Diagnostics, Tamiflu help Roche full-year sales beat poll

[January 28, 2015]  ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Roche <ROG.VX> expects sales and profits to grow at a similar pace to last year, after a strong performance by its diagnostics unit and flu drug Tamiflu helped full-year sales beat expectations.

Stripping out the impact of currency fluctuations, the world's largest maker of cancer drugs forecast 2015 sales to grow in the low-to-mid single digit range, while core earnings per share (EPS) should grow more than sales.

Full-year sales rose 1 percent to 47.5 billion Swiss francs ($52.5 billion), generating flat core earnings per share (EPS) of 14.29 Swiss francs.

Analysts in a Reuters poll had forecast sales of 47.1 billion francs and core EPS of 14.7 francs.

($1 = 0.9047 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Caroline Copley)

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