Growing Asian demand for Cresemba

Basilea has announced this morning that sales of its antifungal Cresemba in the Asia Pacific region have exceeded the sales threshold required, resulting in a $5m milestone payment from licensee Pfizer. With Cresemba facing loss of exclusivity in the US and Europe from Q4 2027, sales outside of these regions become signficantly more important, particularly in potentially large markets like China and Japan where Cresemba is still relatively early in its commercial roll out. Nevertheless, Basilea, its licensees, and distribution partners continue to benefit from strong total sales growth of Cresemba, with global in-market sales of $693m (+27%) in the 12 month period to the end of September 2025.

Despite the uncertain outlook for Cresemba after 2027 in the US and Europe, Basilea has been able to refill the late stage anti-infectives pipeline with the notable addition of the novel antifugal candidate fosmanogepix. In our research we have previously detailed the attractive profile of fosmanogepix which has activity against almost all of the priority fungal pathogens highlighted by the WHO. Fosmanogepix is already undergoing Phase 3 evaluation in patients with invasive candidiasis (FAST-IC) as well as invasive moulds (FORWARD-IM). The attraction of fosmanogepix has been increased by positive real-world experience in expanded excess programmes against previously intractable and life-threatening infections such as Fusarium. As a result, we believe that fosmanogepix could be a significantly larger commercial opportunity than Cresemba, with our peak sales forecast of circa $1.2bn. Moreover, the majority of fosmanogepix development is paid for by non-dilutive funding from BARDA.

During the year, we look foward to updates on the commercial progress of the 5th generation cephalosporin antibiotic Zevtera through partner IST in the US, particularly in the SAB indication. The recent portfolio update further demonstrated late stage pipeline progress with the combination antibiotic ceftibuten-ledaborbactam set to enter Phase 3 trials in Q1 2027 to address unmet needs in cUTI, also largely paid for by BARDA. We have previously forecast this to be a $450m opportunity.

Basilea will present its FY'25 results on February 17th.

We have a DCF-derived fair value of CHF120 per share.

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