AstraZeneca’s net profit jumps to £581.18 million in the second quarter

AstraZeneca (LON: AZN) said on Thursday that its net profit in the second quarter came in stronger on a year over year basis. The company also highlighted that its candidate vaccine for the treatment of COVID-19 is now in late-stage trials. In June, AstraZeneca announced to have secured £18.60 million of funding from the United States Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

Shares of the company opened just under 1% up on Thursday and jumped another 2% in the next hour. At £88.60, AstraZeneca is currently more than 15% up year to date in the stock market after recovering from a low of £62.21 per share in March.

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AstraZeneca records a 32% growth in per-share core earnings

The largest British pharmaceutical company said that its trials were underway in South Africa, Brazil, and the UK. In the United States, trials are expected to begin shortly. The late-stage trial, the company added, will decide conclusively if its experimental vaccine will be effective in curing the novel respiratory disease. AstraZeneca pledged £134 million earlier this week to ramp up COVID-19 vaccine supply deal with Emergent BioSolutions.

At £581.18 million, AstraZeneca’s net profit in Q2 came in significantly higher than £99.94 million in the same quarter last year.

In terms of per-share core earnings, the company recorded a 32% growth in the recent quarter to 74 pence that topped the experts’ forecast of 68 pence per share. The Cambridge-based company also registered £4.83 billion of sales in the second quarter that marks an 8% increase versus the comparable quarter of last year. According to FactSet, analysts had anticipated a lower £4.78 billion of sales for AstraZeneca in Q2.

AstraZeneca keeps full-year financial guidance unchanged

The British-Swedish drugmaker kept its financial guidance for the full fiscal 2020 unchanged on Thursday. The company forecasts its total revenue this year to lie in the range of a little under 10% of growth to just over 10%. For earnings per share, AstraZeneca expects a more than 15% of growth in financial 2020.

The company’s board decided in favour of keeping the interim dividend unchanged at 69.19 pence per share on Thursday. At the time of writing, the British pharmaceutical company is valued at £116.27 billion and has a price to earnings ratio of 99.31.