Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis saw its shares jump after reporting solid first-quarter profits and sales growth on Tuesday.
Shares were up more than 4% in Switzerland and more than 5% in pre-market activity in New York.
The company also raised its fiscal 2024 outlook for growth in sales and core operating income.
Further, Novartis said it plans to propose Giovanni Caforio as chair of the board of directors at its annual general meeting in 2025.
The 12-year term of Joerg Reinhardt is set to end as scheduled in 2025, when he will retire and not be available for re-election.
Novartis chief executive Vas Narasimhan said, "Novartis continued our strong momentum with both sales growth and core margin expansion in Q1. Our performance was broad-based, across all key growth brands and geographies, allowing us to raise guidance for the full year 2024."
For fiscal 2024, the company now expects net sales to grow high-single to low double-digit, compared to previously expected mid-single-digit growth.
Core operating income is now projected to grow low double-digit to mid-teens from earlier estimate of high single-digit growth.
In its first quarter, net income was $2.69 billion, higher than last year's $2.29 billion. Basic earnings per share were $1.31, up from $1.09 in the prior year.
The prior year's net income from continuing operations was $2.15 billion or $1.02 per share. Core net income was $3.68 billion or $1.80 per share, compared to last year's $3.61 billion or $1.71 per share.
The prior year's core net income from continuing operations was $3.23 billion or $1.54 per share.
Net sales grew 10% to $11.83 billion from the prior year's $10.80 billion. Sales increased 11% on a constant currency basis.
In Switzerland, Novartis shares were trading at 91.44 Swiss Francs, up 4.7%.
In pre-market activity on the NYSE, Novartis shares were up around 5.4% to trade at $100.23.