AstraZeneca's 2nd qtr beats consensus, helped by Crestor and Nexium

Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca has raised its full-year 2008 guidance on the back of a solid set of financial results for the second quarter of the year, which exceeded consensus forecasts. The results were fueled by a better-than-expected performance for the cholesterol-lowerer Crestor (rosuvastatin), which not only saw strong underlying growth but had significant price hikes, and the gastrointestinal drug Nexium (esomeprazole), albeit with the latter down on generic competition

Group sales for the quarter rose 2% at constant exchange rates to $7.96 billion, up 9% at actual levels. Pretax profit as reported was up 12% at $2.28 billion, or $1.11 per share (+4%) and core earnings before tax were $2.54 billion, down 6% at CER and 5% higher actual.

"Progress on three fronts"