Roche delivers 3rd-qtr sales growth of 4.5%, but misses forecasts

Third-quarter 2016 sales at Switzerland’s Roche (ROG: SIX), the world's biggest maker of cancer drugs, were12.48 billion Swiss francs ($12.61 billion), up 4.5% from 11.9 billion francs in the same period in 2015, it said. Analysts polled by Reuters had on average expected sales of 12.68 billion francs.

For the nine-month through September sales rose 4% at constant exchange rates to 37.5 billion francs, just missing the average analysts’ estimate of 37.7 billion francs in a Reuters poll. Roche shares were little changed by mid-morning, rising just 0.2% to 233.30 francs. Roche does not report earnings at the quarterly stage.

Outlook for 2016 confirmed