Sales of Roche’s new cancer drugs Perjeta and Kadcyla grew and the Swiss drugmaker is developing new treatments against lung tumors and Alzheimer’s disease to succeed the ageing blockbusters Rituxan, Avastin and Herceptin.

On the downside, revenues from oral chemotherapy drug Xeloda (capecitabine) and anti-viral medicine Valcyte (valganciclovir) declined because of generic erosion, while turnover from hepatitis medicine Pegasys (peginterferon alfa-2a) and eye drug Lucentis (ranibizumab), down 13% at 769 million CHF, both fell because of increased competition.

Biosimilars in the United States will come only later, since Roche has patent protection there until 2019.

HOWEVER, solid sales of cancer treatments have helped push its revenue higher. Roche now has more than 40 immunotherapy programmes in clinical development. Revenue rose 3 per cent to 23.59 billion francs from 22.97 billion francs.

Roche CEO Severin Schwan said, “Based on the strong first half, I am confident we will reach our full-year targets for 2015″. Group sales in the half year of 23.6 billion Swiss francs ($24.6 billion) generated core earnings per share (EPS) down 5 percent at 7.22 francs. Profit growth was held back by the absence of a one-off gain booked in the same period previous year. The profit measure Roche calls core earnings strips out discontinued operations and costs related to restructuring, legal expenses, impairment charges and other one-time events using IFRS Accounting Principles.