Roche optimistic despite drop in net profit
Net profits of the pharmaceutical company, Roche, slumped 29 per cent in the first half of the year, but the forecast is optimistic for the next two years.
Roche said its profit dropped to SFr4.1 billion ($3.8 billion) as a result of costs related to the acquisition of California-based biotechnology company Genentech earlier this year.
The result was also short of an average forecast of SFr5 billion by analysts, but Roche shares rose because of its healthy underlying business in the pharmaceutical and diagnostics units.
Roche, which is the world’s largest producer of cancer drugs, increased sales guidance and expects double-digit growth in core earnings per share in 2009 and 2010.
Total production capacity for antiviral Tamiflu, which has been boosted by sales linked to the swine flu pandemic, will be expanded to 400 million packages by the end of the year, the Basel-based company said.
The pharmaceutical unit posted an 11 per cent increase in sales in the first quarter – about twice the growth rate of the global market.
“We also see the first cost synergies coming through from the Genentech integration,” chief executive Severin Schwan said on Wednesday.
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