(Feb 10): AstraZeneca plc expects profit to grow further this year, boosted by sales of its cancer drugs as it works to offset a patent expiry of a blockbuster diabetes medicine.
Earnings per share, excluding some items, are expected to rise by a low double-digit percentage, the UK drugmaker said Tuesday (Feb 10). That’s in line with what analysts anticipated. Astra also reported fourth-quarter profit and revenue that roughly met estimates.
Under CEO Pascal Soriot, Astra has become a cancer-drug powerhouse and the second-largest company on the London Stock Exchange but it has to contend with losing patent protection on one of its best-sellers, the diabetes medicine Farxiga.
“We have to manage those patent expiries,” Soriot said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. The shares rose as much as 2.3% in London trading. They have gained about 27% in the past six months, lagging UK rival GSK plc.
Soriot once again pledged to reach US$80 billion in revenue by the end of the decade and said the company will report results on as many as 20 advanced clinical trials this year. New medicines to launch in coming years will target obesity, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Revenue will probably grow by a mid-to-high single-digit percentage, Astra said Tuesday, similar to the 8% increase reported for 2025. Analysts had anticipated a forecast that would leave room for upgrades later in the year.
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Astra has been pushing to boost its pipeline of weight-loss medicines, most recently with a deal worth as much as US$18.5 billion with Chinese company CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. The deal gives Astra access to CSPC’s long-acting peptide technology that could enable monthly dosing, one of the hottest targets as drugmakers compete for the next generation of treatments in a booming market led by Eli Lilly & Co and Novo Nordisk A/S.
Astra’s strategy is to develop better obesity drugs, ones that offer extra benefits or are easier for patients to take. One of its experimental medicines, an oral GLP-1 drug called elecoglipron, is entering the last stage of clinical trials.
“We need to improve the compliance,” Soriot said. “So instead of weekly, moving to monthly regimens to make it easier for patients,” he said. Astra doesn’t need to do new deals for late-stage assets in obesity, he said but it might do M&A in the early discovery phase.
See also: Moderna sees sales boost as Covid-19 shots beat expectations
While some drugmakers like Novo have seen US drug pricing deals impact their forecasts for 2026, Astra’s chief financial officer Aradhana Sarin has previously said the company believes it can absorb the impact of the transaction. Astra was the second pharmaceutical company to strike a deal with US President Donald Trump on drug pricing, which will exempt it from tariffs for three years.
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