First-quarter net profit at Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG rose 10 per cent to $2.31 billion (€1.46 billion) helped by vaccines sales and the weak dollar, easily beating forecasts.
Novartis, which is digesting a $39 billion deal to buy eye-care company Alcon, this morning confirmed its full-year forecast for group sales to grow at a mid single-digit percentage rate and drug sales at a low single-digit rate.
Europe's second-largest drugmaker by market value faces the same problems as many of its peers, with earnings growth expected to slow due to the loss of exclusivity on some of its drugs, pricing pressures and more complicated paths to market.
But it benefited from dollar weakness in the first quarter as well as a strong performance from its vaccines unit, where sales rose 21 per cent to $280 million. Group sales beat forecasts with a 9 per cent rise to $9.91 billion.
"I am especially pleased with the dynamic growth of Vaccines and Diagnostics and the new products in Pharmaceuticals," chairman and chief executive Daniel Vasella said in a statement.
Drug revenue was up 6 per cent at $6.26 billion, despite generic competition to blood pressure tablet Lotrel and epilepsy medicine Trileptal.
Drug sales fell 3 per cent in local currencies - Novartis's previous guidance was for a drop in the mid-single digit percentage range - due to copy-cat generic competition and the withdrawal of Zelnorm in the United States.
Zelnorm, an irritable bowel syndrome treatment that ran into concerns of a possible link to heart attack and strokes, will not be resubmitted for US approval, Novartis said.
Basel-based Novartis trades at about 11 times forecast 2009 earnings, according to Reuters data, a premium to other European large-cap drugmakers like GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Sanofi-Aventis SA due to its greater diversity and longer exclusivity on key products.