AstraZeneca forecasts 2022 sales growth after ‘landmark’ year - and CEO says its vaccine has saved one million lives
AstraZeneca’s CEO said he has no regrets over the handling of its Covid-19 vaccine because it has saved one million lives.
Pascal Soriot was speaking as the Cambridge-headquartered biopharmaceutical company confirmed exceptional results from a “landmark year” in which it grew revenues by 38 per cent to $37.4billion - and it is forecasting sales growth in 2022.
The board will increase its dividend to shareholders after a year in which five of its medicines became blockbusters and it earned around $4bn from its Covid-19 vaccine.
Coronavirus-related revenues are expected to dip by “a low-to-mid 20s percentage” in 2022 amid lower take-up of its vaccine, which will only partially be offset by growth in sales of its Evusheld antibody drug against the virus.
However, total group sales are expected to rise by a “high teens percentage”.
CEO Pascal Soriot said: “AstraZeneca continued on its strong growth trajectory in 2021, with industry-leading R&D productivity, five of our medicines crossing new blockbuster thresholds, and the acquisition and integration of Alexion.
“We also delivered on our promise of broad and equitable access to our Covid-19 vaccine with 2.5 billion doses released for supply around the world, and we made good progress on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.
“Growth was well balanced across our strategic areas of focus, and we saw double-digit growth in all major regions, including Emerging Markets despite some headwinds in China.
“The positive news from our pipeline, including approvals for Evusheld and Tezspire, supports the outlook for 2022. This, along with the transformative acquisition of Alexion, means that we are confident in our long-term growth and profitability. After a landmark year in 2021, we are increasing the dividend for our shareholders.”
AstraZeneca said in November it would begin to make a “modest” profit from its vaccine, as the virus became endemic, but only from countries that could afford it, having previously produced the jab at cost.
The company said the vaccine is still “highly effective” against all Covid variants in preventing hospital admissions and deaths, but revealed it had discontinued another version being developed as it was found to be no more effective.
The jab is not being used in the UK for booster shots and is not approved in the US. Supplies of it became a bone of contention between the UK and the EU last year and some countries temporarily stopped using it while investigating side effects.
Professor Sir John Bell – one of the Oxford University vaccine developers – claimed earlier this week that politicians and scientists “probably killed hundreds of thousands of people” by damaging the reputation of the vaccine.
Asked whether he had any regrets, Mr Soriot said: “It’s really hard to regret anything when you have delivered 2.6 billion doses of the vaccine and you have saved one million lives around the world and of course enabled the economies in many countries to restart.”
Revenue excluding the vaccine grew by 23 per cent at a constant exchange rate to $33.4bn, and the company had a record final quarter, with sales up 63 per cent to $12bn.
Despite the revenue figures, the company posted a bottom line pre-tax loss of $265m (£196m) for last year, against profits of $3.92bn (£2.9bn) in 2020, due to its $39bn (£28.8bn) acquisition of Alexion Pharmaceuticals, along with a 62 per cent rise in research spending.
It recorded 14 positive phase III readouts across nine medicines in 2021, and had 22 regulatory approvals.
“Overall, we now have 13 blockbusters, with Tagrisso, Farxiga, Lynparza, Calquence, and Fasenra crossing new thresholds in the year,” said Mr Soriot.
In oncology, Tagrisso sales grew 13 per cent to $5bn, while Imfinzi revenues rose 16 per cent to $2.4bn.
Sales of Lynparza, a leading PARP inhibitor across four tumour groups, rose 30 per cent to $2.3bn.
Meanwhile, in the cardiovascular, renal and metabolism field, Farxiga was a big success story, with 49 per cent growth to $3bn.
Alexion, its newly-acquired rare disease arm, grew revenues by nine per cent to $3.1bn.
The AstraZeneca board is to increase the annualised dividend by $0.10 to $2.90, and has approved a second interim dividend for 2021 of $1.97, payable in March 2022, meaning a total dividend for the year of $2.87.
Mr Soriot added: “Importantly, we also made good progress on our sustainability goals, with our targets now independently verified by the Science Based Targets initiative.
“All employees across AstraZeneca showed an amazing dedication during the past year. I’m confident that together we will reach even greater heights in 2022 and make an even bigger difference to the lives of patients around the world.”
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