Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, said it was confident it would meet full year targets after reporting an 8 per cent growth in sales in the first-quarter. Last month Roche bought for 46.8 billion dollars the remaining 44 percent stake in the US biotech firm Genentech that it did not already own.
The Swiss company said in July it would set out its plan for the rest of the year to include Genentech, including bringing a head of the US company to the Roche board. New drugs Roche produced for leukemia and cancer had received approval by state regulators in the United States and the European Union.