Genmab collected $742 million in royalties during Q1 2026 — 83 cents of every dollar it earned came from other companies selling its drugs. That structural reality is what makes the quarter’s 25% revenue growth both impressive and strategically precarious: DARZALEX alone generated nearly $4 billion in net sales for Johnson & Johnson, and Genmab’s cut flows in as high-margin passive income that flatters the income statement while obscuring how much the company still depends on two legacy assets it doesn’t control commercially.
The more telling number is operating profit, which actually fell — from $188 million to $180 million — even as revenue jumped $181 million. The culprit is the Merus acquisition: $45 million in severance and retention charges, $12 million in intangible amortization, and a 55% spike in cost of product sales driven by AbbVie profit-sharing on EPKINLY. Genmab is absorbing the full friction of a platform acquisition while simultaneously ramping commercial infrastructure for two pre-launch assets, rinatabart sesutecan and petosemtamab. That combination compresses margin in the near term with no revenue offset until those programs launch.
The FDA’s removal of the 24-hour hospitalization requirement for EPKINLY in third-line-plus DLBCL is the one genuinely consequential operational win this quarter. Outpatient administration isn’t a cosmetic label update — it collapses the single largest access barrier for community oncologists who couldn’t staff or bill for inpatient observation. EPKINLY net product sales were already growing; that label change hands the AbbVie co-promotion engine a legitimate new pitch to accounts that had previously declined the product. Whether the bispecific can actually expand its footprint before CAR-T consolidates the relapsed/refractory space more firmly is the real commercial test.
Genmab maintained full-year 2026 guidance without revision, which signals confidence in DARZALEX and Kesimpta royalty trajectories but tells investors nothing about whether petosemtamab’s upcoming readouts justify the escalating R&D spend now running 25% above prior-year levels. The single marker worth tracking: EPKINLY’s net product sales trajectory over the next two quarters post-hospitalization label change. If community uptake accelerates meaningfully, it validates the Merus integration thesis — that Genmab can build a self-sustaining commercial operation rather than perpetually harvesting royalties on someone else’s promotional investment.
Jon Napitupulu is Director of Media Relations at The Clinical Trial Vanguard. Jon, a computer data scientist, focuses on the latest clinical trial industry news and trends.
