Spain's Rovi first-half profit up 58% helped by vaccine manufacturing

MADRID (Reuters) - Rovi posted a 58% jump in first-half net profit to 80.6 million euros ($82 million) on Wednesday as COVID-19 vaccines boosted revenue, the Spanish pharmaceutical company said.

Rovi, which has a partnership with Moderna to manufacture its COVID-19 vaccine for large parts of the world, reported a 31% rise in operating revenue to 380.4 million euros.

Its third-party manufacturing sales grew 76% to 166.4 million euros, mainly due to revenue related to the production of COVID-19 vaccines.

It expects its third-party manufacturing business to increase by 30%-40% in 2022 including vaccines production.

Rovi's shares were up 1.8% after the earnings, outperforming Spain's blue-chip index Ibex-35 which was up 0.32%.

($1 = 0.9865 euros)

(Reporting by Emma Pinedo, editing by Joan Faus and Jason Neely)