2023-04-24 12:22:25 ET
Novartis AG ( NYSE: NVS ) ADRs rose to reach a new 52-high on Monday as investors look for updates on the company's strategic turnaround when the Swiss pharma giant releases its Q1 2023 results before the markets open on Tuesday.
Wall Street projects the maker of Zolgensma gene therapy to report $1.53 earnings per share for the quarter, implying ~5% YoY growth, and expects its quarterly revenue to remain flat from a year ago at ~$12.6B.
Over the past two years, Novartis ( NVS ) has posted an equal number of quarterly earnings beats and misses while its revenue figures have exceeded Wall Street estimates three times and lagged expectations five times.
As generic competition and pricing impact offset volume growth, the Basel-based company's Q4 2022 revenue dropped ~4% YoY on a reported basis to $12.7B, while its core operating income grew ~6% YoY to $4.0B.
In 2023, Novartis ( NVS ) expects to record low-to-mid single-digit sales growth and mid-single-digit growth in core operating income.
"Novartis is on track to become a pure-play innovative medicines company, uniquely positioned to leverage its global scale and R&D platforms," Chief Executive Vas Narasimhan said at the time.
However, the company's bottom line contracted ~91% YoY due to lost Roche ( OTCQX:RHHBY ) income as Novartis ( NVS ) decided to sell back nearly 33% of its stake in its Swiss rival for more than $20B in 2021.
Ahead of a planned separation of its generics division Sandoz in H2 2023, the company continued to update its pipeline in Q1 2023 amid an ongoing strategic review.
In February, Bloomberg reported that Novartis ( NVS ) is starting to offload some of its ophthalmology assets, including dry eye therapy Xiidra which generated $487M in 2022.
More on Novartis’ ( NVS ) pipeline updates
- Bicycle stock pops on cancer drug discovery pact with Novartis
- Novartis drops plans to develop Huntington’s disease candidate
- Novartis ends NASH collaboration with Pliant
- Seeking Alpha analyst LD Investments argues that the company’s “organizational restructuring and focus on China and the U.S. could yield results.”
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Novartis hits 52-week high as Wall Street awaits Q1 2023 earnings