AstraZeneca leaks confidential information
January 9th, 2012 // 1:54 pm @ jmpickett
There have been red faces at AstraZeneca after the company sent confidential information to analysts by mistake.
It was forced into issuing a clarification about its financial prospects, saying that the information it inadvertently let out “does not represent the company’s view of expected financial performance for the full year 2011 or for future periodsâ€.
Its most recent financial guidance was issued on 20 December last year, when the company said it expected core earnings per share for the full year 2011 “in the lower half of the range†of $7.20 to $7.40.
“We are making sure the markets are clear,†an AstraZeneca spokesperson told Pharmafocus. “As soon as we were aware, we took immediate action. This was out-of-date planning information.â€
The official full-year results are expected on 2 February – in the meantime, the company said its mid-term planning assumptions for 2010-2014 also remained the same.
The old data was embedded into a spreadsheet template sent to analysts as part of a routine process asking them for their estimates of the company.
AstraZeneca is not commenting on whether the gaff has caused any damage and a spokesperson declined to say who alerted the company to its mistake.
While many media outlets have reported the error, the offending information itself does not seem to have made it into the public domain.
