Not directly, but there is a workaround:
1. Use ajaxexecuteasynchronous to start your server side process (here your report edition)... this means that your browser side is NOT waiting for an answer
2. You can now have browser code displaying a waiting message, with animation and so on
3. when the process is done server side, it will return a value to the callback browser function (here, it would be the URL to display the pdf, by example), and that process can open that pdf in an iframe on the page, or on a secondary tab