AstraZeneca's CEO defends company's stance in Bloomberg interview

Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca saw its shares decline 1.8% to $43.67 last Friday (February 12), after Bloomberg published an interview with its chief executive, David Brennan, suggesting he is counting on investors taking the drugmaker's dividend and cash returns as sufficient reward while earnings stall over the next four years.

AstraZeneca, headquartered in London, UK, faces generic competition of seven cheaper seven drugs by 2014, including its three biggest sellers: Nexium (esomeprazole) for ulcers, the antipsychotic Seroquel (quetiapine) and cholesterol lowerer Crestor(rosuvastatin). The competition may result in "a period of fluctuating earnings," Mr Brennan said in the interview.

Bloomberg notes that AstraZeneca had the biggest decline in almost 10 months in London trading on January 28, after fourth-quarter profit missed estimates and a sales forecast that promised little or no growth until 2014 disappointed some analysts (The Pharma Letter January 28). The company resumed share buybacks, with plans to repurchase as much as $1 billion this year, and raised the annual dividend 12%.