LONDON Reckitt, maker of Dettol and Lysol cleaning products, on Wednesday missed third-quarter like-for-like sales expectations despite raising prices to help offset rising raw material costs.

The company also said it would start a 1 billion pound ($1.22 billion) share buyback programme "imminently" to take place over the next 12 months.

"We are firmly on track to deliver our full-year targets, despite some tough prior year comparatives that we continue to face in our U.S. nutrition business and across our OTC (over the counter) portfolio in the fourth quarter," said CEO Kris Licht, who took the helm on Oct. 1.

Reckitt said quarterly like-for-like net sales rose 3.4%, behind the 3.7% growth analysts had expected in a company-supplied poll.

($1 = 0.8218 pounds)

(Reporting by Richa Naidu; editing by Jason Neely and David Evans)