Business & Finance
AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine sales exceed expectations
29 April 2022 -

British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca Plc (LON:AZN) has exceeded its 2022 first-quarter sales and profit, aided by higher than expected sales of its COVID-19 vaccine, Reuters news agency reported on Friday.

During the quarter, the COVID-19 vaccine recorded USD1.15bn in sales, the majority of which came from initial contracts. This number eclipsed consensus analyst expectations of USD739m, as cited by Credit Suisse.

The vaccine was reportedly AstraZeneca's second best-selling product in 2021 with sales of USD3.9bn.

Also, the company expects sales of its antibody-based COVID-19 treatment, Evusheld, to grow this year.

The antibody treatment, which generated USD469m in revenues in the first-quarter, came in just short of consensus expectations of USD480m.

Refinitiv IBES data revealed that the company reported total revenue of USD11.39bn for the quarter three months ended 31 March 2022 and core earnings of USD1.89 per share, exceeding consensus expectations of USD10.85bn and USD1.70 per share, respectively,

AstraZeneca has maintained it forecasts sales of its COVID-19 products expected to decline by a low-to-mid 20s percentage in 2022, while overall revenues will rise by a high teens percentage, with core earnings up by a mid-to-high 20s percentage.

However, the company said it expected to see sales decline by a mid-single-digit percentage in 2022 in China, in part due to discounts it has agreed to secure a place on China's National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL) for various medicines.

Also, China has recently put in place COVID-19 lockdowns, which analysts worry could affect sales in the second quarter.

Last year, China had accounted for about 16% of AstraZeneca's total revenues.

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