RHHBY Roche Holdings Ltd AG (QX)

(Adds details on sales growth, share price)

 
  By Donato Paolo Mancini and Denise Roland 
 

Roche Holding AG (ROG.EB) has raised its outlook for the year after reporting strong sales growth in the first quarter.

The Swiss healthcare giant said Wednesday that it now expects sales and core earnings per share to grow by a mid-single-digit percentage in 2019, at constant currencies. It had previously expected growth in the low-to-mid single-digit range.

Sales for the three months to March 31 rose 9% to 14.83 billion Swiss francs ($14.73 billion), beating analysts' expectations of CHF14.23 billion--a consensus estimate compiled by FactSet. Accounting for currency fluctuations, sales increased 8%.

The company doesn't report earnings at the quarterly stage.

Sales growth was driven by multiple sclerosis medicine Ocrevus, cancer drugs Perjeta and Tecentriq, and hemophilia treatment Hemlibra.

The strong sales of those four medicines offset a decline in Roche bestsellers Herceptin and Rituxan, which now face competition in Europe from lower-cost copies known as biosimilars. Roche expects competition to intensify later this year, with the likely launch of biosimilars of those two drugs, plus another top-seller Avastin, in the U.S.

Overall, sales at Roche's pharmaceuticals business increased 10% at constant currencies to CHF11.9 billion. Revenue for the smaller diagnostics business rose 1% to CHF2.9 billion.

Analysts said the first-quarter figures were a significant beat.

"This strong 1Q performance underscores our confidence in Roche as the top pick in EU large-cap pharma," Jefferies wrote a research note.

Zurich-listed shares in Roche struggled for direction in midmorning trading. Initial enthusiasm, which saw shares climb 1.9% after the bell, later cooled off, with shares sliding 0.5%. They were last flat at CHF269.

Write to Donato Paolo Mancini at donatopaolo.mancini@dowjones.com; @donatopmancini and Denise Roland at denise.roland@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 17, 2019 05:49 ET (09:49 GMT)

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