ZURICH: Swiss pharma giant Roche announced Thursday lower profits for 2021 despite a jump in sales, but remained prudent about the outlook in 2022 as it expects sales of Covid-19 tests and treatments to begin dropping.

Net profits dipped by one percent compared to 2020 to 14.9 billion Swiss francs ($16.1 billion, 14.3 billion euros) despite group sales climbing nine percent thanks in part to soaring demand for Covid-19 tests.

Sales in Roche's diagnostics division jumped by 29 percent in 2021 and the sale of Covid-19 tests alone brought in 4.7 billion Swiss francs.

But Roche said overall 2022 sales would remain flat or achieve only modest growth, with sales of Covid-19 medicines and diagnostics to fall by approximately 2 billion Swiss francs to roughly 5 billion Swiss francs.

The Swiss firm produces the Covid antibody treatment Actemra/RoActemra and distributes another, Ronapreve, outside the United States in partnership with US biotech company Regeneron.

Covid antibody treatments earned Roche 1.6 billion Swiss francs in 2021 as they obtained approval in Japan and the European Union.

Sales in the pharmaceutical division, Roche's biggest, increased by one percent as the company's new treatments "more than compensated" to competition from generics of its older medicines.

Stefan Schneider, a market analyst at Vontobel, said the 2022 estimates were more conservative than what Vontobel and the consensus forecast.

He added that Roche's results met expectations but that the core operations were less profitable due to higher sales costs and spending on research and development.

Roche's share price was down 2.0 percent in afternoon trading, while Switzerland's benchmark SMI stock index was 0.2 percent lower.