Pharmacia Profit Falls 70% on Charges,
While Core Earnings Match Estimates
Dow Jones Newswires
4/25/2000
PEAPACK, N.J. -- Pharmacia Corp. said its first-quarter net income fell almost 70% on charges, with strong sales of the company's arthritis and glaucoma treatments boosting underlying results.
The drug-and-agrochemical company, formed from the merger of Monsanto Co. and Pharmacia & Upjohn earlier this year, posted net income of $98 million, or seven cents a diluted share, compared with net of $324 million, or 25 cents a share, a year earlier.
Prescriptions Boost Pharmacia Net; Celebrex Helps Monsanto's Results (Feb. 10)
Pharmacia & Upjohn, Monsanto Boards Approve $27 Billion Merger of Equals (Dec. 20, 1999)
Results for the latest period included restructuring charges of $323 million, or 25 cents a share, as well as a gain of $58 million, or four cents a share, from discontinued operations.
Excluding items, including a charitable contribution of $62 million, or five cents a share, it would have reported earnings of $425 million, or 33 cents a share, matching the estimate of analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial.
Pharmacia said year-earlier results included a gain of $12 million, or one cent a share, from discontinued operations, and accounting charges of $20 million, or two cents a share. Excluding items, earnings in the year-earlier quarter would have been 26 cents a share.
Sales in the latest quarter rose 4.7%, to $4.29 billion from $4.10 billion a year earlier, with growth driven by a 14% increase in U.S. pharmaceutical sales, led by the arthritis drug Celebrex. Sales of Celebrex leapt 92% for the quarter, to $534 million.
Sales of Xalatan, a therapy for glaucoma, rose 58% to $161 million, and sales of Ambien, an insomnia treatment, climbed 15% to $103 million. Sales of Camptosar, a treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer, increased 25% to $80 million.
Pharmaceutical sales overall rose 10% to $2.8 billion from a year earlier, while agricultural sales fell 2% to $1.4 billion.
Pharmacia said the effects of foreign-currency exchange boosted overall sales by 2%.
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Probably more of a reason for the selloff in PHA. Would like to see it lower in the $30s so I can buy.
Jack
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