Roche profit beats forecast on strong sales of cancer, allergy drugs

By Miranda Murray and Bhanvi Satija

BERLIN (Reuters) -Swiss drugmaker Roche reported better than expected first-half operating profit on Thursday, driven by strong sales of breast cancer and asthma treatments.

Operating profit was up 6% at 12 billion Swiss francs ($15.15 billion), above analyst forecasts for around 11.7 billion, driven by higher sales and cost management, it said.

Roche added that the appreciation of the franc against the U.S. dollar had an adverse impact. In currency-adjusted terms, profit was up 11%.

Revenues of breast cancer drug Phesgo, a more convenient alternative to Roche's established Perjeta, jumped 55% to 1.2 billion francs, while asthma and food allergies medicine Xolair grew 34% to 1.45 billion francs - both above forecast.

Roche's much-watched Vabysmo, to counter a common form of blindness in the elderly, came in slightly below expectations at 2.07 billion francs.

However, it was still among the company's top five growth drivers alongside Phesgo, Xolair, once-monthly haemophilia shot Hemlibra and MS drug Ocrevus.

"We are confident in our continued strong momentum and resilience of our business due to our innovative on-market portfolio and pipeline," said CEO Thomas Schinecker.

He said Roche was still targeting a high single-digit percentage increase in full-year adjusted earnings per share.

Diagnostics division sales were stable at 7 billion francs, the company said, as growing demand for pathology solutions and blood screening tests offset the effect of China's healthcare pricing reforms.

In the United States, sales rose 10% due to Xolair and continuing uptake of its other top four drugs, which more than compensated for a decline in drugs with expired patents.

Schinecker told a media call that the company was in close talks with the U.S. government on tariffs and had ramped up inventories.

"In case tariffs will come, we would not be initially impacted," said Schinecker.

He said the company had also discussed a direct-to-patient model for selling medicines to U.S. patients, which would help bring down costs quickly by cutting out middlemen.

Such a model would work for all of Roche's medicines, said Schinecker.

$1 = 0.7923 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Miranda Murray and Bhanvi Satija. Editing by Rachel More and Mark Potter)