The pogrom on UnitedHealth Group shares. PoZdroweek or what happened this week in Poland and around the world

The past week was a quiet one, as healthcare stocks barely changed. That wasn't the case everywhere. Investors holding UnitedHealth Group shares certainly had reason to be disapproving. The stock price of that giant plummeted 18% on Tuesday alone, following the news of the resignation of longtime CEO Andrew Witty. As if that wasn't enough, the company withdrew its earnings forecast for this year.

WIGmed rose by 1.3% over the past week. MSCI Europe Health Care gained 0.7%, while the global MSCI World Health Care lost a symbolic 0.3%.

Source: TradingView

UnitedHealth Group used to be one of Wall Street's darlings. That sentiment may have wavered. The stock's loss of about 40% since the beginning of this year has become so severe that it's hard to ignore.

Among the largest healthcare companies , Intuitive Surgical and Gilead Sciences saw their stock prices increase by over 5%.

Source: own study based on stooq.pl

On the Warsaw Stock Exchange at Książęca Street, shares of Selvita (+11.7%) and Medicalgorithmics (+10.0%) closed with solid double-digit gains.

Source: own study based on stooq.pl

Biopharma layoffs continue

We are not even halfway through the year and already about 100 biopharmaceutical companies around the world have decided to reduce their workforce. More than 7 thousand people have gone to the green grass.

Despite this, the scale of the cuts so far is not as severe as it was a year ago. At that time, the corporations optimized employment by 24-28 thousand people. Johnson&Johnson was the leader - 2.3 thousand people said goodbye to the company. Bayer (2.2 thousand), Takeda (1.5 thousand in 2024 and early 2025) and Pfizer (1.3 thousand) also decided to make deep cuts.

In the first months of this year, Bayer (2,000), Teva (2,000), Bristol Myers Squib (over 600) and Gilead (150) took such steps. On May 13, Bayer announced that it had laid off 2,000 employees in the first quarter of 2025.

The German corporation is continuing the business reorganization it began in July 2023. Since then , Bayer has been slimmed down by about 11,000 employees. According to the annual report for 2024, the company employed almost 93,000 people in its factories.

Bayer didn’t have much to brag about to investors. Sales amounted to EUR 13.7 billion in Q1 2025, which was 0.1% lower than a year ago. The pharmaceutical segment did best (up 4.1% to EUR 4.55 billion). The fastest growth was recorded by the chronic kidney disease drug Kerendia (+87%) and the prostate cancer drug Nubeqa (+78%). The company didn’t do so well everywhere. Revenue generated by the anticoagulant Xarelto fell 31% in the quarter, as competition from generics made itself felt.

Source: own work based on public domain

POLAND

Tuesday (13.5.2025)

- Medicalgorithmics has entered into an agreement with Korean distributor Wellysis, a Samsung spin-off specializing in ECG monitoring, predictive analytics, and AI models in healthcare. Under the agreement, the DeepRhythm Platform (DRP) and DeepRhythmAI (DRAI) AI algorithms will be integrated with Wellysis' flagship S-Patch device (cleared by the FDA in the US).

Thursday (15.5.2025)

- PolTREG had cash and cash equivalents of PLN 40.7 million at the end of December 2024, compared to PLN 45.7 million at the end of December 2023. The company recorded a PLN 5.5 million unit net loss in Q1 2025, compared to a PLN 3.4 million loss a year earlier.

In the first quarter of 2025, the company updated its development project portfolio .

"In the most advanced projects concerning polyclonal TREGs, the company will continue clinical trials in the preTREG project. In addition, the company plans to focus on further clinical development of the primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) form. Further clinical development of the relapsing form (RRMS) in polyclonal therapy has been temporarily suspended. This decision was dictated by the different potential of the therapy, resulting mainly from the availability of competitive drugs on the market. In the form of RRMS, there are many disease-modifying drugs on the market, while in the form of PPMS there is only one drug (Ocrelizumab - Ocrevus) approved for marketing in the US and Europe, which modifies the course of the disease in a limited way," the company explained in its financial report.

"In the coming periods, the company will pay great attention to further preclinical development of a number of next-generation projects: CAR-TREG, Peptide/mRNA vaccine in vivo and TCR-TREGS. A significant novelty is the in vivo approach consisting in the direct use of peptides or their mRNA to induce the activity of regulatory T lymphocytes in the patient's body (peptide/mRNA vaccine)," she added.

Friday (16.5.2025)

- PEX reported that sales on the pharmacy pharmaceutical market increased by 12.9% in the first 15 days of May this year compared to the same period of the previous year. The value of the prescription drug market increased by 19.6% year-on-year, and non-prescription drugs went up by 4.6%

- Captor Therapeutics received a decision from the National Center for Research and Development (NCBR) regarding the implementation of the CT-02 project, under which the institution requested the company to return PLN 4.1 million. PLN 2.3 million is not subject to the obligation to return. The CT-02 project consists in the development and development of non-toxic ligands of ligases and their application in the therapy of autoimmune diseases and circulatory system cancers.

WORLD

Monday (12.5.2025)

- GSK has shared promising clinical trial results for its investigational oral ileal bile acid transporter inhibitor linerixibat in patients with the rare autoimmune liver disease primary cholangitis.

The Phase III study in the GLISTEN program evaluated the drug candidate in adults with cholestatic pruritus or persistent itching, a key symptom of the condition that can cause sleep disturbance, fatigue, and impaired quality of life.

By 2030, the disease will affect 510,000 people worldwide. The disease affects women at an above-average rate and is associated with symptoms such as fatigue and joint pain. Itching can occur at any stage of the disease and is experienced to varying degrees by up to 90% of patients.

- Roche's Perjeta (pertuzumab) has demonstrated a durable survival benefit in patients with early breast cancer . The phase 3 APHINITY study evaluated the safety and efficacy of Perjeta in combination with Herceptin (trastuzumab) in more than 4,800 patients with operable HER2-positive early breast cancer.

Data reported that patients treated with a Perjeta-based regimen for one year after surgery experienced a 17% reduction in the risk of death at ten years compared with patients receiving Herceptin plus chemotherapy. This reduction increased to 21% in a prespecified subgroup of patients with nodal disease.

Tuesday (13.5.2025)

- Andrew Witty , CEO of UnitedHealth Group, has stepped down effective immediately for personal reasons. The company he manages has suspended its financial guidance for this year as Medicare Advantage costs remained higher than expected. The company expects to return to growth in 2026. In response to the news, UnitedHealth Group shares fell nearly 18% , their worst single-session performance in nearly three decades. As a result, the market value of the stock has fallen by more than $50 billion. Since the beginning of this year, the Minnetonka-based company's shares have fallen 38%.

Wednesday (14.5.2025)

Eli Lilly announced that Zepbound (tirzepatide) was superior to Novo Nordisk's Wegovy (semaglutide) for all weight-loss targets in a head-to-head trial of two approved weight-loss drugs.

The phase 3b SURMOUNT-5 study compared Zepbound with Wegovy in obese or overweight adults with at least one weight-related medical condition, but not diabetes. Results published in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that patients treated with Zepbound achieved an average weight loss of 20.2% , compared with 13.7% with Wegovy at 72 weeks, meeting the study’s primary endpoint.

Thursday (15.5.2025)

GSK announced it will acquire efimosfermin alfa , a drug in a Phase III clinical trial for liver disease, from Boston Pharmaceuticals in a deal valued at up to $2 billion.

The drug is an experimental drug intended to treat and prevent progression of fatty liver disease. The disease, including steatohepatitis associated with metabolic dysfunction and alcohol-related liver disease, affects about 5% of the world's population.

Friday (16.5.2025)

- The personnel changes at Novo Nordisk came as a big surprise to investors. Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen has stepped down as CEO. The departure of this manager will not be immediate, as he will remain CEO for a period of time to support a smooth transition to new leadership.

The search for a successor to Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen is ongoing and an announcement will be made in due course. In connection with the change, Lars Rebien Sørensen, Chairman of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, will join the Novo Nordisk Board, initially in an observer capacity (the foundation has, through its subsidiary, 28% of the share capital and 77% of the votes at the general meeting of Novo Nordisk A/S).

- Novo Nordisk and Septerna announced a new partnership to develop oral drugs for type 2 diabetes, obesity and other cardiometabolic diseases.

The companies will collaborate on research activities from discovery to candidate selection for development, with Novo taking full responsibility for all global development and commercialization activities, starting with drug enablement research activities.

In return, Septerna will receive about $2.2 billion from the Danish giant, including more than $200 million in upfront payments.

- The US FDA has granted accelerated approval to AbbVie's Emrelis (telisotuzumab vedotin-tllv) for the treatment of patients with lung cancer. The drug is approved for the treatment of locally advanced or metastatic, non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer in adults who have high c-Met protein overexpression and have previously received systemic therapy. Scientific estimates indicate that nearly 227,000 patients will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year.