Proactive Investors - AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) delivers its first quarter results Thursday on a hot streak.
Shares have risen 15% in a month consolidating its position as the UK’s largest company and no doubt pleasingly for boss Pascal Soriot overtaking one-time bidder Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) in the process.
Astra’s resurgence has been impressive with the growth drivers of its trio of blockbuster therapies Tagrisso, Lynparza and Imfinzi.
Sales of these will be key to the first quarter update but UBS also highlights upcoming trial data from dato-dxd’s TROPION-Lung01 trial (due this quarter) and Enhertu’s Destiny-Breast06 trial (due in the second half).
For the full year 2023, Astra has guided towards low-to-mid single-digit total revenue growth (incl. COVID) and low-double-digit (excl. COVID).
Core EPS is expected to go up by high single-digit to low double-digit (constant exchange rates).
For the first quarter, the consensus estimate is for top-line sales of US$10,687mln, core operating profit of US$3,468mln and core diluted EPS of $1.68.
Within that, key sales drivers will be Tagrisso (cons US$1.42bn), Lynparza (cons US$712mln), Imfinzi (cons US$712mln) and Calquence (cons $601mln.)