BASEL (Dow Jones) -- Roche Holding AG Wednesday reported a decline in full-year net profit on expenses related to the takeover of California-based biotech firm Genentech last year, but said brisk sales of flu drug Tamiflu and cancer medicines drove revenue higher.

Sales of prescription drugs are off to a strong start in 2010, the drug maker said, and will probably rise around 5% this year.
Roche, based in Basel, said net profit attributable to shareholders fell 13% to 7.78 billion Swiss francs ($7.36 billion) from CHF8.97 billion, below the CHF8.22 billion expected on average by analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires.
Roche doesn't publish quarterly earnings. For the full year, sales rose 8% to CHF49.05 billion from CHF45.62 billion. In local currencies, sales increased at a faster 10% pace, underlining that the Swiss franc's strength last year pressured earnings.