Thursday, October 16, 2014

Roche beats third-quarter sales estimates on breast cancer drug momentum

ZURICH Thu Oct 16, 2014 1:56am EDT

The logo of Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche is seen outside their headquarters in Basel January 30, 2014. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich

The logo of Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche is seen outside their headquarters in Basel January 30, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Ruben Sprich

REUTERS/Paul Hanna

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ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Roche affirmed its full-year sales and profit targets on Thursday after a strong performance by its new breast cancer drugs helped it beat expectations in the third quarter.

The world's largest maker of cancer drugs said sales rose 5 percent to 11.78 billion Swiss francs ($12.5 billion), slightly ahead of the average forecast of 11.57 billion in a Reuters poll.

The Basel-based firm has launched a string of new expensive cancer drugs over the past two years. It hopes these "follow-on" medicines - improved versions of its top-sellers - will help defend its market share once copycat versions of its older biotech medicines, known as "biosimilars", go on sale.

A strong showing by new breast cancer therapies, Perjeta and Kadcyla, helped offset the loss of exclusivity on chemotherapy drug Xeloda and falling sales of hepatitis medicine Pegasys, which faces increased competition.

Sales of Perjeta, a treatment for women with a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer, more than tripled to 245 million francs. Meanwhile Kadcyla sales more than doubled to 144 million francs.

A study presented last month found Perjeta showed "unprecedented" survival benefits when used on top of older medicine Herceptin and chemotherapy.

The drugmaker's results were also supported by a strong showing by rheumatoid arthritis drug Actemra, while sales in its diagnostics division were up 6 percent.

The company confirmed its guidance for low-to-mid single digit sales growth this year at constant exchange rates and for core earnings per share to grow ahead of sales. It expects to increase its dividend from the 7.80 Swiss francs per share it paid out in 2013.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

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