Roche sees continued growth in sales performance

Roche has announced a continuing growth in its financial performance during the first three quarters of 2011.

The company's group sales total for the first nine months of the year came to 31.49 billion Swiss francs (22.34 billion pounds), which represented a two percent year-on-year growth at constant exchange rates, when excluding Tamiflu.

Major drivers of growth during this period included the oncology therapies Herceptin and MabThera, the eye medicine Lucentis and the rheumatoid arthritis drug RoActemra, as well as its professional diagnostics business.

The company also saw positive from seven key phase III clinical studies, while receiving a recommendation from an EU expert panel for Avastin to be approved as an ovarian cancer treatment.

Roche chief executive officer Severin Schwan said: "Roche's solid sales performance in the third quarter is in line with our expectations. We're on track to achieve our targets for 2011."

This comes after the firm received provisional recommendation from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to expand the use of RoActemra in the UK earlier this week.