TTE
Regarding Hikma’s CEO
FINANCIAL TIMES
PUBLISHED NOV 14 2025
A downbeat trading statement on November 6 proved a bitter pill to swallow for shareholders in Hikma Pharmaceuticals.
Although the maker of generic drugs maintained full-year revenue guidance for 2025, it added that core operating profit would come in at the lower end of expectations at between $730mn-$750mn (£555mn-£570mn). In itself, this wouldn’t have come as a huge surprise given a weaker first half, when core operating profit fell by 6 per cent at constant currency rates to $373mn.
What does appear to have spooked investors, though, was a reduction in its medium-term forecasts. Revenue will now grow “at the lower end” of its 6 to 8 per cent target over the next three years, while core operating profit is only expected to increase by 5 to 7 per cent, compared with previous forecasts of 7 to 9 per cent.
Hikma, which has 20 of its 29 manufacturing sites in the Middle East, blamed delays to the opening of a new facility for making injectable drugs in Bedford, Ohio. It is six months behind schedule and is not now expected to open until the end of 2027. Management blamed delays on the late delivery of machinery.
This led brokers to cut forecasts — Berenberg expects earnings per share to fall by 3 per cent next year, and almost 6 per in 2027.
The news triggered a 14 per cent one-day fall in Hikma’s share price, and although it has recovered some lost ground since, the shares are still about a fifth lower than they were at the start of the year.
Yet with a longer-term target of delivering $5bn of revenue by 2030 maintained, executive vice-chair Mazen Darwazah saw the dip as an opportunity to boost his holding. Darwazah, who is also president of Hikma’s MENA operations, bought £5mn worth of shares on November 7.
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