BMY Bristol Myers Squibb Co

By Jonathan D. Rockoff and Tess Stynes 

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. said its second-quarter revenue rose 17% and it raised its earnings forecast for the year as the company's bet on cancer immunotherapies continues to pay off while other drugs show gains.

The drugmaker was the first to bring to market an immunotherapy, which aims to fight cancer by unshackling the body's immune system. Sales of its newest immunotherapy, Opdivo, rose to $840 million in the quarter, up $718 million from a year earlier and accounting for much of Bristol's revenue gains in the quarter.

Sales of hepatitis C treatments and the blood thinner Eliquis, which Bristol sells with Pfizer Inc., also increased substantially.

"We just finished another good quarter," Bristol CEO Giovanni Caforio said during a conference call Thursday.

For the three-month period ended June 30, Bristol's revenue rose to $4.87 billion from $4.16 billion a year earlier. The company reported profit of $1.17 billion, or 69 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $130 million, or 8 cents a share. Analysts expected per-share profit of 67 cents.

The year-earlier period included charges of 48 cents a share related to the company's acquisition of biotechnology company Flexus, which provided Bristol-Myers with a pipeline of investigational immunotherapy treatments.

Per-share earnings and revenue both beat expectations, and Bristol now expects per-share earnings of $2.55 to $2.65 for the year, up from its previous estimate of $2.50 to $2.60.

Opdivo and Eliquis do face stiff competition, and Bristol executives cautioned that the company's hepatitis C sales would probably drop as a new rival regimen from Gilead Sciences Inc. starts getting reimbursed in Europe.

Opdivo, also known as nivolumab, was first approved for sale in December 2014 for advanced melanoma and has since received approvals for other diseases, most recently for classical Hodgkin lymphoma. Sales could rise even higher, according to analysts, if the drug's development for front-line treatment of lung cancer pans out; Bristol could report results from a pivotal clinical trial in the third quarter.

Sales of Yervoy, Bristol's first skin-cancer immunotherapy drug, declined again in the latest quarter, falling 19% to $241 million globally. Opdivo's growth likely cannibalized Yervoy's sales and contributed to the drop, analysts said. In the U.S., Yervoy sales increased 32% to $179 million thanks to the drug's use in combination with Opdivo.

Eliquis sales grew 78% to $777 million, and sales of hepatitis C drugs increased 14% to $546 million.

Write to Jonathan D. Rockoff at Jonathan.Rockoff@wsj.com and Tess Stynes at tess.stynes@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 28, 2016 13:11 ET (17:11 GMT)

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