FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German biotech company Morphosys’ tafasitamab, the group’s most advanced drug which is currently being tested, has sales potential of significantly more than $1 billion a year, its finance chief said in remarks to a magazine.

“Analysts estimate sales at between half a billion to $1 billion per year. If further indications are added, for example additional forms of leukaemia, they might be significantly higher than that,” Jens Holstein told Germany’s Euro am Sonntag.

Earlier this month, a data monitoring committee recommended an increase in the number of patients to 450 from currently 330 in the ongoing “B-MIND” trial, which tests tafasitamab against relapsed or refractory diffuse large B cell lymphoma.

Holstein said he expected tafasitamab to be approved by mid-2020 in the United States, adding it could take one more year in Europe.

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