Roche Ireland returns to profit after failed cholesterol drug trials

The Irish operations of Swiss drug giant Roche returned to profit last year as it recovered from the setback of a failed drug in 2012.

Turnover jumped 14 per cent to €103.2 million, helping the company move from a 2012 pretax loss of €10.5 million to a profit of €11.4 million.

Roche said the turnaround was due largely to increased production and a one-off charge which dented the 2012 figure.

That €18.63 million charge related to investment made by Roche Ireland to prepare for production of a pipeline cholesterol drug Dalcetrapib.

Poor results

The drug, for which some analysts had predicted peak annual sales of up to $10 billion, was pulled after poor results from a late trial. It raised the level of “good” high density cholesterol in trials but did not prove sufficiently effective at reducing cardiovascular disease.

Dropping the drug was a major blow for Roche, which had seen it as a way to break into the cardiovascular market. Roche is better known as a oncology drug business.

The Irish business wrote off the full amount of its investment in Dalcetrapib in 2012.

It paid no corporation tax in the year after allowing for earlier losses.

The group said its future depended in part on the parent group identifying “replacement products for existing group products that have come off patent”. It also noted the need to adjust its cost base “in line with the forecasted lower levels of production”.

Although it closed its defined benefit pension plan to new members from 2007, Roche has seen its scheme deficit rise sharply in recent years – from €13.7 million in 2009 to €21.3 million last year.

Scheme assets – 80 per cent invested in bonds – increased slightly in value last year, but so too did obligations, resulting in only a fractional improvement in its pensions liabilities.

The company employs some 240 people, mostly at its active pharmaceutical ingredient plant in Clarecastle, Co Clare.