AstraZeneca PLC said on Thursday that second-quarter net profit increased and that trials of the vaccine it is developing with researchers from the University of Oxford are at an advanced stage.
The British pharmaceutical giant, one of the companies in the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine, said the trials are being carried out in the UK, Brazil and South Africa and will begin in the US These trials will determine what just as well will protect the vaccine against Covid-19 disease, the company said.
AstraZeneca’s net profit for the quarter was $ 756 million compared to $ 130 million in the same period last year.
Basic earnings per share, a closely watched company metric that eliminates rare items, rose 32% to $ 0.96, against expectations of $ 0.88, according to a consensus provided by FactSet and based on in estimates from eight analysts.
Quarterly sales rose 8% to $ 6.28 billion, before a consensus provided by FactSet of $ 6.22 billion.
AstraZeneca said its 2020 guidance remains unchanged, and that it continues to expect total earnings to rise from a high single-digit percentage to a low double-digit percentage, and that basic EPS increases by a percentage of teens from median to high.
The board declared an unchanged interim dividend of $ 0.90 per share.
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