Year-to-date sales at Roche rise 5%, with 10% growth in the USA

Swiss pharma giant Roche (ROG: SIX) says its third-quarter 2017 sales were 13.1 billion Swiss francs ($13.37 billion), compared to the 13.04 billion francs average estimate by analysts in a Reuters poll, boosted by better-than-expected revenue from its new multiple sclerosis medicine Ocrevus (ocrelizumab).

Sales of Ocrevus in the third quarter were 308 million francs, beating the poll average of 228 million and growing from192 million francs in the second quarter.

Sales figures for the first nine months of 2017 showed that overall revenues rose 5% to 39.4 billion francs. Roche does not disclose earnings figures at the quarterly stage.