AstraZeneca Announces First Quarter 2021 Results

AstraZeneca delivered robust revenue growth of 15% (11% at CER) in the quarter to $7,320m; excluding the contribution from the pandemic COVID-19 vaccine, revenue growth increased by 11% (7% at CER) to $7,045m. The overall results in the quarter further increased the Company’s profitability and cash generation, while the pipeline demonstrated encouraging progress; the Company reiterates full-year 2021 guidance.

Pascal Soriot, Chief Executive Officer, commented: "We delivered solid progress in the first quarter of 2021 and continued to advance our portfolio of life-changing medicines. Oncology grew 16% and New CVRM grew 15%. 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."