AstraZeneca PLC on Tuesday said it took the detention of its China president ‘very seriously’ as it raised 2024 guidance after a strong third quarter.
The Cambridge-based pharmaceuticals firm said pretax profit rose 11% to $1.83 billion from $1.65 billion a year prior. Revenue climbed by 18% to $13.57 billion from $11.49 billion.
Oncology sales rose 19%, or 22% at constant currency, Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolism sales increased 18% or 20% at constant currency, Respiratory & Immunology sales advanced 26% or 29% at constant currency and Rare Disease sales grew 9% or 11% at constant currency.
For the first nine months of 2024, pretax profit rose 17% to $7.03 billion from $6.00 billion. Revenue grew 16% to $39.18 billion from $33.79 billion.
Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said the growth reflected increasing demand for its medicines across Oncology, BioPharmaceuticals and Rare Disease, supporting an upgrade to 2024 guidance.
AstraZeneca expects 2024 revenue to increase by a high teens percentage, up from a mid teens percentage before. Core earnings per share are expected to increase by a high teens percentage, up from prior guidance of a mid teens percentage.
In 2023, AstraZeneca reported revenue of $45.81 billion and core EPS of $7.26.
Soriot said he is ‘highly encouraged by the broad-based underlying momentum we are seeing across our company in 2024, and growth looks set to continue through 2025, providing a solid foundation to deliver on our 2030 ambition.’
However, AstraZeneca did caution that should foreign exchange rates remain at the average rates seen in September, that revenue would incur a low single-digit percentage adverse impact and core EPS would incur a mid single-digit percentage adverse impact.
Soriot also provided an update on events in China which have dogged the company’s share price in recent weeks.
‘We take the matters in China very seriously,’ he said, adding if requested ‘we will fully cooperate with the authorities.’
‘To the best of the company’s knowledge, the investigations include allegations of medical insurance fraud, illegal drug importation and personal information breaches. Recently Leon Wang, [executive vice president] International and AstraZeneca China President was detained. The company has not received any notification that it is itself under investigation.’
Shares in AstraZeneca were 0.1% higher at 9,999.00 pence each in London on Tuesday. The wider FTSE 100 was down 0.7%.
Alongside the results, AstraZeneca announced a $3.5 billion investment in the US focused on expanding its research and manufacturing footprint by the end of 2026.
‘These US investments are the first of a series of important steps to help deliver AstraZeneca’s ambition to achieve $80 billion in total revenue by 2030,’ the firm said in a statement as set out in May this year.
A key element of the strategy is accelerating development in the US, AstraZeneca’s largest market, generating 44% of its total revenue.
In addition, AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd said they submitted a new biologics license application for accelerated approval in the US for datopotamab deruxtecan, a key cancer drug.
The new application is based on the Tropion-Lung05 phase II trial and supported by data from additional trials including Tropion-Lung01. The previously submitted BLA based on Tropion-Lung01 phase III trial has been voluntarily withdrawn. The decision was informed by feedback from the US Food & Drug Administration.
Further, AstraZeneca announced positive high-level results from the phase III Waypoint trial in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps.
This showed AstraZeneca’s and Amgen Inc’s tezspire demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful reduction in the size of nasal polyps and reduced nasal congestion compared to placebo.
Tezspire is currently approved for the treatment of severe asthma in the US, EU, Japan, and nearly 60 countries across the globe. It is approved as a single-use pre-filled syringe and auto-injector for self-administration in the US and EU.
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