Pharma giant reports strong first quarter progress irrespective of COVID-19 vaccine

Pascal Soriot

First quarter revenues and profits for pharma giant AstraZeneca showed strong improvement – even without the input of its C19VAZ COVID-19 vaccine developed with the University of Oxford.

The group, which employs around 4,700 people in the North West on sites at Macclesfield and Alderley Park in Cheshire and Speke on Merseyside, released results for the three month period which showed robust revenue growth of 15%, or 11% at constant exchange rates, to $7.320bn.

Excluding the $275m contribution from the pandemic COVID-19 vaccine, revenue growth increased by 11%, or seven per cent at constant exchange rates, to $7.045bn.

Profit before tax was $1.608bn, up from $935m in the same quarter the previous year.

The overall results in the quarter further increased the company’s profitability and cash generation, while the pipeline demonstrated encouraging progress.

The company reiterates full-year 2021 guidance of a low-teens percentage increase in its total revenues.

Total COVID-19 vaccine revenue, entirely comprised of product sales, amounted to $275m in the quarter, reflecting the delivery of around 68 million doses worldwide.

Sales in Europe were $224m, emerging markets sales were $43m, and in established rest of the world, sales amounted to $8m.

Chief executive, Pascal Soriot, said: “We delivered solid progress in the first quarter of 2021 and continued to advance our portfolio of life-changing medicines.

“New medicines contributed over half of revenue and all regions delivered encouraging growth.

“This performance ensured another quarter of strong revenue and earnings progression, continued profitability, and cash flow generation, despite the pandemic’s ongoing negative impact on the diagnosis and treatment of many conditions.”

He added: “Given the performance in the first quarter, in line with our expectations, we reiterate our full-year guidance.

“We expect the impact of COVID to reduce and anticipate a performance acceleration in the second half of 2021.”

He said further significant pipeline advances were achieved as the group continued to invest for long-term sustainable growth, including the OlympiA Phase III trial demonstrating Lynparza’s benefit for certain forms of early breast cancer.

“This sustained pipeline progress and accelerating business performance underlines our commitment to patients and delivering our growth potential, which will be further complemented by the proposed acquisition of Alexion.”

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: “The FTSE 100 nudged up 0.3% to 6,982 with AstraZeneca among the top movers following better than expected results. The company has long said it doesn’t expect to profit from its Covid-19 vaccine in the early stages, but it was interesting to see it generate $275 million in sales from this product in the first quarter.”

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