“A big acquisition makes no sense for us,” Franz Humer, Roche’s ceo, told reporters after the Swiss drugmaker announced its earnings. “The cash is not burning a hole in our pocket.”

The money is there, however, for smaller purchases. “We could increase our stake in Genentech, from 57 percent to 60 percent, for example. When we have 51 percent of Chugai, that could become 55 percent,” he said. “That would not alter our basic model.”

Roche reported a 34 percent rise in earnings on strong sales of the Herceptin and Avastin cancer treatments, as well as Tamiflu. Net income was $7.3 billion, about what analysts had forecast. (You can see the full report here).

But cautious statements about margin growth hurt the stock in European trading. And not everyone was pleased with the results.

“In spite of higher than expected sales, the profit split within the pharmaceuticals is worse than expected and the profit contribution from diagnostics is lower than forecast,” Vontobel analyst Karl-Heinz Koch told Reuters. “This, together with the EPS growth outlook provided by management, raises some question markets regarding earnings estimates.”

[tags]Franz Humer, Roche[/tags]