July 29 Quick Takes: Evusheld growth forecast helps lift AZ’s full-year guidance

Updated guidance from AstraZeneca plc (LSE:AZN; NASDAQ:AZN) suggests the company now expects overall 2022 percentage revenue growth in the mid-20s, rather than the high teens. Among the drivers is the outlook for COVID-19 antibody therapy Evusheld tixagevimab/cilgavimab, growing sales of which have offset declining revenues from its Vaxzevria vaccine. The pharma now expects “broadly flat” revenues from pandemic-related medicines, after previously guiding for a decline in the low- to mid-20s. Evusheld contributed $445 million in sales during 2Q22; for the quarter overall, AstraZeneca reported core EPS of $1.72 on revenues of $10.8 billion, compared with consensus EPS of $1.57 on revenue sof $10.5 billion.

The move by Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (NYSE:BMY) to extend patent life of its blockbuster checkpoint inhibitors with fixed-dose combination approvals hit a stumbling block on Friday with the announcement that the combination of Yervoy ipilimumab and Opdivo nivolumab missed the primary endpoint in Part A of the Phase III CheckMate-914 study evaluating the combination as adjuvant therapy for renal cell carcinoma. The combination part of the study enrolled patients with localized renal cell carcinoma (RCC) who have undergone full or partial removal of the kidney and are at moderate or high risk of relapse. The combination, which has shown survival benefits in other stages of RCC, did not lead to a disease-free survival benefit in the adjuvant setting...