AstraZeneca performs strongly in ‘challenging’ second quarter

AstraZeneca has expressed satisfaction with its performance in the second quarter of 2010, despite increased competition from the generics market.

The pharmaceutical company’s quarterly revenue for the period came to $8.2 billion (5.2 billion pounds), one per cent above the figure recorded in Q2 2009, with emerging market sales a key growth factor.

Among the individual products to experience a strong sales performance were Crestor, Seroquel and Symbicort, helping the company achieve year-on-year profit increases on both a quarterly and six-month basis.

The firm was also able to make progress in the clinical development of a number of new treatments, such as Brilinta, Vimovo and Certriad.

David Brennan, chief executive officer of AstraZeneca, said: “While revenue and core earnings per share comparisons become more challenging in the second half of the year, we have increased our full-year financial targets.”

Earlier this month, AstraZeneca agreed a new collaboration with MRC Technology to research treatments for diseases such as malaria.