Flu helps AstraZeneca lift outlook

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON (Reuters) - AstraZeneca increased its full-year outlook for the second quarter in a row on Thursday as earnings jumped 28 percent, beating forecasts, helped by earlier-than-expected revenues from its swine flu vaccine.

But the one-off nature of the gain from flu and other factors diluted the strong results, and investors fretted over prospects for new blood thinner Brilinta, pushing shares in the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker lower.

AstraZeneca has been helped this year by the resilience of the pharmaceutical sales and delays in cheap generic versions of heart drug Toprol XL and cancer treatment Casodex -- though both have now been launched in the United States.

The sale of H1N1 swine flu vaccine to the U.S. government by the group's MedImmune unit has been an added bonus, contributing $152 million (91 million pounds) to sales in the third quarter -- a lot more than the nominal $25 million or so many analysts had forecast.

"Overall, the business has performed more strongly on the top line than we had anticipated and we haven't experienced quite the extent of the headwind that we had anticipated at the beginning of the year," said finance chief Simon Lowth.

Long-term concerns remain, however, given the threat of generic competition to AstraZeneca's top-selling medicines such as heartburn drug Nexium, Seroquel for schizophrenia and, further off, cholesterol drug Crestor.

Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Baum said the outlook for the company "gets much tougher from here."

Lowth acknowledged one-offs had helped in the quarter but said key drivers, including Crestor, were doing well.