Anglo-Swedish drugs giant AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) should see its streak of six consecutive quarters of top-line growth come to an end on Thursday.
The median forecast of seven blue-chip brokers covering the stock is for third quarter sales of US$5.86bn, down from US$6.54bn a year ago, though the company is sure to play up the part foreign exchange movements play in any revenue fall.
Deutsche Bank is going for a 12% year-on-year (yoy) decline to US$5.9bn, of which seven percentage points are accounted for by foreign exchange head winds.
The group's stomach upset treatment Nexium is seeing its sales being eroded by the recent entry of a three generic versions of the drug during the quarter, so that will also be a drag on sales.
“Focus will be on the key growth drivers. Although Symbicort continues to post double digit US prescription growth, increasing pricing head winds are likely to result in modest overall sales declines on a CER [constant exchange rates] basis.
“Brilinta should continue to show solid growth (DBe $161m vs $127m in 3Q14) with US prescriptions growing 8% qoq and 46% yoy. Within diabetes, we expect Onglyza sales to continue to reflect double digit declines in US prescriptions; however, Farxiga sales should show strong sales growth given an easing of impact from patient co-pay support programmes (DBe $138m vs $70m in 3Q14),” the German bank added.
Emerging markets growth might be a concern in view of Astra's exposure to a Chinese economy that is not growing anywhere near as fast as it had been.
At the time of its half-year results the group upgraded its revenue guidance for the year saying that the year-on-year decline on a CER basis is expected to be a low single-digit percentage, compared to previous guidance of a mid-single digit percentage decline.
Deutsche reckons that full-tear guidance will be reiterated.
Core operating profit is seen sliding to US$1.67bn from US$1.77bn the year before, while the consensus forecast for profit before tax is US$1.55bn, down from US$1.65bn the previous year.
Recent news flow has been decent, with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommending the approval of gout treatment lesinurad a couple of weeks back.
“The drug had some side effect issues in phase III (signals of kidney impairment) and we were of the opinion the FDA would probably say no, so a 10-4 vote in favour of the drug is a positive,” vouched German bank Berenberg.
“We have US$500mln peak sales currently, so it is not a big mover in the model,” Berenberg added.
In contrast, earlier in October the FDA did ask for more clinical data to support Astra's new drug application for the investigational fixed-dose combination of saxagliptin and dapagliflozin for the treatment of adult patients with type 2 diabetes.