AMGN Amgen Inc

By Adriano Marchese

Amgen Inc. on Wednesday reported a 3.1% rise in third-quarter profit, benefiting from higher revenue in the period, and said its share repurchases would be at the lower end of its guidance.

In the quarter, the Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based pharma company earned a profit of $2.02 billion, or $3.43 a share, compared with $1.97 billion, or $3.27 a share, for the same period last year.

Excluding items, Amgen reported a quarterly adjusted profit of $4.37 a share, beating consensus analyst forecasts of $3.80 a share taken from FactSet.

Total revenues rose to $6.42 billion from $5.74 billion, benefiting from a 12% increase in product sales. Amgen said this was driven by an 18% volume growth, but partly offset by declines in net selling prices.

Amgen said that it has seen physician-patient interactions and prescribing volumes continue to increase in the third quarter, but that they remain modestly below pre-Covid-19 levels on a portfolio basis.

"While prescription trends were more consistent throughout the third quarter versus the second quarter, we continue to expect quarter-to-quarter variability due to the pandemic," it said.

Looking ahead to the full year, the company said that total revenues guidance was narrowed to between $25.1 billion and $25.5 billion, while EPS guidance has been revised to between $11.53 and $11.93. Adjusted EPS, meanwhile, is now expected to be between $15.80 and $16.15.

The company said it will maintain its quarterly dividend at $1.60 but that its share repurchases will be at the lower end of its previous guidance of between $3 billion to $5 billion.

Write to Adriano Marchese at adriano.marchese@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 28, 2020 16:22 ET (20:22 GMT)

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