Hikma reiterates full year 2026 guidance following encouraging start to the year

Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC (Hikma, Group), the multinational pharmaceutical group, today provides an update on current trading ahead of its Annual General Meeting.

Said Darwazah, Hikma’s CEO, said: “Our three businesses are performing well, supported by our differentiated portfolio, recent product launches and our strong and growing commercial capabilities. We continue to focus on strengthening our pipeline and today announced the signing of a device partnership for our inhalation platform, which will be a key growth driver for our Rx business. We are pleased with the performance of the Group and are on track to deliver revenue and profit growth, in line with our full year guidance and our overarching focus on long-term sustainable profit growth.”

Injectables

Our global Injectables business has started the year well and we are seeing good demand across our geographies, supported by our broad portfolio and strong customer relationships.

In the US, demand is good and we are focused on driving sustainable growth by strengthening our supply chain, commercial execution, manufacturing network and R&D capabilities. Our ready-to-use vancomycin bag, Tyzavan®, is seeing accelerating demand as we gradually convert customers to this life-saving medicine, and we continue to invest in our capacity expansion projects, including work on our Bedford, Ohio facility, which is progressing well.

Europe has had a strong start to the year, particularly in Germany and France where we are seeing good demand for our established portfolio. MENA Injectables is also performing well, with positive progress across our markets.

We continue to expect 2026 Injectables revenue to grow in the low single digits, with core operating margin in the range of 27% to 28%.

Branded

Our Branded business continues to perform very well, with good demand across our portfolio and markets. We are benefiting from our broad commercial reach and deep local market presence across MENA, as well as from our extensive pipeline of in-licensed and internally developed products. We continue to build on our leading positions in key therapeutic areas, including oncology, where we benefit from a broad portfolio and dedicated local manufacturing. 

We remain the largest pharmaceutical company by sales in the region and are committed to ensuring continuity of supply for our patients and customers.

We continue to expect 2026 Branded revenue to grow in the range of 6% to 8%, with core operating margin of around 25%.

Hikma Rx

Hikma Rx is performing in line with our expectations and demand across our differentiated portfolio is good.  We have continued to add to this differentiation, including the launches in February and March of authorised generics for immediate release and extended release tapentadol in the US.

We are making progress in the expansion of our Columbus site to support our growing contract manufacturing business, which will be an increasingly important contributor to this business over the medium term.

R&D is critical to our growth plans and a key element of our strategy is to invest in complex and differentiated platforms.

To this end, we have signed an exclusive co-development and license agreement with an established partner for the use of their device technology in the US, UK, Canada, EU and MENA region. This agreement will accelerate the development of our generic Ellipta® programme.

The ongoing investment into the generic Ellipta® platform reflects our focus on inhalation technologies, an area where Hikma has demonstrated expertise, including through generic Advair Diskus®, which remains an important contributor to Hikma Rx revenue.

We continue to expect Hikma Rx revenue to be broadly flat in 2026, with core operating margin close to 20%.

Others

To enhance our focus on our core businesses, we have taken the strategic decision to wind down our 503B compounding business.

Global geopolitical environment

We are monitoring the evolving geopolitical situation in the Middle East. Demand in the region remains robust and the Group continues to maintain sufficient inventory levels to mitigate potential supply chain disruptions. To date we have experienced some inflationary pressure, particularly linked to shipping, energy and insurance costs.  We are confident we can absorb these increased costs through a combination of strong business performance and disciplined cost focus.  

Group full year outlook unchanged

We continue to expect Group revenue to grow in the range of 2% to 4% and for Group operating profit to be in the range of $720 million to $770 million in 2026.

Final dividend and share buyback

Subject to approval at today’s Annual General Meeting, we will be paying a final dividend of 48 cents per share. The final dividend brings the total dividend for the full year 2025 to 84 cents per share, an increase of 5% on 2024.

The Group is in the process of executing a share buyback programme of up to $250 million. Since the launch of the buyback programme on 26 February 2026 to 17 April 2026, Hikma has purchased 4,374,095 million ordinary shares at a cost of  £54.8 million ($71.5 million).