LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) – Concise presentations on global finance in the Covid-19 era.
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TUNNEL VISION. AstraZeneca is trying to give up vaccines. Although the $ 130 billion group has created one of the most important Covid-19 strikes in the world, the questionable effectiveness for people over the age of 55 and the snuff in the European supply chain have created headaches for CEO Pascal Soriot . On Thursday, he highlighted the success of the core business, in which sales of new drugs outnumber older drugs and projected revenues will increase by a small percentage for teenagers in 2021, excluding the launch of the vaccine.
Starting in the first quarter, AstraZeneca will eliminate vaccine sales from its core business, reflecting its decision to sell jabs at cost during the pandemic. This should reassure investors who pushed stocks down 11% since September last year, when the company was forced to stop a vaccination process. AstraZeneca still trades earnings 20 times, well above colleagues like GlaxoSmithKline. Soriot will not want the vaccine to infect its premium rating. (By Aimee Donnellan)
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