AstraZeneca has reaffirmed its 2011 earnings guidance and financial forecasts for the 2010-2014 period after confidential information was mistakenly sent to brokers.

The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker noted that "during a routine consensus collection process, confidential company information was inadvertently embedded in a spreadsheet template sent to the sell-side analyst community". That information is out of date "and does not represent the company’s view of expected financial performance for the full year 2011 or for future periods".

Its most recent update of financial guidance for 2011 was issued on December 20 and AstraZeneca says it continues to expect to report core earnings per share in the lower half of the range of $7.20 to $7.40. The firm also repeated its expectations for revenue, margins and cash deployment for 2010 to 2014, originally given in January 2011 - turnover will be in the range of $28-34 billion per year over the period.

AstraZeneca will provide specific financial guidance for 2012 and any updates for the mid-term along with its full-year 2011 results announcement, scheduled for February 2.