New AstraZeneca CEO plans to invest through tough year

LONDON (Reuters) – AstraZeneca’s new boss said sales and profits would both fall sharply in 2013 as the drugmaker struggles to turn itself around by investing more in-house and on potential acquisitions. Chief Executive Pascal Soriot forecast a mid-to-high single digit percentage fall in revenue this year, as patent expiries continue to erode business, with earnings declining “significantly more” due to increased operating costs. The 2013 outlook was worse than the fall of around 3 percent in sales that analysts had been expecting, and shares in the group slumped 5.4 percent by 6:50 a.m. …