GlaxoSmithKline's Bexsero, Shingrix to pass $1B sales mark by 2022: report

A key pickup from its massive Novartis asset swap, GlaxoSmithKline’s meningitis B shot Bexsero has been a standout performer in recent quarters. That’s not set to change, according to an analyst group, which predicted this week that the shot and pipeline vaccine Shingrix will each haul in more than $1 billion by 2022.

In its just-released World Preview report, life science commercial intelligence firm Evaluate projected that GSK’s Bexsero will more than double sales to $1.17 billion in 2022. Last year, the vaccine brought in $528 million.

But if Evaluate’s projections pan out, Bexsero won’t be alone in the blockbuster vaccine club for GSK in 2022. The analysts expect shingles vaccine Shingrix—which GSK submitted to U.S. and European authorities last year—to climb to $1.126 billion that year. It’s the top vaccine R&D project by value in the new World Preview analysis and would challenge Merck’s Zostavax on the market.

RELATED: Glaxo's Bexsero supply rebounds after demand for MenB jab outstrips supply

To give Bexsero a boost after the Novartis asset swap, GlaxoSmithKline quickly agreed on a price with the U.K. government for a national immunization program. Afterward, demand was so strong that the company ran into a brief shortage for private clinics.

Since then, supply has rebounded and Glaxo is moving to make the most of the vaccine. The company started construction in March on a $175 million plant in Germany, where it plans to move production of three of Bexsero’s four active components currently made at a Sandoz plant in Austria.

RELATED: With first Shingrix application, GSK advances toward $1B market duel with Merck

At $1.17 billion in sales by 2022, Bexsero rounds out Evaluate’s top 5 vaccines by sales that year, behind Pfizer’s Prevnar 13, Merck’s Gardasil and Sanofi’s Pentacel and Fluzone.

Evaluate predicts Pentacel and Fluzone will grow in low single digits each year over the report period, while Gardasil sales are expected to remain flat and Prevnar 13 is expected to shrink annually by 1%.