As Adcetris slows, Seattle Genetics touts early launch figures for bladder cancer med Padcev

It wasn’t long ago when Seattle Genetics shareholders moved past earlier letdowns and cheered strong performance from key cancer drug Adcetris. But now, they might be disappointed again. During the fourth quarter, Adcetris pulled in sales of $166.2 million in the U.S. and Canada, a 26% increase over 2018. Still, the number came below the Street’s expectations of $174.5 million as well as its own third-quarter sales of $167.6 million. The fourth-quarter haul brought the antibody-drug conjugate’s 2019 total to $627.7 million, which was at the bottom end of the company’s guidance provided in October, SVB Leerink analyst Andrew Berens said in a Friday note to clients. Seattle Genetics itself doesn’t predict significant improvement in the near term. For 2020, the company expects Adcetris sales to come in between $675 million and $700 million, under Berens’ previous estimate of around $788 million. The company is only expecting organic sales increases in the single-digit percentages, the analyst noted. Seattle Genetics just raised the drug’s list price by 3.9% in December, he wrote.