Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. on Tuesday said revenue soared in its fourth quarter, but the company missed analyst expectations as sales growth of its key eye-disease treatment slowed.

Regeneron added that it expects U.S. sales of the drug, Eylea, to grow about 20% in 2016. Sales of Eylea grew 54% in 2015.

Shares, which have fallen 30% in the last three months, fell 7.8% to $360 in light premarket trading.

Tarrytown, N.Y.-based Regeneron commercializes medicines for eye diseases, high cholesterol and a rare inflammatory condition. The company also has a number of other treatments in its pipeline.

Last year, U.S. and European regulators approved Praluent, the first of a powerful new class of cholesterol-lowering medicines that Regeneron developed with French drugmaker Sanofi SA. Sanofi records sales of the product, and Regeneron shares in the profits. Net sales of Praluent in the quarter were $7 million.

U.S. sales of Eylea increased 44% to $746 million compared with the same quarter a year prior, but it grew 65% in the third quarter and 58% in the second quarter. Sequentially, sales increased 1.6% from the third quarter.

For the period ended Dec. 31, Regeneron posted a profit of $155 million, or $1.34 a share, up from $90.1 million, or 78 cents a share, a year before. Excluding special items, per-share earnings were $2.83 a share.

Revenue surged 37% to $1.1 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast adjusted per-share earnings of $3.36 on revenue of $1.17 billion.

Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 09, 2016 07:55 ET (12:55 GMT)

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