July 27 (Reuters) – AstraZeneca backed its annual and long-term forecasts on Monday after topping second-quarter profit expectations on demand for its cancer and rare disease \u200ctherapies, as the drugmaker sought to quell concerns after recent trial setbacks. <\/p>\n
Although strong \u200cdemand continues to drive growth against a background of broader pricing pressures, an unexpected trial failure this month \u200bhas turned attention to AstraZeneca’s drug pipeline and whether its longer-term revenue target could be under threat. <\/p>\n
The company separately detailed the outcome of a successful late-stage gastric cancer trial, while another study of its rare-disease drug ultomiris failed to meet the primary goal of a study \u200cin patients with a life-threatening \u2060complication from stem-cell transplants. <\/p>\n
AstraZeneca shares were up 1.6% in early trading. <\/p>\n
PHARMACEUTICAL DIVERSITY <\/p>\n
The pharmaceutical giant’s diversity in therapeutic areas and approved drugs and broad \u2060success in clinical trials sets it apart from its peers. However, results from two other upcoming late-stage studies will be a litmus test for long-time CEO Pascal Soriot. <\/p>\n
“We remain confident in \u200bthe strength \u200bof our pipeline and have more than twenty \u200bhigh-value readouts due over the next \u200c18 months,” Soriot said in a statement. <\/p>\n
AstraZeneca in 2024 set a target to reach $80 billion in annual revenue by 2030, something JPMorgan analysts said on Monday that the company would be able to achieve. <\/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 \u200cat a rate in the mid-to-high-single digits. It \u200breported sales and profit growth of about 8% and \u200b11%, respectively, last year. <\/p>\n
Core earnings for \u200bthe three months ended June 30 jumped 18% to $2.63 per share, \u200chelped by lower taxes, while total revenue \u200brose 5% to $15.38 billion. <\/p>\n
Analysts \u200bon average were expecting profit of $2.48 per share on sales of $15.39 billion, according to a company-compiled consensus. <\/p>\n
Although the company’s shares have more than quadrupled in price under \u200bSoriot’s 14-year tenure, they \u200care down about 8% this year, trailing rival GSK. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in \u200bBengaluru and Maggie Fick in London, Raechel Thankam Job and Sri Hari N \u200bS; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala, Kirsten Donovan) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 27 (Reuters) – AstraZeneca backed its annual and long-term forecasts on Monday after topping second-quarter profit expectations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20662],"tags":[11153,39207,39149,11316,30223],"class_list":["post-91773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-astrazeneca","tag-astrazeneca","tag-drug-pipeline","tag-gastric-cancer","tag-pascal-soriot","tag-rare-disease"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116996372285166643","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91773","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=91773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}