Roche, the global pharma player of Switzerland, has reported sales growth of 14 per cent to 21.9 billion Swiss Francs during the first nine months of 2004 mainly due to its anticancer drug Avastin. The sales of Avastin reached at 450 million Swiss francs in its first seven months on the market. Its pharma sales moved up 17 per cent, which is more than twice the global market average.

According to Franz B Humer, chairman and CEO, Roche continued to post significant sales growth through the third quarter of 2004 with the extremely successful launch of Avastin, the positive data from our clinical trials with Tarceva and the filings now under review by the EU and US authorities for Bonviva/Boniva put us in a very solid position for future growth. We expect full-year sales growth for 2004 to be in the double digits in the pharmaceuticals division and in the high single-digit range for diagnostics. We also expect to see significant market share gins and double-digit rise in operating profit.

Total prescription drug sales advanced by 17 per cent to 16.1 billion Swiss francs. Roche now ranks eighth among the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. North American sales increased by 24 per cent and that in Europe grew twice as fast as the market average of 8 per cent. The division recorded sustained, solid growth in its most important therapeutic areas, oncology (31 per cent), virology (66 per cent) and transplantation medicine (13 per cent). The company filed marketing applications for the new cancer drug Tarceva in advanced non-small cell lung cancer with the European and US regulatory authorities in August 2004.