Sales of Roche Holding's cancer drug Avastin could get a $1.5 billion sales boost after the colon cancer medicine was found to extend the life of people with lung tumours, analysts said today.
Shares in the world's leading cancer company were up 4.6 per cent to 126.1 Swiss francs on the news.
Shares in Genentech - Roche's US biotech subsidiary, which developed Avastin -rose 25 per cent in the previous session on the data released by the US National Cancer Institute.
Analysts said data had come earlier than expected and the surprise news should help Roche's shares overcome their underperformance of the sector by some 11 per cent so far this year.
Roche's head of pharmaceuticals, William Burns, said it was too soon to make fresh forecasts for Avastin sales but suggested they would be significantly higher.
Goldman Sachs said lung cancer, the most common form of cancer, could add $1.5 billion to sales of the product, echoing views of other industry analysts who forecast $1 billion to $1.5 billion.
Roche had expected the drug to generate peak annual sales of some 2 billion Swiss francs in colon cancer alone.