Drugs company AstraZeneca said profits would be higher this year after a US patent ruling on its top-selling ulcer drug.

Chief executive Tom McKillop said that, thanks to the extension of patent protection on ulcer drug Prilosec, AstraZeneca could look forward to a 4-5% rise in profits this year.

"The court ruling... is excellent news, allowing us to upgrade our earnings expectations for the full year," Mr McKillop said.

The comments came as AstraZeneca announced profits down 11% to �923m ($1.4bn) in the three months to the end of September.

Protecting patents

Like other pharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca has had a difficult year as patents on its drugs have expired and regulators have taken a tough line with new products.

Two of AstraZeneca's new products, the cholesterol-fighting drug Crestor and the lung cancer treatment Iressa, encountered problems with regulators.

The company said it now expected to be able to launch the cancer drug in the US in two to three weeks.

At one point this year, AstraZeneca's shares stood at half the price at which they started the year.

But they recovered some of that ground last week after a US court ruled that three generic drug makers infringed its patents on Prilosec, also known as Losec.

On Thursday, the shares closed 69p higher at 2363p.

Rival suffers

AstraZeneca said that following the ruling it did not expect a cheaper generic copy of the drug to be on sale in the US market this year.

This was one of the reasons the company was increasing its profits forecast.

On Wednesday, shares in rival pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline fell by more than 6% after it reported profit figures at the lower end of expectations.