 million in last period. Sales of CellCept continued to decline due to the generic erosion following patent expiry.

Sales of the Top 20 pharmaceutical products, which represented 88 per cent of the pharmaceutical sales portfolio, were overall at the same local currency level as the first half of 2010. with the majority of products showing sales growth. Its sales in US increased by 2 per cent with higher growth of sales of Lucentis, Mabthera/Rituxan, Actemra, Activas/TNKase and Xolair, which together contributed 6 percentage points to the growth. This was in particular offset by a 15 per cent decline in Avastin US sales. The US healthcare reforms had a negative impact on first half sales of CHF 131 million. The sales in Japan were not materially affected by the East Japan Earthquake. However, sales in Europe declined by 4 per cent due to European austerity measures with an impact of CHF 208 million.

The major growth drivers were key products in the oncology, ophthalmology and inflammation/autoimmune/transplantation therapeutic areas. Sales in inflammation/autoimmune/transplantation increased with the continued success of MabThera/Rituxan in rheumatoid arthritis and the strong uptake of Actemra/RoActemra, more than offsetting the negative impact from the CellCept patent expiry in the US and Western Europe. In virology, sales of Tamiflu continued to decline substantially.