
Outgoing CEO Jeff Leiden takes victory lap as Vertex's Trikafta stuns Wall Street
The first set of quarterly sales for Vertex’s recently approved cystic fibrosis triplet — Trikafta — astounded analysts on Thursday, as outgoing company chief Jeff Leiden took his final lap in the “team sport” he calls drug development.
Six weeks into its launch the CF therapy has already become the top-selling drug in Vertex’s portfolio. Approved in October, quarterly Trikafta sales hit a massive $420 million (including a $100 million launch-related channel inventory build) in the United States — recording the strongest first quarter of sales for any drug, BMO Capital Markets’ analyst Do Kim estimated. Consensus Wall Street expectations for the regimen were a mere $70 million.
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