(Reuters) -Medical equipment maker West Pharmaceutical raised its annual profit forecast on Thursday, after topping second-quarter estimates on robust demand for its components used in GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs as well as a weaker dollar.
The Pennsylvania-based firm’s shares rose 16.8% to $264 premarket following the results.
The company’s drug components business, which makes up 47% of its total sales, saw a rise in demand amid sales growth in high-margin products. It also credited normalized customer ordering patterns for its quarterly performance.
West Pharma’s products are used by major pharmaceutical firms, including Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, in the administration of a wide range of therapies.
The company supplies components such as stoppers, plungers and delivery systems that are critical to the safe packaging and administration of vaccines, biologics and other injectable medicines.
West Pharma, which generates about half of its revenue from international markets, flagged a $20 million to $25 million hit to its earnings in April due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s shifting trade policies.
However, its second-quarter sales rose 9.2% to $766.5 million from a year ago, beating analysts’ average estimate of $727.5 million, according to data compiled by LSEG.
The company posted quarterly profit of $1.84 per share on an adjusted basis, above expectations of $1.51.
West Pharma expects 2025 adjusted profit between $6.65 and $6.85 per share, up from the prior view of $6.15 to $6.35.
The medical equipment maker also raised its annual sales forecast to a range of $3.04 billion to $3.06 billion, compared with an earlier projection of $2.95 billion to $2.98 billion.
(Reporting by Padmanabhan Ananthan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas)
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