Roche beats forecasts, posting 10% rise in first-quarter 2010 sales

Swiss drug major Roche, piping the rest of the pharma sector to post first-quarter 2010 results, pleased investors with its sales performance for the period, with revenues up 6% to 12.25 billion Swiss francs ($11.46 billion), beating the forecasts of 11.88 billion francs from analysts polled by Reuters. The news pushed the company's shares 2.2% higher to 176.50 francs, outperforming a 0.5% rise in the Stoxx European healthcare index in early trading this morning. Roche does not provide first-quarter earnings figures.

Roche also confirmed its full-year 2010 outlook with mid-single-digit range local currency sales growth for its pharmaceutical division. Also, despite an anticipated decrease in Tamiflu (oseltamivir) sales from 3.2 billion francs to 1.2 billion francs, Roche is aiming to achieve double-digit growth in core earnings per share at constant currency and anticipates repaying its debt raised for financing the Genentech transaction by the year end.

Boosting the firm's turnover were its cancer drugs, with total pharmaceutical sales up 10% in local currencies (+6% in francs) to 9.73 billion francs, while the group's dynamic diagnostics business generated turnover of 2.52 billion francs, a rise of 9% in LCs (+7% in francs) on the like, year-earlier period.