AstraZeneca Turns a Corner After a Decade of Struggles -- 3rd Update
14 Febrero 2019 - 07:58AM
Noticias Dow Jones
By Denise Roland
LONDON -- AstraZeneca PLC, battered by a string of patent
expiries in recent years, reported its strongest sales growth since
2009 as efforts to replenish its pipeline and pivot toward cancer
drugs started to pay off.
The Cambridge, England-based drugmaker said product sales rose
4% to $21 billion in 2018 and that growth would accelerate this
year, forecasting a high single-digit percentage increase. Shares
rose almost 6% on the news.
Thursday's results could mark a turning point for AstraZeneca.
At its peak, the company raked in sales of around $33 billion, but
that has declined for most of the past decade as blockbusters like
anti-cholesterol pill Crestor and heartburn drug Nexium faced
competition from cheap, generic versions.
Chief Executive Pascal Soriot, who joined AstraZeneca in 2012,
has invested heavily in research and development to rebuild the
company's once-threadbare pipeline, especially in the area of
cancer medicine.
Many of those drugs, now on the market, are driving the sales
growth. Revenue from AstraZeneca's oncology drugs, such as Tagrisso
for lung cancer and Lynparza for ovarian cancer, increased 49% to
$6 billion.
Dr. Soriot has long promised investors that sales would start to
grow in 2018 and roughly double by 2023. He made the pledge while
fending off an unwelcome takeover approach from Pfizer Inc. five
years ago.
"There is no reason we could not continue to grow over the next
five to six years," he said in a press conference Thursday. "It's
not a question of whether we are going to grow but at what speed we
will grow."
Analysts are skeptical that AstraZeneca can hit the target of
sales of $40 billion by 2023. Estimates compiled by FactSet show
they expect sales of $33.5 billion by then. Nonetheless, Dr. Soriot
has stood by that goal.
Another bright spot for AstraZeneca last year was the Chinese
market, where sales increased 25% to $3.8 billion. China has
recently eased the path for foreign drugmakers to get their
products approved there.
Shares in the company rose more than 4% in early trading in
response to the upbeat results.
Still, investors will have to wait for those efforts to hit the
bottom line: A ramp-up in investment behind new drug launches and
the expansion in China meant core operating profit, a measure
watched closely by analysts, slid 17% to $5.7 billion last year.
AstraZeneca said it expects core operating profit to increase by a
midteen percentage in 2019.
Total revenue, which includes proceeds from deals to partner or
unload certain drugs, slipped 2% to $22.1 billion, while net profit
dropped 28% to $2.16 billion.
--Carlo Martuscelli contributed to this article.
Write to Denise Roland at Denise.Roland@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 14, 2019 08:43 ET (13:43 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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