Rare disease specialist Shire PLC (LON:SHP) share price has ticked up as they announce their third quarter results. Revenue from Q3 increases 7% on last year to $3.5 billion as profit performed far better than the previous year rising to $709 million, compared to a loss of $406 million.
The main driver behind the revenue increase was strong growth of the company’s Immunology franchise, up 32%, their Neuroscience franchise, up 12% and our Hematology franchise, up 4%.
The strong performance in these sectors offset the poor results from their Internal Medicine and Genetic Diseases franchises, which were hit by supply chain issues and added competition in the market.
Flemming Ornskov, Shire CEO, commented “We delivered strong growth this quarter” despite experiencing “a product shortage of CINRYZE during the quarter due to a manufacturing interruption at a third party manufacturer” also reiterating that “the issue has been addressed and production of CINRYZE has resumed”.
Shire also confirmed a number of promising updates concerning their drug pipeline. The firm anticipate Canadian approval for Lifitegrast, a treatment for dry eye disease, in the first quarter of 2018, as well as submitting a Marketing Authorization Application in Europe. Further to this they expect the FDA to approve in-house production of their big-selling treatment Cinryze, again, in the first quarter of next year. Cinryze is where they experienced supply issues. Finally they received FDA Fast Track Designation for SHP607 for the prevention of chronic lung disease in extremely premature infants.
Furthermore, Shire announced non-GAAP diluted earnings per share increased 20% to $3.81, due to higher revenues and higher gross margin. The firm have also given guidance for the full-year 2017. They expect revenue to top $14.3 billion as well as non-GAAP EPS to be between $14.8 and $15.2.
At the time of writing, share prices in Shire have increased by 1% to 3,560p.