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(Reuters) – AstraZeneca forecast revenue growth in 2021 on Thursday after the COVID-19 vaccine developer beat analysts’ estimates for fourth-quarter product sales as a wide array of therapies helped cushion the blow of the pandemic.
UK drugmaker said it expects 2021 earnings to grow by a small percentage of teens, with ‘faster growth’ in core profits to $ 4.75 at 5.00 $ per share. Quarterly product sales of $ 7.01 billion exceeded the company’s consensus of $ 6.81 billion.
2020 has been a pivotal year for AstraZeneca. He partnered with the University of Oxford to develop a COVID-19 vaccine and closed his biggest deal ever by buying US drugmaker Alexion for $ 39 billion as he gambled on rare diseases and immunological drugs.
The London-listed company said its forecast did not include any impact from its COVID-19 vaccine, adding that it intended to explode sales from the shooting from the first quarter of this year.
Report by Pushkala Aripaka in Bangalore and Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt. Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Mark Potter
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