Ten years on, Roche jettisons InterMune and Esbriet in US
It's been a decade since Roche bought InterMune for $8.3 billion on the promise of its idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) therapy Esbriet. Now, it's sold the business.
The buyer is Legacy Pharma, a business registered in the Cayman Islands that sells a portfolio of branded generic medicines through a US business unit of the same name and two other companies, Allegis Pharma and Marnel Pharma.
It is taking control of the InterMune unit and US rights to Esbriet (pirfenidone), which has been FDA-approved for IPF since October 2014. The price being paid for the assets has not been disclosed.
Esbriet was able to achieve blockbuster status, with sales of around $1 billion in 2021, although it never reached the heights of its rival and only other FDA-approved therapy for IPF – Boehringer Ingelheim's Ofev (nintedanib) – which outsold it almost three times over in the same year and has since grown into a $3.6 billion-a-year product.
Sales of Esbriet plunged after it lost patent protection in 2022, with generic competition swiftly taking its toll, and the brand declined to just over $200 million in 2023. Sales figures were not broken out in Roche's 2024 financial reporting but have been estimated to be around $100 million.
It's worth noting that Roche isn't giving up on IPF as an indication, despite the decision to ell Esbriet, and has switched its attention to an anti-OSMRβ antibody – licensed by its Genentech subsidiary from Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals in 2022 – which is in mid-stage clinical testing for IPF and other forms of interstitial lung disease (ILD), as well as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Legacy Pharma said the acquisition "underscores [the company's] commitment to expanding its portfolio of high-quality pharmaceutical products and enhancing patient access to innovative treatments."
Taking over the brand will ensure the continued availability and distribution of Esbriet to patients across the US, it added. Roche is retaining rights to the product in other parts of the world.
Roche's sale of InterMune and Esbriet in the US comes as Boehringer revealed its own follow-up play in the IPF, category, oral PDE 4B inhibitor nerandomilast, which is heading for regulatory filings in the US and elsewhere this year after generating positive results in two phase 3 trials.
