AstraZeneca delivers its first-quarter results Thursday on a hot streak.
Shares have risen 15% in a month consolidating its position as the UK’s largest company and, no doubt pleasingly for boss Pascal Soriot, overtaking one-time bidder Pfizer in the process.
Astra’s resurgence has been impressive with the growth drivers of its trio of blockbuster therapies: Tagrisso, Lynparza and Imfinzi.
Sales of these will be key to the first quarter update but UBS also highlights upcoming trial data from dato-dxd’s TROPION-Lung01 trial (due this quarter) and Enhertu’s Destiny-Breast06 trial (due in the second half).
For the full year 2023, Astra has guided towards low-to-mid single-digit total revenue growth (incl. COVID) and low-double-digit (excl. COVID).
Core EPS is expected to go up by high single-digit to low double-digit (constant exchange rates).
For the first quarter, the consensus estimate is for top-line sales of US$10,687mln, core operating profit of US$3,468mln and core diluted EPS of US$1.68.
Within that, key sales drivers will be Tagrisso (cons US$1.42bn), Lynparza (cons US$712mln), Imfinzi (cons US$712mln) and Calquence (cons $601mln.)