West Pharma soars on profit forecast raise, lowered tariff impact estimate

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By Padmanabhan Ananthan

(Reuters) -West Pharmaceutical raised its annual profit forecast and trimmed its estimates for tariff impact on Thursday, sending the medical equipment maker’s shares up 24% in early trading.

The Pennsylvania-based company, which generates about half its revenue overseas, now expects an impact of $15 million to $20 million in 2025 from tariffs, down from an earlier projection of up to $25 million.

West Pharma is deploying “every available mitigation lever” to offset the impact, but has not factored any potential tariffs related to future customer revenues into its current outlook, executives said in a call with analysts.

The company is banking on robust demand for its components used in GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs and has credited normalized customer ordering patterns for its quarterly performance.

West Pharma’s products are used by major pharmaceutical firms, including Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, in the administration of a wide range of therapies.

The company supplies components such as stoppers, plungers and delivery systems that are critical to the safe packaging and administration of vaccines, biologics and other injectable medicines.

Its second-quarter sales rose 9.2% to $766.5 million from a year ago, beating analysts’ average estimate of $727.5 million, according to data compiled by LSEG.

The company posted quarterly profit of $1.84 per share on an adjusted basis, above expectations of $1.51.

West Pharma expects 2025 adjusted profit between $6.65 and $6.85 per share, up from the prior view of $6.15 to $6.35.

The medical equipment maker also raised its annual sales forecast to a range of $3.04 billion to $3.06 billion, compared with an earlier projection of $2.95 billion to $2.98 billion.

(Reporting by Padmanabhan Ananthan in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas)