1-4 September, 2006 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, India
    Roche sales growth may exceed industry average.




Commenting on the full-year results, Roche Chairman and CEO Franz B. Humer said, “2005 was an excellent year for Roche. The Pharmaceuticals Division achieved its best result ever and Diagnostics showed a solid performance leading to record sales and operating profit on a Group level. Profit from continuing businesses increased by 2 billion Swiss francs or over 40%. Net income reached 6.7 billion Swiss francs nearly compensating last year’s income of 2.3 billion Swiss francs from the divested consumer health business. With the introduction of many novel diagnostics and life saving drugs and a great effort to increase the availability of Tamiflu we have again created sustainable value for physicians and patients. This is also reflected in the confirmation of Roche’s membership in both the FTSE4Good and Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes.”
2005 the Pharmaceuticals Division recorded its best result ever, exceeding the high, above-market growth of the previous year. Sales for the full year rose 25% in local currencies (26% in Swiss francs and 25% in US dollars) to 27.3 billion Swiss francs, four times as fast as the global market. The gains also more than offset the decline of the Group’s former top-selling medicine Rocephin following the expiry of its US patent in July. As in 2004, growth was driven primarily by strong demand for the division’s flagship oncology portfolio, now boosted by the innovative cancer treatments Avastin and Tarceva, and by strong sales of CellCept (transplantation) and Pegasys (hepatitis B and C). The anti-influenza drug Tamiflu, which many governments are stockpiling as part of pandemic readiness programmes, also contributed to growth. The division’s oncology, transplantation and virology franchises significantly outpaced their respective markets.

Operating profit before exceptional items increased again, by 37% to 7.5 billion Swiss francs. The operating profit margin before exceptional items gained 2.4 percentage points, rising from 25.0% in 2004 to 27.4% in 2005. This improvement was achieved despite higher investments in R&D, continued product launch activities and, by comparison with 2004, much lower gains from product divestments. EBITDA totalled 9.0 billion Swiss francs or 33.0% of sales, compared with 32.0% the previous year.

Date: 27-Feb-2006

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