It’s busy days at Incyte. Even as the drugmaker aims to grow the market for Jakafi—with one exec saying the drug is heading toward $3 billion in annual sales—the company is gearing up for several other launches.
Jakafi, the company's key JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor, grew sales 21% last year to $1.7 billion. Those revenues are coming from the med's three approved uses in myelofibrosis, polycythemia vera and acute graft-versus-host disease, Incyte’s U.S. general manager Barry Flannelly said on a conference call Thursday.
Myelofibrosis remains the largest component of the med’s revenues, he said, but the polycythemia vera use is growing at a faster rate. Jakafi just won approval in acute graft-versus-host disease last year.
This year, the company expects $1.88 billion to $1.95 billion in sales for the key med. Jakafi is on its way to becoming a $3 billion brand, Flannelly told analysts on the call.
Meanwhile, Incyte just last month reported a phase 3 trial success for ruxolitinib cream—another formulation of Jakafi—in atopic dermatitis. The company plans to submit the medicine to the FDA in that use in the fourth quarter.
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Overall in 2019, Incyte reported $2.16 billion in global revenues, a 15% jump from 2018. Aside from Jakafi, cancer med Iclusig—licensed from Ariad—contributed $90 million in sales. Novartis markets Jakafi outside the U.S., and Incyte recorded $226 million in royalties from that partnership. Olumiant royalties from Eli Lilly added another $80 million to Incyte's 2019 total.
Looking forward, Incyte is hoping for an FDA approval for pemigatinib to treat certain patients with cholangiocarcinoma yet this year. The company is already educating healthcare professionals to test for various mutations and has trained up its launch teams, Flannelly said.
Capmatinib, a non-small cell lung cancer med Incyte has licensed to Novartis, just picked up an FDA priority review; execs are hoping for a nod in 2020.
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Incyte is also in the process of closing a licensing deal with MorphoSys that’ll give the drugmaker certain rights to lymphoma med tafasitamab. The deal will allow the companies to co-promote the med in the U.S. and give Incyte full rights in the rest of the world. That drug could win an approval this year, too.