AstraZeneca boss says Trump is no guarantee of pharma bonanza

AstraZeneca played down talk that a Trump presidency is a result for the pharma industry, insisting competition will affect profits more than government policy.

Drug analysts predicted a boom for the sector as soon as it became clear that Hillary Clinton was losing the election.

She has been an outspoken critic of big pharma and planned to crack down on prices.

Presenting so-so third-quarter numbers, chief executive Pascal Soriot says there is no certainty that President Trump will go any easier on the sector.

He said: “We’ll all be left speculating for a little while. What we can reasonably expect is that the Affordable Care Act will be modified. As to what will replace it, I think it is much too early to guess.”

He dismissed the idea that drug companies will be able to ramp up prices post-Trump. Said Soriot: “It is reasonable to assume that price pressure is not going to go away.”

He said that whoever had won, the US would “still be favourable to the introduction of new medicines”.

Analysts say Astra could do with some: its blockbuster cholesterol drug Crestor now faces competition from generic alternatives and sales sank 82%.

In the third quarter, profits fell 12% to $1.03 billion (£830 million). The firm has been slicing costs to devote more resources to cancer treatments, sales of which were up 19%. Astra shares slipped 48p to 4527p.

Investors have seen Astra’s sales stall in the past few years. Critics say it needs fresh inspiration or should try rescuing the 2014 merger deal with Pfizer.

The company hopes new drugs such as blood-thinner Brilinta and cancer drug Tagrisso will be a runaway success, making a mega-deal unnecessary. The Pfizer deal collapsed under political pressure.

Hikma cut revenue forecasts, predicting lower sales in its Generics arm.

Overall sales for the year should be around $2 billion, lower than the $2.1 billion which was the top of early forecasts.