Roche Buoyed in 1Q With Rise in Demand for Coronavirus Products
April 22 2020 - 5:45AM
Dow Jones News
By Denise Roland
Demand for coronavirus testing and a potential treatment buoyed
Roche Holding AG in the first quarter, even as the pandemic hit
healthcare provision in other disease areas.
The Swiss Healthcare giant said Wednesday that overall sales for
its drugs rose 7% at constant exchange rates in the first quarter
to 12.3 billion Swiss Francs ($12.68 billion). The company backed
its full-year guidance for full-year revenue growth in the
low-to-mid single digit range at constant exchange rates, as well
as core earnings per share growth broadly in line with sales.
In mid-March, Roche launched a diagnostic test for the
coronavirus, and said it has been ramping up reagent production,
used in laboratory virus tests, by a factor of ten in the first
quarter. Roche said these efforts have offset declines in other
parts of its diagnostics business, due to hospitals conducting
fewer routine tests.
The company also benefited from soaring sales of an arthritis
drug that some small independent studies have suggested could help
patients with severe cases of Covid-19. Sales of the drug, Actemra,
surged 30% at constant exchange rates to CHF666 million in the
first three months of the year.
Roche's business from the pandemic could grow further, with the
company planning to launch an antibody test next month. Chief
Executive Severin Schwan said he was confident the Roche test
wouldn't suffer from the same reliability problems that have dogged
many of the dozens of antibody tests launched so far.
Write to Denise Roland at Denise.Roland@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 22, 2020 05:30 ET (09:30 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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