By Helena Smolak


Novartis raised its profit guidance a second time this year after second-quarter profit and sales rose and outpaced analysts' expectations, boosted by revenue from its blockbuster treatments.

The Swiss pharma major said Thursday that it now expects its core operating profit--one of its preferred metrics, which strips out exceptional items--for 2024 to grow in the mid to high teens, from a low double-digit to mid-teens range previously.

The group reiterated its full-year sales growth in a high-single to low-double-digit range. The company had already upgraded its 2024 forecasts alongside its first-quarter results.

The guidance assumes that no Entresto heart drug generics and no Promacta aplastic anemia drug generics launch in the U.S. in 2024, it said.

Core operating profit for the second quarter grew to $4.95 billion from $4.24 billion the year prior. The numbers for last year's second quarter reflect the group's continuing operations taking into account the spinoff of generics business Sandoz Group in October. The Sandoz spinoff followed a yearslong portfolio transformation to sharpen the company's focus on more lucrative innovative medicines.

Sales increased to $12.51 billion from $11.44 billion the year before.

Strong growth in sales of the company's Entresto drug, scheduled to lose patent protection next year in the U.S., and its Cosentyx psoriasis treatment, which both exceeded $1 billion in quarterly revenue, helped the top line. Generic competition had a negative impact of 2 percentage points, the company said.

Its cholesterol treatment Leqvio's sales more than doubled to $182 million, beating analysts expectations of $166 million, according to a consensus polled by Visible Alpha. Investors are eyeing the drug as the market expects Novartis to be among the leaders of the resurgence in cholesterol drugs.

Sales of its prostate-cancer drug Pluvicto--using radiation to target a specific antigen on cancer cells--rose 44% across the U.S. and Europe to $345 million in the second quarter as manufacturing and supply are now unconstrained compared to previous quarters, but missed analysts' expectations of $362.4 million, according to a Visible Alpha-compiled consensus.

Sales of Consentyx grew 22% to $1.53 billion, surpassing analysts' expectations in a Visible Alpha poll of $1.45 billion.

Analysts polled by Visible Alpha had forecast $4.67 billion in core operating profit on $12.22 billion in sales.


Write to Helena Smolak at helena.smolak@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

07-18-24 0158ET