Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:REGN) stock rose 1.28% (As on May 5, 11:25:17 AM UTC-4, Source: Google Finance) after the company’s first-quarter sales of blockbuster eye drug Eylea came in below Wall Street targets on Thursday as competition heated up. Eylea, jointly developed with Bayer AG , has been a key growth driver for Regeneron for years, but its sales have fallen over the past few quarters, partly due to rising competition from Roche’s Vabysmo since the rival secured U.S. approval last year. Regeneron is pinning its hopes on approval for a high-dose version of Eylea that could allow longer intervals between injections for patients – a feature that analysts expect will offer the company a better defense against Vabysmo. Quarterly Eylea sales of $2.28 billion missed analysts’ expectations of $2.43 billion, according Refinitiv data.

Low-dose Eylea is expected to become a smaller share of the company’s revenue if the higher-dose version gains approval. The U.S. health regulator’s decision on the new version is expected by June 27. The company has also been leaning on its anti-inflammatory drug Dupixent – a treatment currently approved for five indications including asthma and atopic dermatitis, or eczema. Quarterly sales of Dupixent, recorded by partner Sanofi, rose about 37% to $2.49 billion, helping Regeneron beat quarterly profit estimates. Analysts said the beat was also driven by better-than-expected collaboration revenues.

REGN in the first quarter of FY 23 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of 61 cents, beating the analysts’ estimates for the adjusted earnings per share of 55 cents. The company had reported 7 percent rise in the adjusted revenue to $6.75 billion in the first quarter of FY 23, missing the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $6.93 billion. Sanofi collaboration revenue increased in the first quarter of 2023, compared to the first quarter of 2022, primarily due to the Company’s share of profits from commercialization of antibodies, which were $637 million in the first quarter of 2023, compared to $415 million in the first quarter of 2022.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted for priority review the Biologics License Application (BLA) for the treatment of wet AMD, DME, and diabetic retinopathy, with a target action date of June 27, 2023. A regulatory application has also been submitted for the treatment of wet AMD and DME in the European Union (EU) and Japan. In February 2023, the FDA approved EYLEA for the treatment of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in preterm infants.