Gerresheimer Races to Complete Audit as US Factory Invests for the Future

Amid a $180M U.S. expansion, Gerresheimer battles accounting irregularities and the shift from injectable to oral weight-loss drugs, sending shares near 52-week lows.

Deep in the Georgia countryside, roughly 40 kilometres south of Atlanta, Gerresheimer has just switched on two fully automated pallet warehouses standing 13 metres high, each holding 1,104 pallets and tracking more than 30 product numbers in real time. The Peachtree City facility, which makes inhalers, autoinjectors and infusion components, is in the middle of a $180 million expansion that will add 17,900 square metres of cleanroom space and more than 400 jobs.

That operational push stands in stark contrast to the storm engulfing the company's Düsseldorf headquarters. Gerresheimer's annual report for 2025, originally due at the end of February, has been pushed back repeatedly. The company now expects to publish it in June. Both the annual general meeting and the first-quarter earnings release have been cancelled.

For many institutional investors, a stock without an audited financial statement is simply off-limits. The shares have been stuck near €25, roughly half the 52-week high of €50.25, even after recovering almost 69% from their low of €14.90.

The Pill That Threatens the Pen

The company's core growth story has come under attack from an unexpected direction. Gerresheimer supplies vials, ampoules and injection pens for blockbuster weight-loss drugs such as Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Eli Lilly's offerings. Management had pencilled in annual sales of €350 million from pens and injectors for these GLP-1 therapies by 2026/27.

But Wegovy is now available as a pill. Since its launch in January, more than a million patients have opted for the oral version. Novo executives see oral treatments capturing 40% to 60% of the market in the foreseeable future. Tablets are simpler to use and don't require an expensive cold chain.

This shift threatens Gerresheimer's high-margin injection-pen franchise. The dual-chamber system for CagriSema, another Novo candidate, faces durability questions. Oral alternatives typically carry lower margins and invite more competition. Still, the picture is not entirely bleak: complex autoinjectors for biologics cannot easily be replaced by a simple tablet, and the company has been repositioning itself toward technically demanding niches.

Accounting Irregularities Run Deep

The structural challenge in the GLP-1 market is compounded by a domestic crisis of trust. Internal auditors discovered irregularities in Gerresheimer's books, and a second auditing firm is now combing through the 2024 and 2025 accounts. Individual employees are alleged to have violated IFRS rules, particularly in so-called bill-and-hold transactions and inventory valuation.

The German financial regulator BaFin is investigating, focusing on €65.5 million in leasing liabilities and roughly €29 million in capitalised development costs. In a separate probe, the audit oversight body APAS is looking into KPMG, the auditor that signed off on the 2024 accounts without qualification — even though those accounts contained €35 million in faulty revenue bookings. KPMG had replaced Deloitte only in 2024.

Germany's shareholder protection association DSW has commissioned a legal opinion on the liability of former executives, including ex-CEO Dietmar Siemssen and ex-CFO Bernd Metzner, as well as certain supervisory board members. DSW managing director Marc Tüngler has signalled that a litigation funder is becoming more likely as the scale of potential claims becomes clearer.

A Painful Balance-Sheet Clean-Up

Management is moving aggressively to repair the damage. Gerresheimer expects non-cash impairment charges of €220 million to €240 million, mostly hitting the Sensile Medical business and its glass plant in Chicago, which will close entirely by the end of 2026.

The company is also selling its US subsidiary Centor Inc., which was valued at €292 million at the end of 2024. Morgan Stanley is running the auction, which has drawn a double-digit number of interested parties. A deal is expected this year. The proceeds will shore up the balance sheet, but Centor generates above-average margins — the rest of the group will feel the loss of that profit contribution.

The June Test

For 2026, Gerresheimer is targeting revenues of €2.3 billion to €2.4 billion, an adjusted EBITDA margin of 18% to 19% and a moderately positive free cash flow. All those targets are conditional on a clean BaFin ruling.

The shares have recovered from the April low that triggered their expulsion from the SDAX index. Passive funds are no longer required to hold the stock, shrinking the pool of long-term capital. The 30-day annualised volatility stands at a jittery 43.9%, and the stock is trading just below its 200-day moving average of €25.64.

The June audit deadline is the next hard pivot point. If Gerresheimer delivers the audited accounts on time, institutional buyers could return — and a sustainable recovery can begin. Any further delay would likely snuff out the rally that has already dragged the shares away from the abyss of €14.90.