By Ludwig Burger
FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Roche on Thursday raised its full-year earnings guidance as it beat earnings expectations for the first half, driven by strong demand for newer drugs such as eye medicine Vabysmo.
The Swiss drugmaker said in a statement it was targeting growth in adjusted earnings per share in the “high single digit range”, excluding the effect of currency swings and the resolution of tax disputes in 2023.
It had previously predicted a “mid single-digit” percentage growth rate.
First-half adjusted operating profit gained 4% to 11.3 billion Swiss francs ($12.8 billion), the family-controlled drugmaker said in a statement on Thursday, well above an analyst consensus of 10.5 billion, based on LSEG data.
Revenues from Vabysmo, which is used to treat a common form of blindness in the elderly and which won approval in 2022, almost doubled to 1.8 billion francs, beating market expectations.
Roche competes with Bayer and partner Regeneron and their more established eye drug Eylea.
Breast cancer drug Phesgo, with sales up 60% at almost 800 million francs, also beat market expectations.
($1 = 0.8830 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, Editing by Miranda Murray)
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