Pfizer earnings jump by 46%

PFIZER INC’S fourth-quarter earnings climbed 46% as the world’s largest drug-maker sold more of the epilepsy treatment neurontin and the cholesterol medicine lipitor.

The company, which boasts 10 prescription drugs, that each generated more than $1 billion in revenue last year, saw net income rise to $2.86 billion, or 46 cents a share, from $1.96 billion, or 30 cents, in the year-earlier period.

Revenue increased 14% to $9.3 billion. Pfizer employs 1,200 people in Ireland. Top-selling drug lipitor is made at the Loughbeg Tablet plant in Cork and is expected to be the biggest-selling prescription drug on the market by the end of the year. The main ingredients for impotence treatment drug

Viagra is made at Pfizer’s drug substance plant at Ringaskiddy, Co Cork.

The company is expanding sales through drug acquisitions, while it sheds older products and lower-profit consumer lines.

Pfizer gained top-selling lipitor and neurontin in its 2000 takeover of Warner-Lambert Co and is hoping for similar success in its planned purchase of Pharmacia Corp.

“Products are generally stronger in Pfizer’s hands because their sales force can take the drug and run with it,” said Harlan Sonderling, senior pharmaceutical analyst at the Columbia Management Group, which owns Pfizer shares.

“Sales of all the major products met or exceeded our expectations for the quarter.”

Shares of New York-based Pfizer rose 46 cents to $30.50 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday.

Per-share profit was in line with the 47-cent estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call. Lipitor sales increased 23% to $2.3 billion, while neurontin sales rose 36% to $676 million. Pfizer, which expects to complete its

$55 billion purchase of Pharmacia Corp this quarter, said yesterday it plans to sell its estrostep and loestrin oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy FemHRT.

Last year, it sold its Tetra aquarium business and agreed to sell its Adams candy unit. Energizer Holdings Inc said yesterday that it agreed to buy Pfizer’s Schick-Wilkinson Sword razor business for $930 million in cash.

Pfizer said it accounted for these businesses as discontinued operations.

Pfizer, which was expected to earn $1.84 a share, based on First Call estimates, said the forecast accounts for the loss of the discontinued operations.

It maintains a line-up of blockbuster products largely untouched by patent expirations, including cholesterol-lowering lipitor. In October, Pfizer received a broad US patent

covering the way Viagra works to treat impotence and filed lawsuits to block rivals from selling competing products.

Pfizer did suffer a setback this month on a patent challenge to its epilepsy drug, neurontin, which generates $2 billion in sales. Neurontin could be subject to generic competition in coming months, about a year earlier than expected.

Pfizer, which plans to acquire rival Pharmacia Corp this quarter, said earnings on a stand-alone basis should rise 13% in 2003 to $1.80 per share, excluding special items.

That is a bit shy of the $1.84 average estimate from analysts polled by Thomson First Call.