Chippenham, UK – 25 January 2017: Vectura Group plc (LSE: VEC) (“Vectura”, “the Group”), an industry-leading device and formulation business for inhaled airways disease, announces that a sales milestone receipt of $5 million has been triggered following confirmation by Novartis that EU/ROW combined net sales of Seebri® Breezhaler® and Ultibro® Breezhaler® for the year to 31 December 2016 have reached $512 million. The milestone will be recorded in the Group’s revenues for 2016, as anticipated at the time of the Group’s pre-close trading update on 9 January 2017.
Net sales for these products reported by Novartis today are as follows:
| Q4 2016 | Q4 2015 | % change | FY 2016 | FY 2015 | % change | ||||
| $’m | $’m | $’ | cc* | $’m | $’m | $’ | cc* | ||
| Ultibro Breezhaler | 90 | 76 | 18 | 20 | 363 | 260 | 40 | 38 | |
| Seebri Breezhaler | 38 | 37 | 3 | 9 | 149 | 150 | -1 | 2 | |
James Ward-Lilley, Chief Executive Officer, commented:
“Vectura's collaboration with Novartis continues to deliver significant value, contributing to total recurring revenues which make up over 75%1 of Group revenues. From their respective launches within only the last five years, Seebri and Ultibro are now established and substantial global products having achieved over $0.5 billion in combined net sales in 2016. Ultibro in particular continues to grow strongly, fuelled by the positive results of the FLAME study and with further potential both from the recent change to the GOLD guidelines and the planned 2017 US launch by Sunovion. We also look forward to further progress of the Novartis asthma triple programme QVM149, which is currently in Phase III with first planned submissions in 2019.”
