SNY Sanofi

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. again posted double-digit revenue growth for its key eye-disease treatment, but the company's overall revenue grew at the slowest pace in more than four years as concerns mount over industrywide pressures on pharmaceutical pricing.

U.S. sales of the drug Eylea increased 16% to $854 million, compared with $734 million in the prior-year quarter. The company now expects Eylea to post between 23% and 25% revenue growth for the year, raising the low end of its forecast by 3 percentage points.

Regeneron is facing increasing pressure from health insurers keen on keeping drug prices low.

Investors are closely watching the company's new anti-cholesterol drug, Praluent, as it was expected to be among a new slate of blockbusters in the giant cholesterol-control market.

Regeneron also said it received 36% less revenue from drug-development partner Sanofi SA, bringing in $144.4 million. It took in less R&D cost reimbursement from Sanofi and took a larger hit from its profit-and-loss sharing.

For the quarter ended in September, Regeneron posted a profit of $265 million, or $2.27 on a per-share basis, up from $210 million, or $1.82 a share a year earlier. Excluding special items, adjusted per-share earnings were $3.13.

Revenue rose 7.3% to $1.22 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected adjusted earnings per share of $2.71 on revenue of $1.29 billion in revenue.

In the quarter, Regeneron's research and development costs increased 28% to $543 million.

Sales of Praluent in the latest quarter were $38 million, up from $24 million in the previous quarter. The drug was launched in the U.S. in the third quarter of 2015 and in certain European Union countries in the following quarter. In July, Japan granted approval for the drug.

Praluent, which is made by Regeneron and Sanofi, and Amgen Inc.'s Repatha, are the only two available of a class of new cholesterol-lowering injections blocking a protein known as PCSK9 in what Wall Street had initially thought could be as up-to-$20 billion market.

Health insurers and drug-benefit managers have steered patients to using low-price, generic versions of statins like Lipitor, which was once the top-selling drug in the world, instead of either of the two drugs, which have list prices of over $14,000 a year.

Sanofi records sales of Praluent, and Regeneron shares in the profits.

On Tuesday, Pfizer Inc. said it would halt the development of its PCSK9 inhibitor that was in late-stage trials amid safety concerns and mounting pricing pressures confronting the industry.

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

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 04, 2016 08:35 ET (12:35 GMT)

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