Only sales results were released this morning. But the numbers are up - first-quarter sales jumped 16 percent to $9.4 billion on demand for cancer drugs and flu pill Tamiflu. In fact, pharma sales rose 18 percent.

“Based on the successful first three months we raise the outlook for 2007 and expect core earnings per share to grow above group sales,” declares Roche ceo Franz Humer. The forecast for double-digit sales growth remains the same.

Tim Anderson at Prudential Equity said the higher-than-expected sales figure was largely due to Tamiflu revenues, which offset slightly disappointing diagnostic sales. Tamiflu revenues were about $718 million, up 47 percent, ahead of analyst expectations.

Among cancer drugs, sales of Avastin and Herceptin stood out, increasing 41 percent and 36 percent respectively to $767 million and $972 million. Roche reiterated that approval for the Mircera anemia drug is expected this year and that a decision on whether to move into expensive final clinical trials with an experimental drug to raise “good” cholesterol would be made later this year

Further reading….
Reuters;
Roche statement.

[tags]Roche[/tags]