Genmab A/S (GMAB): 5 FORCES Analysis [Nov-2025 Updated]

You're assessing Genmab A/S as it navigates a defining moment: the shift from a pure royalty engine to a commercial-focused biotech, all while the clock ticks toward the 2029 US patent expiration for its cash cow, DARZALEX. While the company projects solid 2025 revenue between $3.5 billion and $3.7 billion, largely thanks to those DARZALEX royalties potentially hitting $2.4 billion this year, the real story is the aggressive pipeline build-evidenced by the Merus acquisition proposal-aimed at replacing that future revenue gap. Honestly, this high-stakes transformation means every competitive lever is being pulled hard, so to truly gauge the risk and upside, you need to see exactly where the market pressure is coming from across suppliers, customers, rivals, substitutes, and new entrants. Dive in below for the full Porter's Five Forces breakdown.

Genmab A/S (GMAB) - Porter's Five Forces: Bargaining power of suppliers

You're assessing Genmab A/S's supplier power, and honestly, in the specialized world of biologics, this force is a mixed bag. It's not about commodity chemicals; it's about highly specific inputs and the massive partners who control the final product's commercialization. The power dynamic shifts depending on whether you look at the very start of the supply chain or the end-stage commercialization agreements.

For the foundational components-the specialized raw materials and cell lines-the power of those direct suppliers is inherently high due to the niche nature of the science. However, Genmab A/S suggests this risk is somewhat mitigated. As per their filings, they currently rely on a third-party manufacturer for raw materials, stating these materials are available in quantities adequate to meet business needs. The prices are governed by a service agreement, and Genmab A/S does not anticipate significant price volatility, expecting fluctuations to occur within a limited range that won't materially impact operations. Still, the need for specialized Contract Manufacturing Organizations (CMOs) to handle complex biologics under current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs) means that qualifying and securing capacity with these specialized entities represents a critical, high-leverage point for suppliers. You have to secure those CMO slots early, or your pipeline stalls.

The most significant leverage, however, comes not from the material providers but from the major commercial partners. These partners, like Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and AbbVie Inc. (AbbVie), hold substantial power because they control the global market access and sales infrastructure for Genmab A/S's most successful assets. Consider the revenue streams for the first nine months of 2025:

The collaboration agreements are the mechanism through which this supplier power is exercised. For EPKINLY, the profit-sharing structure is key. The original 2020 alliance with AbbVie, which brought EPKINLY to market, involved an upfront payment of $750 million to Genmab A/S, with potential milestones up to $3.15 billion. For EPKINLY net product sales outside the U.S. and Japan, Genmab A/S receives tiered royalties ranging from 22% to 26% of AbbVie's net sales. This structure means that while Genmab A/S retains a stake, AbbVie dictates the commercial strategy and absorbs the majority of the commercialization costs in most territories, giving them leverage over the ultimate profit share. The fact that profit-sharing amounts payable to AbbVie are explicitly called out as a driver of increased operating expenses for the first nine months of 2025 shows this cost is material.

You see this leverage play out across the board with their key partners. The massive net sales of DARZALEX by J&J translate directly into Genmab A/S's royalty income, which was $2,219 million for the first nine months of 2025. While this is a success story, it underscores dependence; J&J's decisions on pricing, distribution, and market focus directly impact Genmab A/S's top-line royalty realization. Similarly, Novartis Pharma AG, the partner for Kesimpta, also contributes significantly to this royalty base.

The need for specialized manufacturing capacity for complex biologics means Genmab A/S must actively manage relationships with CMOs. Their regulatory filings acknowledge the risk associated with identifying and negotiating contracts with suitable CMOs, and ensuring they can manufacture sufficient quantities for clinical trials or commercialization under cGMPs. This necessity creates a pool of specialized suppliers whose capabilities are scarce, thus granting them inherent bargaining power, even if Genmab A/S currently reports adequate supply.

• Specialized raw material suppliers: Power is constrained by service agreements and low expected price volatility.
• Contract Manufacturing Organizations (CMOs): Power is high due to the specialized nature of complex biologic production.
• Commercial Partners (J&J, AbbVie): Hold the highest leverage via control over global commercialization and profit sharing.
• EPKINLY profit share: Tiered royalties range from 22% to 26% on AbbVie's net sales in certain territories.
• DARZALEX royalties: Driven by J&J's net sales, which hit $10,448 million (9M 2025).

The supplier power here is less about the cost of goods sold and more about the contractual control over the revenue-generating assets. Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.

Genmab A/S (GMAB) - Porter's Five Forces: Bargaining power of customers

You're analyzing Genmab A/S's position, and the power held by the entities paying for its key products-the customers-is a major factor to watch. Honestly, this power is a complex mix of high leverage from payers and low substitutability for unique, life-saving therapies like those based on the CD38 mechanism.

High power from consolidated payers (governments, large insurance providers).

The sheer scale of government and large private insurance payers gives them significant leverage in price negotiations. This is amplified by ongoing political pressure on drug costs. For instance, the Trump administration introduced a "most favored nation" (MFN) policy proposal in 2025, which aims to cap Medicare drug prices at the lowest levels paid in other high-income countries. Furthermore, scrutiny on Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) continues, with potential legislative reforms in 2025 including banning spread pricing and requiring full rebate pass-through, which directly impacts net realized prices for manufacturers and their partners. Hospitals, as direct purchasers of many high-cost drugs, are bracing for intensified negotiations with payers due to rising costs and limited reimbursement rate increases.

Oncology drug pricing is under intense scrutiny, driving down margins.

The high cost of specialty oncology drugs keeps Genmab A/S's royalty stream under the microscope. New cancer therapies are commanding substantial initial price tags, which payers are pushing back against. Here's a quick look at the pricing environment influencing these negotiations:

• Mean monthly launch price for new targeted anticancer therapies (2023-2025): $27,891 (2025 USD).
• Observed 2025 drug prices were 14.8% to 200.9% higher than inflation-only expectations.
• Median annual cost for new cancer drugs launched in 2024: exceeded $350,000.
• Inflation-adjusted median list price for new drugs increased 24% between 2022 and 2024.

This intense focus on initial launch prices, which the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) does not directly address, forces payers to negotiate aggressively on volume and formulary placement.

Customers (hospitals/physicians) have limited choice for unique CD38 (DARZALEX) therapies.

For Genmab A/S, the bargaining power of customers is tempered by the clinical uniqueness of its key asset, DARZALEX (daratumumab), which targets CD38. While competition from next-generation therapies like CAR-T and bispecific antibodies is growing, DARZALEX remains a cornerstone. The Monoclonal Antibodies (mAbs) class, led by DARZALEX, held a 35% share of the Next-Generation Multiple Myeloma Therapies market, valued at $8.1 billion in 2024. The continued success shows its entrenched position:

The fact that the U.S. patent protection extends into the early 2030s provides a near-term moat, limiting immediate substitution pressure from generics or biosimilars, which are not expected to significantly impact the market until around 2029.

Patient switching costs are high due to specialized, life-saving treatments.

When a patient is on a specialized, life-saving therapy like daratumumab, the cost to switch is not just financial-it involves clinical risk, physician retraining, and potential treatment interruption. This high switching cost acts as a major barrier to customer choice, even when payers exert downward pricing pressure. The clinical efficacy, such as the European Commission's approval in July 2025 for subcutaneous DARZALEX in high-risk smouldering multiple myeloma based on a 5-year PFS of 63%, reinforces its value proposition, making physicians and patients hesitant to switch to unproven alternatives. The treatment is deeply integrated into established protocols, meaning the inertia favors the incumbent therapy.

Genmab A/S (GMAB) - Porter's Five Forces: Competitive rivalry

You're looking at a sector where the biggest players, like Bristol Myers Squibb and Roche, set the pace, making competitive rivalry in oncology intense. Genmab A/S (GMAB) has a massive, visible target with its 2025 revenue projection landing between $3.5 billion and $3.7 billion.

The pressure is high because Genmab's key revenue driver, DARZALEX, is facing direct challenges in the multiple myeloma space. For instance, Johnson & Johnson's combination of Tecvayli plus Darzalex recently demonstrated a 54% cut in the rate of deaths versus controls in the MajesTEC-3 study, with 36-month overall survival at 83.3% for the combo versus 65.0% for comparators. Also, Darzalex Faspro gained FDA approval on November 6, 2025, for high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma, expanding its use but also highlighting the focus on this disease area.

Direct competition for Genmab's bispecific antibody, EPKINLY (epcoritamab-bysp), is definitely rising fast. The landscape is crowded with other bispecifics and advanced therapies. For example, in relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma, the EPKINLY + R2 regimen achieved a 95.7% overall response rate and a 79% reduction in the risk of progression or death in patients with at least one prior therapy. Still, competitors like Roche's Lunsumio and Columvi, and Regeneron's Ordspono, are pushing hard. Analysts project EPKINLY could reach annual sales of $3.94 billion by 2031, showing the high stakes.

Here's a quick look at how some of these key competitors stack up in the broader bispecific/related space:

This high-stakes environment forces Genmab to keep R&D spending high to fuel innovation races for new targets. The company anticipates its 2025 operating expenses to fall between $2.1 billion and $2.2 billion. To be fair, Q1 2025 R&D expenses alone were $485 million, reflecting this continuous investment drive. The total costs and operating expenses for the first nine months of 2025 reached $1,655 million.

The competitive pressures manifest in several ways you need to watch:

• Rivalry intensity driven by large pharma market presence.
• Need for superior safety profiles, like EPKINLY's lower severe CRS rate.
• Competition pushing for earlier line-of-therapy approvals.
• DARZALEX facing new combination standards of care.
• High R&D spend required to maintain pipeline velocity.

Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.

Genmab A/S (GMAB) - Porter's Five Forces: Threat of substitutes

The threat of substitutes for Genmab A/S centers on the potential for alternative therapeutic modalities to erode the market share and royalty streams derived from its foundational antibody technologies, most notably daratumumab (DARZALEX).

Threat from alternative therapies like small molecules and CAR-T treatments.

While Genmab A/S continues to benefit significantly from its antibody royalty model, direct competition from non-antibody approaches is intensifying, particularly in oncology indications like multiple myeloma (MM). CAR-T cell therapies, which involve genetically reprogramming a patient's own T cells, represent a high-efficacy, high-cost substitute. The cost for a single CAR-T treatment is currently estimated to exceed $500,000 per treatment. In the key MM space, competitors like Bristol Myers Squibb are actively comparing their CAR-T agent, arlo-cel, against standard regimens. Furthermore, the pipeline shows emerging dual-targeting CAR-T constructs, such as those targeting BCMA and CD19, designed to make it harder for myeloma cells to escape treatment. On the small molecule front, novel mechanisms, such as alnodesertib inhibiting the DNA repair protein ATR, present alternative ways to attack cancer cells.

The financial success of Genmab A/S in 2025 is still heavily reliant on the performance of DARZALEX, which underscores the immediate financial impact any substitute success could have:

Loss of exclusivity on key technologies or products can erode market share.

For Genmab A/S, the primary concern regarding exclusivity loss is tied to the underlying patents for daratumumab. While the U.S. composition of matter patent expiry is listed as 2027, analysts assume Genmab A/S will receive DARZALEX royalties until 2035, when the associated Janssen patents are set to expire. Some sources indicate exclusivity protection until 2035. The loss of exclusivity, even if delayed until 2035, will eventually introduce pricing pressure and market share erosion from biosimilars, which is a direct threat to the $2.3 - $2.4 billion in expected 2025 royalty revenue.

New modalities like gene therapy could disrupt antibody-based treatments.

The broader therapeutic landscape is shifting toward modalities that offer potentially curative, single-administration options, which fundamentally challenges the recurring treatment model of monoclonal antibodies. Gene therapies are a significant part of this evolution. As of Q3 2024 data, gene therapies accounted for 49% of all cell, gene, and RNA therapeutics in development. A major development is the rise of in vivo CAR-T, where the patient's own cells are activated inside the body, potentially overcoming the long production times and high costs associated with ex vivo CAR-T.

• In vivo CAR-T candidates are showing early promise in MM.
• Gene therapies represent 49% of cell, gene, and RNA therapeutics in development.
• Genmab A/S is counter-positioning with its own next-generation antibody assets like Rina-S (an ADC).
• Epcoritamab, a bispecific antibody, is advancing to earlier lines of therapy.

Biosimilars to DARZALEX will eventually emerge after patent expiration.

The eventual emergence of biosimilars to DARZALEX is a certainty once patent protection fully lapses, which is projected to be around 2035. This event will directly impact Genmab A/S's royalty income, which is projected to be between $2.3 - $2.4 billion in 2025. The introduction of biosimilars is expected to exert downward pressure on prices and margins. The company's strategy to mitigate this includes advancing its pipeline, such as the proposed acquisition of Merus N.V. to accelerate a shift toward a wholly owned model, aiming to drive sustained growth into the next decade.

Finance: draft 13-week cash view by Friday.

Genmab A/S (GMAB) - Porter's Five Forces: Threat of new entrants

You're looking at the barriers to entry for a new company trying to compete directly with Genmab A/S in the cutting-edge antibody space. Honestly, the hurdles are massive, built on capital, science, and regulatory gatekeeping. A new entrant doesn't just need a good idea; they need billions of dollars and years of runway.

Extremely high capital requirement for Phase 3 trials and commercialization

The sheer financial muscle required to move a novel biologic from late-stage trials through to global commercialization acts as a significant deterrent. Consider the industry-wide figures: bringing a single product to market may require an investment of about $2.2 billion on average, spread out over more than a decade. For biologics, which are inherently more complex than small-molecule drugs, the costs are often higher. Genmab A/S itself is projecting its total operating expenses for the full year 2025 to be in the range of $2.1 - $2.2 billion, showing the scale of investment needed just to run an established operation like theirs. Even for Genmab A/S, a company with significant royalty streams, major strategic moves require massive capital deployment; for instance, their proposed acquisition of Merus N.V. is valued at approximately $8.0 billion, which they plan to fund with existing cash and about $5.5 billion in non-convertible debt. This level of financing is simply out of reach for most startups.

Here's a quick look at the scale of investment Genmab A/S is managing, which a new entrant would need to match or exceed:

Stringent FDA and EMA regulatory hurdles for novel biologics are a major barrier

The regulatory gauntlet is another wall new entrants must scale. The path to approval for novel biologics is long and fraught with risk. To be fair, the data shows just how uncertain this journey is: only about 12% of drugs that enter clinical trials ultimately receive FDA approval. Navigating the requirements for a new biologic, especially one targeting complex diseases where Genmab A/S operates, demands deep regulatory expertise and the financial padding to absorb inevitable setbacks. The need for predictable regulatory environments is a major factor in investment decisions, and that predictability is hard-won.

Need for specialized intellectual property (IP) and proprietary antibody platforms

Genmab A/S has built significant moats around its proprietary technology. You can't just copy their success; you need a comparable, novel platform. Genmab A/S's DuoBody technology platform, for example, is the foundation for assets like epcoritamab (EPKINLY), a bispecific antibody. Developing and validating a proprietary platform capable of generating multiple clinical candidates-like Genmab A/S's work with DuoBody and their recent investment in ADC technology via the ProfoundBio acquisition-requires years of specialized research and millions in non-recoverable R&D spend. A new entrant must either replicate this foundational science or license it at a high cost.

Partnerships with established players (J&J, Novartis) are essential for global scale

Even if a new entrant clears the capital and regulatory hurdles, achieving global commercial scale is nearly impossible without established partners. Genmab A/S's business model heavily relies on this reality, which creates a high barrier for any solo player. Their revenue stream is dominated by royalties from partners. For instance, Genmab A/S's royalty revenue hit $1.378 billion in the first half of 2025, driven primarily by two key collaborations:

• Royalties from Johnson & Johnson (J&J) on DARZALEX, based on estimated 2025 net sales of $13.7 - $14.1 billion for the drug.
• Royalties from Novartis on Kesimpta.

Securing a deal with a global giant like J&J or Novartis is a validation event itself, but it requires a late-stage asset with compelling data. A new company with a novel asset must convince these established commercial engines to take a chance, which is difficult when Genmab A/S already has deep, proven relationships and a track record of successful asset development.