Forest Laboratories Inc.'s (FRX) fiscal third-quarter profit
rose 12% as the company's sales of its Bystolic and Namenda drugs
jumped significantly.
Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Solomon said the company was
pleased with the "growth of our newest products, Bystolic and
Savella, and also with our several pipeline developments."
The drug maker's patent on its biggest-selling drug Lexapro,
used to treat depression, is expiring in March 2012, and the
company has said it is looking for partnerships to fill its
pipeline ahead of the expiration. The company faces challenges
because of tight credit market, and partnerships will help spread
around risk and cash, while sharing the costs of drug
development.
Also, the company has been seeing slowing sales of Lexapro,
which accounts for a majority of its total sales. They dipped 0.5%
in the latest quarter. The company sells Lexapro for Denmark's H.
Lundbeck AS (HLUKY LUN.KO) in the U.S. Lexapro competes with Eli
Lilly & Co.'s (LLY) Cymbalta depression treatment.
For the period ended Dec. 31, Forest Labs' earnings rose to
$210.2 million, or 69 cents a share, from $188 million, or 62 cents
a share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue rose 6.7% to $1.06
billion.
Adjusted for charges related to a new product-license fee and
restructuring, earnings were 97 cents compared with $1.03.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of 86
cents a share on revenue of $1.04 billion.
Namenda, a treatment for Alzheimer's and dementia, rose 17% as
it remained Forest Labs' No. 2 drug. Its high blood-pressure drug
Bystolic, which was launched in January 2008, saw sales more than
double. Last week, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel
recommended against the use of Bystolic to treat heart-failure
patients amid changes made during the study and the resulting
questions about effectiveness.
Shares of Forest Labs traded down 0.1% at $30.64 premarket.
-By Bhattiprolu Murti and Nathan Becker, Dow Jones Newswires;
212-416-2695; bhattiprolu.murti@dowjones.com