Merck Revenue and Profit Falls
February 03 2016 - 8:21AM
Dow Jones News
By Austen Hufford
Merck & Co. posted declines in sales and profit as the
pharmaceutical giant gave revenue projections below analyst
forecasts and earnings expectations on the lower end of them.
Shares, which have fallen 6% in the last three months, fell 2.8%
in premarket trading.
Merck said it expects 2016 adjusted earnings per share of
between $3.60 and $3.75 and revenue between $38.7 billion and $40.2
billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected earnings
of $3.72 a share on revenue of $40.25 billion.
The quarter's pharmaceutical revenue fell 3.7% to $9.03 billion,
including an 8% negative impact from currency fluctuations. Type 2
diabetes treatment Januvia posted a 12% sales decrease. Recently
Januvia has faced an FDA safety alert about risk of joint pain for
it and other drugs in its category. Merck said the decrease was
expected and driven by the timing of purchases.
HPV vaccine Gardasil sales increased 40% due to an increase in
government purchases in the U.S.
Sales of Remicade, a treatment for inflammatory diseases,
decreased 29% due to loss of exclusivity and the accelerating
impact of competition by biosimilar drugs.
In January, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved
Merck's new treatment, Zepatier, for hepatitis C, the latest
entrant in a booming market for drugs for the viral infection--a
market now dominated by Gilead Sciences Inc.
Overall, the company posted a profit of $976 million, or 35
cents a share, down 87% from $7.32 billion, or $2.54 a share, a
year prior.
The previous quarter's earnings included proceeds from the sale
of Merck's over-the-counter business to Bayer AG for $14.2 billion.
Excluding that and other items, earnings were 93 cents, up from 87
cents. Sales slipped 2.5% to $10.22 billion.
Analysts forecast per-share earnings of 91 cents a share on
revenue of $10.35 billion.
Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 03, 2016 08:06 ET (13:06 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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