Roche's late stage pipeline 'so full,' CEO Schinecker not feeling pressure to add on

News Business Roche’s late stage pipeline ‘so full,’ CEO Schinecker not feeling pressure to add on July 23, 2026 | 2 min read | Tristan Manalac Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Email Print Roche has 19 investigational medicines that could launch by 2030—and even if not all of them make it to market, the company is “well set-up for growth into the next decade,” CEO Thomas Schinecker said on the pharma’s Q2 earnings call. Unlike its Big Pharma peers, Roche doesn’t have its “back against the wall” to make a major acquisition any time soon, according to CEO Thomas Schinecker.“I think we’re well set up for growth into the next decade,” Schinecker told reporters during a press event Thursday to present the company’s second quarter earnings. “In fact, our late-stage pipeline is so full that adding something late stage—we would then have to see how to reallocate more money” into these programs.Currently, Roche is pushing several medicines through the pipeline, with up to 19 potentially launching by 2030. These include the obesity therapies petrelintide, being developed in partnership with Zealand Pharma, and enicepatide, which Roche picked up in its $2.7 billion acquisition of Carmot Therapeutics in December 2023. Weight loss Roche Makes Another Obesity Play With Potential $5.3B Amylin Pact With Zealand Roche and Zealand plan to study petrelintide as a monotherapy and in combination with CT-388, a dual agonist of the GLP-1 and GIP receptors that Roche picked up in its recent acquisition of Carmot Therapeutics. March 12, 2025 · 2 min read · Tristan Manalac Read more Also nearing the market is the Alzheimer’s disease therapy trontinemab and the SERD drug giredestrant, which is currently under FDA review for ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer with a decision date of Nov. 30. Roche forecasts over $3 billion in peak sales for each of these assets, according to a company presentation on Thursday.“Even if not all make it,” Schinecker said of these 19 molecules, Roche will still be well-positioned for growth in the coming years.M&A has been a central theme for biopharma this year so far. There were more than 50 acquisitions in the first half of 2026, up from around 30 during the same period last year. Eli Lilly, for instance, pledged over $25 billion to absorb smaller players, including Centessa Pharmaceuticals in March and Kelonia Therapeutics in April.Far behind the Indianapolis giant is Gilead Sciences, which in total announced up to $14.8 billion in acquisition spend, and GSK, which has so far committed $13.5 billion, according to a BioSpace analysis. Mergers & acquisitions Biopharma strikes 50+ M&As deals in H1, led by Lilly’s $25B spend The total of 52 mergers and acquisitions for the first half of 2026 reflects what analysts, industry watchers and executives are saying over and over: M&A is back. July 1, 2026 · 1 min read · Annalee Armstrong Read more Roche, notably, has been missing out on most of the action. The company last month put up to $2.3 billion on the line to advance a protein degrader with Nurix Therapeutics for B cell malignancies, and the pharma has enriched its diagnostics business by swallowing PathAI and SAGA Diagnostics. But Roche hasn’t made a hefty, late-stage acquisition this year.According to Schinecker on Thursday morning, there’s no real impetus for a big buy. “We are not maybe under the same pressure as some of the other companies,” given that Roche isn’t facing any real patent cliff, he said. “We feel very good where we are at the moment with the pipeline.”In the first half of the year, Roche reported nearly CHF 30.4 billion ($37.3 billion) in sales, a 6% year-on-year increase at constant currencies. Much of the group’s revenue came from its pharmaceuticals unit, which brought in over CHF 23.6 billion ($29 billion), while its diagnostics division made CHF 6.7 billion ($8.2 billion).Roche’s top-performing product was Ocrevus, indicated for multiple sclerosis, hitting almost CHF 3.5 billion ($4.3 billion). Close behind were the hemophilia A therapy Hemlibra with CHF 2.5 billion ($3.1 billion) and the eye injection Vabysmo with almost CHF 2.1 billion ($2.6 billion).Key growth drivers, on the other hand, include the allergy medicine Xolair, which surged 27% year-on-year to CHF 1.67 billion ($2.1 billion) and the lymphoma therapy Polivy, which logged 20% growth to bring in nearly CHF 808 million ($992 million). Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Email Print Pipeline Earnings Tristan Manalac Tristan is BioSpace‘s senior staff writer. Based in Metro Manila, Tristan has more than eight years of experience writing about medicine, biotech and science. He can be reached at tristan.manalac@biospace.com, tristan@tristanmanalac.com or on LinkedIn.