Falling vaccination rates in Trump’s America hit Australian giant

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Australian biotech giant CSL's profits have taken a knock from lower vaccination rates in the US as noted vaccine critic Robert F Kennedy Jr gets closer to becoming health secretary in the Trump administration.

The Melbourne-based company released a strong set of half-year results on Tuesday, according to chief executive Paul McKenzie, with net profit increasing by 7% year-on-year to AU$3.2 billion and revenue rising by 5% to AU$8.48 billion. The company announced an interim dividend of AU$1.30 per share, up 9%.

However, earnings at its flu vaccine unit Seqirus were affected by the decline in US vaccination rates, particularly in the 18 to 64 age group, which pushed revenues down by 9 per cent to $US1.66 billion for the six months to the end of December.

McKenzie said CSL, one of the world's biggest medical research companies, will keep pushing for vaccinations as vaccine scepticism grows. Kennedy, a well-known critic of vaccines, is expected to take over the US Health Department soon after a Senate committee gave his nomination the green light this month.

“Everything else is just guesswork for me, it's the data that I stick to,” McKenzie said.

G'day, I just got a report this morning – it's going to be the worst flu season in the US in more than 20 years. This second wave of flu in the US is the worst, and the reality is that we've already had 50 kids die in this season, and to me, that's bloody heartbreaking to think someone's losing their kid to the flu when we've got good solutions available.

“We need to work on spreading the word, to let people know from a public health perspective, vaccinations are being done properly.”

The company reported improved results across its Behring and Vifor divisions, which manufacture core blood plasma and iron deficiency products, respectively.

McKenzie confirmed CSL's profit predictions, stating that he expected the company's earnings to increase by between 10 per cent and 13 per cent during the current financial year.

He mentioned that CSL will keep on introducing artificial intelligence into its operations, but in a responsible way.

We've got a few situations now where we've rolled it out and it's made a real difference for our frontline workers," he said. "And as we get more experience and continue to improve our machine learning, I think it will have even more of an impact.

Goldman Sachs analysts described the result as a mixed bag, but continued to recommend buying the stock and their predicted share price for the next 12 months is $325.40.

"The main problem with Seqirus is mainly due to the challenges in the industry, with companies like Sanofi and GSK showing big falls in revenue over the same period," they said in their report.

Investors knocked CSL shares down 5.3 per cent to $256, taking around $6 billion off its worth.

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