(Adds details on earnings, forecast, background)
Feb 10 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca on Thursday forecast
higher 2022 sales and raised its annualised dividend after the
drugmaker posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter profit as
it gets a lift from its COVID-19 antibody treatment and cancer
drugs.
But the London-listed company warned that gross profit
margins from coronavirus products were expected to be lower than
the company average for this year, while sales for COVID-19
products were expected to decline by a percentage in the
low-to-mid 20s.
AstraZeneca, which has said low-income nations would
continue to receive its vaccine on a no-profit basis after it
began making a modest profit on the shot, set up a separate unit
to focus on its coronavirus efforts and other respiratory
infections.
"AstraZeneca continued on its strong growth trajectory in
2021 ... five of our medicines crossing new blockbuster
threshold," Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said.
The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker expects 2022 revenue to increase
by a percentage in the high teens, with core earnings growing by
a percentage in the mid-to-high 20s. In 2021, overall sales
jumped 38% to $37.42 billion at constant currency rates.
Analysts estimate $6.68 per share and sales of $42.73
billion, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
The company, seen by analysts as one of the fastest growing
major drugmakers mainly thanks to new cancer therapies, also
said it would top up its annualised dividend by $0.10 to $2.90,
the first year-on-year increase in a decade.
(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru and Ludwig Burger
in Frankfurt; editing by Jason Neely)