The emptiness of AstraZeneca’s drug cabinet was laid bare today as patent expiries including its bestselling cholesterol-buster Crestor saw the pharma giant miss City expectations on sales and profits, both of which fell for the seventh-consecutive quarter.
The British drugmaker’s pre-tax profit slumped 24% to $4 billion (£3.41 billion) in the first nine months of the year. News that the struggling drugmaker has appointed a new finance boss — ex-GlaxoSmithKline executive Marc Dunoyer will take over from departing Simon Lowth — couldn’t stop shares falling 84p to 3246p. Dunoyer, currently Astra’s head of product development, joined from GSK over the summer.
Astra admitted that cheaper, generic rivals on several brands including ulcer treatment Nexium and anti-psychotic Seroquel IR, as well as Crestor in Canada and Australia, had knocked $350 million off its revenues in just the last three months. That was, however, a lower hit than experienced in each of the previous four quarters.
Overall, sales slumped 9% to $18.9 billion between January and September. The negative impact of US healthcare reform also cost Astra — the hit was $199 million in just the last three months. One glimmer of good news was that the drugmaker managed to grow sales in China, where other pharma giants, including Astra’s domestic rival GlaxoSmithKline, stand accused of a bribery scandal.
Astra’s growth in the country was “slower” at 13%, it said, but that compared to Glaxo’s China sales crashing 61% in the third quarter.
Astra’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, who has been in the job for just over a year, claimed he was “pleased with the progress we are making, particularly on the pipeline”. Astra has seen three regulatory filings and three drugs begin Phase III trials in recent months — but has also been hit by a string of hoped-for breakthrough drugs failing at trials this year.
Soriot has presided over thousands of job cuts, particularly in sales, cutting Astra’s headcount by more than 11,000 over two years.
