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(Alliance News) - AstraZeneca PLC on Thursday said its profit almost doubled for the third quarter of 2020, as it maintained its guidance and announced a number of drug approvals.
The Cambridge-headquartered FTSE 100 drug maker posted a USD853 million pretax profit for the three months ended September 30, more than twice the USD409 million profit recorded the previous year.
This came as revenue rose 2.7% to USD6.58 billion from USD6.41 billion, while selling, general and administrative costs shrank 15% to USD2.73 billion from USD3.20 billion.
For the nine months to September end, pretax profit was more than twice as high at USD2.75 billion from USD1.31 billion, with revenue of USD19.21 billion versus USD17.72 billion the year before.
After posting a 4% drop in core earnings per share to USD0.94 for the third quarter and a 13% increase in core EPS for the nine months ended September 30 to USD2.95, Astra maintained its annual core EPS guidance for a mid- to high-teens percentage increase year-on-year.
Core figures are adjusted to exclude certain items such as restructuring charges and provisions, as well as charges and provisions relating to restructuring programmes.
AstraZeneca also maintained guidance for an expected high single-digit to a low double-digit percentage increase in total revenue fro 2020.
Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said: "We made encouraging headway in the quarter, despite the ongoing disruption from the Covid-19 pandemic. Highlights of the sales performance included further success in Oncology and an acceleration in the progress of Farxiga. Our pipeline also excelled, with Farxiga expanding its potential beyond diabetes and heart failure with ground-breaking new data in chronic kidney disease, while regulatory submission acceptance was achieved for anifrolumab in lupus.
"In the fight against Covid-19, we advanced our vaccine collaboration with the University of Oxford and are launching phase 3 trials for our long-acting antibody combination for the prophylaxis and treatment against Covid-19 for people who need an immediate defence or whose weaker immune systems mean they are less likely to benefit from a vaccine.
"We continue to progress in line with our expectations and maintain our full-year guidance, which is underpinned by the strategy of sustainable growth through innovation."
Alongside its results, AstraZeneca announced a number of regulatory approvals. This included EU approval for Lynparza - which Astra is developing alongside the US's Merck & Co Inc - as a first-line maintenance treatment for homologous recombination deficient-positive advanced ovarian cancer in combination with the drug bevacizumab.
The approval was based on analysis of the Paola-1 phase 3 trial, which found that Lynparza plus bevacizumab maintenance treatment "demonstrated a substantial progression-free survival improvement versus bevacizumab alone". The addition of Lynparza improved progression-free survival for HRD-positive advanced ovarian cancer patients to a median of 37.2 months compared to 17.7 months with just bevacizumab
Lynparza also has been approved in the EU to treat BRCA-mutated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer with breast cancer susceptibility gene 1/2 mutations. The drug is the first and only PARP inhibitor to have been approved in the EU in biomarker-selected advanced prostate cancer.
Subgroup analysis of the PROfound phase 3 trials showed the drug reduces risk of disease progression or death by 78%.
Additionally, AstraZeneca's drug Forxiga, the brand name for dapagliflozin, has obtained EU approval to treat symptomatic chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. The approval is for adults with and without type-2 diabetes. The approval is based on results of the Dapa-HF phase 3 trial.
Astra shares were up 0.2% at 8,526.00 pence early Thursday in London.
By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com
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