Vaccines boost AstraZeneca's revenue as company reports 15% growth

A UK pharmaceutical company has announced that its revenues grew by 15 per cent in the first quarter of the year as demand for vaccines rose.

AstraZeneca, which produces one of the three approved Covid-19 vaccines, saw revenue grow 15 per cent to $7,320m, with the contribution for the Covid vaccine totalling around 4 per cent of the growth.

The company said that new medicines contributed more than half of the quarter’s revenue and that it saw “encouraging growth” across all of its regions.

Pascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca, commented: “We delivered solid progress in the first quarter of 2021 and continued to advance our portfolio of life-changing medicines.

“Oncology grew 16 per cent and New CVRM grew 15 per cent. New medicines contributed over half of revenue and all regions delivered encouraging growth.

“This performance ensured another quarter of strong revenue and earnings progression, continued profitability, and cash-flow generation, despite the pandemic’s ongoing negative impact on the diagnosis and treatment of many conditions.

“Given the performance in the first quarter, in line with our expectations, we reiterate our full-year guidance.

“We expect the impact of Covid to reduce and anticipate a performance acceleration in the second half of 2021.

“Further significant pipeline advances were achieved as we continued to invest for long-term sustainable growth, including the OlympiA Phase III trial demonstrating Lynparza’s benefit for certain forms of early breast cancer.

“This sustained pipeline progress and accelerating business performance underlines our commitment to patients and delivering our growth potential, which will be further complemented by the proposed acquisition of Alexion.”