Don't Get Too Excited About Biogen's Q4 Earnings

Baird Equity Research expects to see a “less-than-optimal Tecfidera performance” when Biogen Inc (NASDAQ: BIIB) issues its fourth-quarter earnings January 26.

The psoriasis treatment is predicted to fall short of sales revenue consensus by $45 million after scripts fell more than 6 percent year-over-year.

And the bad news doesn’t stop there.

Other Concerns Remain

According to Baird, Biogen lost ground in the multiple sclerosis market with a 28.5-percent share. Despite the fourth-quarter release of Zinbryta, the company suffered accelerated loss of scripts with figures signaling a year-over-year loss of 5.5 percent.

Nevertheless, the MS drugs are expected to meet consensus estimates, and Baird maintains optimism that Biogen could post a strong launch of Spinraza. In fact, Baird raised its Spinraza sales estimates from $102 million to $227 million based on the unanticipated addition of a sales quarter as well as the announcement of higher dosage costs.

“We're warming on the name as we expect earnings estimates for Spinraza to see some strong upward revisions over the next few quarters,” analysts wrote.

Biogen's product timeline includes a hemophilia segment in early February and a third-quarter launch of the immunosuppressive ocrelizumab.

Company shares have fallen steadily since November but were up 0.22 percent on the day at time of writing.