Competition hits AZ sales
ASTRAZENECA expects earnings to continue to fall this year as generic competition hits US profits.
It said today that it expects sales of its heartburn and ulcer drug Nexium to be affected from May.
The pharmaceutical group said sales this year were likely to decline by a low-to-mid single digit percentage figure, with earnings per share falling “in the teens”, due to the loss of high-margin medicines.
Full year revenues fell 8% to $25.7bn and pre-tax profit fell 57% to $3.3bn,
AstraZeneca employs 300 people at a factory in Macclesfield making the prostate cancer drug Zoladex. It also has a research base in Alderley Park, near Alderley Edge, but it is moving this to Cambridge over the next few years along with 1,600 jobs.
