Roche sees pharma market recovering from COVID

Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche said on Thursday that drug sales have begun to recover from a COVID-induced slump as it confirmed forecasts for a modest increase in sales for the year as a whole. The company said sales in the first half of the year rose by eight per cent at constant exchange rates to 30.7 billion Swiss francs (€28.4bn). That beat the analysts’ consensus of 30 billion Swiss francs compiled by Swiss financial news agency AWP. However, the strong franc penalised the firm as, when calculated in actual exchange rates, the gain was just five per cent. There was a similar effect in both operating and net profit, both of which showed small gains when currency effects were excluded, but dipped using actual rates. Net profit slid three per cent to 8.2 billion Swiss francs. “We have achieved good results in the first half, primarily thanks to the demand for our new medicines and COVID-19 tests,” CEO Severin Schwan was quoted as saying in a statement. He said sales of COVID-19 tests had peaked in the second quarter, as expected. Schwan also said sales had begun to recover at the company’s pharmaceutical division, which accounts for a majority of its revenue. In the first...