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Incyte CEO Hervé Hoppenot has promised investors that 2025 will be “a year that will be full of many defining catalysts” for the company.
Speaking at the 2025 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, Hoppenot shared plans for the US pharma company to launch four new products in 2025, beginning with its third-line chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) treatment Niktimvo (axatilimab-csfr). The drug was approved by the FDA in August 2024 and is expected to reach the US market in the first quarter of 2025.
The company hopes that three other pipeline drugs will be approved in the second half of the year. These are Zynyz (retifanlimab) for the treatment of squamous cell anal carcinoma (SCAC), Monjuvi (tafasitamab) for follicular lymphoma, and Opzelura (ruxolitinib) cream.
A supplemental NDA has been submitted for Incyte’s Opzelura cream, which has the potential to be the first topical JAK inhibitor approved for paediatric patients in the US for the treatment of atopic dermatitis (AD). Meanwhile, supplemental BLAs have been submitted for Monjuvi and Zynyz, which Incyte hopes could become the new standard of care for SCAC.
The four launches reportedly represent a potential $1bn in incremental revenues for the company by 2029.
Hoppenot also used the JP Morgan conference as an opportunity to highlight other anticipated milestones for Incyte this year. The company expects to announce four pivotal trial readouts, at least three Phase III study initiations and seven proof-of-concept data readouts.
He highlighted three “high-impact” pipeline programmes in particular, namely povorcitinib, mCALR and CDK2 inhibitors.
Oral small-molecule JAK1 inhibitor povorcitinib “is coming soon, and it could be very big”, Hoppenot said. The drug is in pivotal studies for three indications: hidradenitis suppurativa, vitiligo and prugrigo nodularis. The data for the Phase III hidradenitis suppurativa trial is expected in the first half of 2025 while vitiligo and prugrigo nodularis data is expected next year.
The share price of the company increased 2.59% on 13 January, suggesting some optimism for pipeline products.
Looking at the broader picture, Hoppenot explained that the business was adopting a focused, specific approach to R&D: “Our pipeline has been reduced a little bit – some projects have been stopped – and we are trying to direct our resources to what is novel biology – what is first in class or best in class.”
However, he also credited diversification within the portfolio as the reason behind Incyte’s $3.1bn revenue in the first nine months of 2024, which represented a 14% year-on-year increase. Hoppenot noted that “revenue at Incyte is growing because of diversification of the portfolio and also because of international expansion”.