© Archyde.com / Rachel Wisniewski
STOCK PHOTO: The AstraZeneca logo on Wilmington
10 feb (Archyde.com)-AstraZeneca on Thursday predicted an increase in sales in 2022 and raised its annualized dividend following the pharmaceutical made a profit in the fourth quarter better than expected, thanks to the boost of its COVID-19 antibody treatment and its anti-cancer drugs.
However, the company, which is listed on the London stock exchange, warned that gross profit margins on coronavirus products are expected to be below the company’s average this year, while it expects sales of COVID-19-related products to decline by around 20-25%.
AstraZeneca, which has said that low-income countries will continue to receive their vaccine without seeking benefit following the group began to score modest gains from the injection, created a separate subsidiary to focus on its products once morest coronavirus and other respiratory infections.
“AstraZeneca continued its strong growth trajectory in 2021 (…), five of our medicines crossed the threshold of new sales successes, ” said CEO Pascal Soriot.
The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company expects revenues to increase by a percentage of regarding ten points in 2022, and basic profits to grow by a percentage of regarding 20 points. In 2021, global sales skyrocketed by 38%, to $ 37.42 billion at constant exchange rates.
The company, considered by analysts as one of the fastest growing pharmaceutical companies, mainly thanks to new cancer therapies, also said it will increase its annualized dividend by $ 0.10, to $ 2.90, the first year-on-year increase in a decade.
(Information from Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru and Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt; editing by Jason Neely; translated by Tomas Cobos)