LONDON: AstraZeneca stood by its annual and long-term forecasts on Monday as the drugmaker sought to reassure investors after recent trial setbacks kept attention on its pipeline despite better than expected second-quarter profit.<\/p>\n
Although strong demand for cancer and rare disease drugs continues to drive growth against a background of broader pricing pressures, investors are keen on signs that the pharmaceutical giant’s 2030 revenue target is not under threat after an unexpected trial failure this month.<\/p>\n
AstraZeneca in 2024 set a target to reach US$80 billion in annual revenue by 2030, something JPMorgan analysts said on Monday the firm would be able to achieve after second-quarter profit topped analysts’ predictions and sales were as expected.<\/p>\n
AstraZeneca shares rose 1.5 per cent by 0800 GMT, though are down about seven per cent this year, trailing rival GSK. However, from a wider lens the stock has more than quadrupled in price under long-time CEO Pascal Soriot’s successful 14-year tenure.<\/p>\n
PHARMACEUTICAL DIVERSITY<\/p>\n
AstraZeneca’s diversity in therapeutic areas and approved drugs and broad success in clinical trials sets it apart from its peers. However, results from two upcoming late-stage cancer studies will be a litmus test for Soriot after clinical trial setbacks on nerve drug Wainua and experimental breast cancer treatment camizestrant.<\/p>\n
“We remain confident in the strength of our pipeline and have more than twenty high-value readouts due over the next 18 months,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
AstraZeneca also detailed the outcome of a different, successful late-stage gastric cancer trial, while another study of its rare-disease drug ultomiris failed to meet the primary goal of a study in patients with a life-threatening complication from stem-cell transplants.<\/p>\n
“Growth is clearly moderating, and investors will stay laser focused on the remaining big oncology trial readouts later this year,” eToro analyst Adam Vettese said.<\/p>\n
2026 OUTLOOK MAINTAINED<\/p>\n
AstraZeneca continues to expect 2026 core earnings per share to increase by a low double-digit percentage at constant currency rates, with total revenue rising at a rate in the mid-to-high-single digits. It reported sales and profit growth of about 8 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively, last year.<\/p>\n
Core earnings for the June quarter jumped to US$2.63 per share, helped by lower taxes, while total revenue rose 5 per cent to US$15.38 billion, compared to company-compiled consensus of US$2.48 and US$15.39 billion, respectively.<\/p>\n
Oncology sales rose 15 per cent supported by sales of blood cancer drug Calquence, while rare diseases revenue grew 8 per cent, beating expectations according to JPMorgan.<\/p>\n
The company also raised the sales potential of experimental respiratory drug tozorakimab to more than US$5 billion compared to previous expectations of US$3 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON: AstraZeneca stood by its annual and long-term forecasts on Monday as the drugmaker sought to reassure investors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20662],"tags":[3669,11153,38975,38974,38973,38972,38976,27129,38977,1188,38978,21363,21740,38979,26085],"class_list":["post-91112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-astrazeneca","tag-analysis","tag-astrazeneca","tag-bursa","tag-bursa-malaysia","tag-bursa-screener","tag-bursascreener","tag-klse","tag-kuala-lumpur","tag-kuala-lumpur-stock-exchange","tag-research","tag-screener","tag-stock-exchange","tag-stock-screener","tag-technical","tag-technical-analysis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116991205314073591","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}