Weekly US generic IV market tracker

We update our weekly tracker of the US IV generic market, focusing on sales and volumes for individual companies and the overall market, as well as providing analysis of individual products, which shows continued strong momentum for Kabi into August.

For the market overall, we observe a sequentially softer weekly print following a strong IV sales development in July, despite an easier comp. US generic injectable sales saw a modest c.+2% y/y in w/e August 4 (vs. c.+11% in the prior week and c.+6% in 4-weeks ending July 28) and leading to a c.+5% aggregate sales growth so far in the quarter (vs. c.+4% in Q2’23).

At Fresenius Kabi, we note continued robust momentum in generic IV sales (c.+10% in w/e August 4 vs. c.+14% in w/e July 28), against soft prior year comps and outperforming the broader market. Similarly, for Kabi’s overall portfolio, which we view as a good proxy for its US business, our tracker shows c.+12% y/y growth during w/e August 4 (vs. c.+25% in w/e July 28) and leading to a sequentially stronger performance in Q3-to-date (c.+18% vs. c.+3% in Q2). The comps are easing further in the remainder of quarter at Kabi and management remains confident on the overall performance for the remaining part of the year (see: Afternoon tea with the CEO, 3 Aug). Filtering Kabi’s performance down to individual products, we observe continued strong demand for anaesthetic drug Propofol (Diprivan) as well as for Cisatracurium besylate with some offsets from a weaker Heparin sales, which is used in connection with elective surgery. We continue to see significant value-unlocking potential at Fresenius SE and reiterate our OW rating on the stock.

Weekly vs. monthly datasets: We present our weekly tracker of the US IV generic market in conjunction with our monthly product. We believe this data provides directional insights, although the monthly data correlates better with growth reported at Fresenius SE.