Roche is positioning itself as a significant competitor in the obesity treatment market, aiming to follow behind industry leaders Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. During a media conference where Roche presented its full-year 2025 results, Teresa Graham, CEO of Roche’s Pharma division, discussed the company's focus on individualized approaches to weight loss.
“Every patient is on an individual weight-loss journey,” Graham said. “The portfolio that we have built allows us to very easily address virtually every need that a patient may have.”
Roche has increased its investment in obesity drug development. In late 2023, the company acquired Carmot Therapeutics for $2.7 billion, gaining access to a pipeline of GLP-1 and GIP receptor agonists. One of these assets, CT-388, demonstrated a placebo-adjusted weight loss of 22.5% at 48 weeks without signs of plateauing.
Additionally, Roche formed an alliance with Zealand Pharmaceuticals in March last year valued at up to $5.3 billion. This agreement allows Roche to co-develop and co-commercialize petrelintide, an amylin molecule considered a potential alternative to GLP-1 drugs.
Graham also highlighted Roche’s acquisition of 89bio for $3.5 billion in September last year. This deal brought pegozafermin into Roche’s portfolio—a FGF21 analog currently being tested for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH). “MASH is the number one comorbidity that we see in patients with obesity,” she said.
“All in all, we believe that we have the suite of medicines that allow us to address the full patient population,” Graham added.
She suggested that Roche plans to differentiate itself from competitors through its approach to delivering obesity treatments but did not provide specifics: “We do intend to enter the market in a way that is much more patient-centric than what we’ve seen to date,” she stated. “I won’t say more about that today.”
In its overall business performance last year, Roche reported sales growth of 7% at constant currencies. The pharma division contributed CHF 47.67 billion ($62.27 billion) out of total group sales of CHF 61.52 billion ($80.35 billion) in 2025; the rest came from diagnostics.
Ocrevus was Roche’s best-selling product last year with CHF 7.01 billion ($9.16 billion) in sales, followed by Hemlibra for hemophilia A at CHF 4.75 billion ($6.20 billion), and Vabysmo for eye conditions at CHF 4.102 billion ($5.36 billion). Sales for Phesgo, used in breast cancer treatment, rose by 48% year-on-year to reach CHF 2.44 billion ($3.19 billion).
Looking ahead, Roche expects mid-single-digit growth across all operations in 2026.
