UPDATE 3-Tamiflu hits Roche 9-month sales, pressures stock
(Recasts with Tamiflu, adds company and analyst comment, share price)
By Sam Cage
ZURICH, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Nine-month sales at Roche Holding AG (ROG.VX) rose 12 percent to 33.95 billion Swiss francs ($28.82 billion), but missed forecasts on lower orders of influenza drug Tamiflu, pressuring its shares.
Basel-based Roche confirmed its full-year outlook on Tuesday, saying it expected double-digit increases in group and drugs sales and core earnings per share to grow faster than group sales.
Tamiflu sales fell 60 percent in the third quarter following completion of outstanding orders for pandemic influenza stockpiles.
The company said government and corporation stockpiling plans had largely been completed and no significant new orders had recently been received.
Roche participation certificates, its most widely traded form of equity, fell 2.1 percent by 0713 GMT.
"The Tamiflu pandemic sales were even less than I had thought," said Landsbanki Kepler analyst Denise Anderson.
"On the other hand, obviously given the product cycles of a lot of the drugs, the story cycle we see for Roche over the next 12 months has more to do with clinical trials news flow than results," Anderson said.
The company had no plans to raise its $3 billion hostile offer for Ventana Medical Systems Inc VMSI.O, which has been rebuffed by shareholders, diagnostics head Severin Schwan told Reuters.
"We believe that the offer is fully priced and fair, attractive for the Ventana shareholders, and the ball is with Ventana," said Schwan, who is Roche's designated new chief executive.
Roche declined to comment on any potential interest in U.S. biotech company Biogen Idec Inc (BIIB.O), which has put itself up for sale.
CANCER DRUGS IMPRESS AGAIN
Shares in several of Europe's big pharmaceutical firms, including GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK.L) and Sanofi-Aventis (SASY.PA), have been hard hit this year by setbacks to major products, but Roche has so far bucked the trend thanks to its strong pipeline and limited patent exposure.
Its nine-month drugs sales rose 14 percent to 27.12 billion francs underpinned by key cancer medicines like Avastin and Herceptin. It had been expected to post drug sales of 27.38 billion, according to a Reuters poll of 19 analysts.
Avastin sales rose 41 percent to 2.97 billion francs and Herceptin by 26 percent to 3.59 billion francs.
Nine-month sales at Roche's diagnostics unit rose 5 percent to 6.82 billion francs, in line with expectations.
Roche had been expected to post nine-month group sales of 34.22 billion francs, according to a Reuters poll of 19 analysts.
Basel-based Roche trades at about 16.8 times forecast 2008 earnings, at a premium to both the DJ Stoxx European healthcare index .SXDP and local rival Novartis (NOVN.VX) because of its promising growth prospects.
