Roche Says Cancer Setback To Be Cushioned By Other Drug Development

Roche Chairman Christoph Franz on Thursday said a wide product development pipeline at the Swiss pharma and diagnostics company would offset the loss in growth prospects from a failure in immuno-oncology development this week.

Development of a new cancer treatment pioneered by Roche was thrown into doubt on Wednesday when immunotherapy drug tiragolumab failed to slow progression of lung cancer in a second trial, hitting the Swiss drugmaker's shares.

The advantage of a company the size of Roche is that several late-stage trials are ongoing, said Franz, who heads the family-controlled company's board of directors.

"There are always setbacks, we are used to that ... We of course had growth expectations," he added.

The controlling family behind Roche "knows very well that patience and perseverance is part of the successful development of a pharma company," he said.

He sought to temper expectations that trial results for Alzheimer's drug candidate gantenerumab, expected later this year, would make up for this week's disappointment.

"Everyone knows Alzheimer's research is a very risky type of research," said Franz.

Future growth could come from experimental biotech drug glofitamab against certain forms of blood cancer, an increase in demand for routine diagnostics tools and the introduction likely within two years of mass spectrometry in healthcare diagnostics.

Roche was poised to pioneer wider use of mass spectrometry, so far only used in research, as "many of our competitors probably balk at the investment," said Franz.