Pfizer 'Comfortable' With 1998 Estimates of $2.05 to $2.10/Shr
Bloomberg News
July 24, 1998, 10:20 a.m. ET
Pfizer 'Comfortable' With 1998 Estimates of $2.05 to $2.10/Shr
New York, July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc., maker of the
impotence pill Viagra, said it's comfortable with analysts'
estimates that put its 1998 profit at $2.05 to $2.10 a diluted
share.
The average estimate of analysts polled by First Call Corp.
was for $2.12 a diluted share, and analysts surveyed by IBES
International Inc. forecast $2.11 on average. Pfizer earned $1.70
in 1997. Pfizer's chief financial officer, David Shedlarz, spoke
about the profits at a meeting for analysts at the drugmaker's
New York headquarters.
This year, Pfizer had the most successful drug introduction
ever with Viagra and entered a pact to sell another potential
blockbuster, a Monsanto Co. painkiller that doesn't irritate the
stomach. Viagra sales reached $411 million in the drug's first
three months on the market, helping boost Pfizer's second-quarter
profit 38 percent to $628 million.
''They're sitting on top of the world, essentially,'' said
Scott Abernethy, an analyst with Glenmede Trust, which holds
about 1.6 million shares, said ahead of the meeting. ''They had a
great quarter and they have a great pipeline.''
Pfizer rose 3 to 114 7/16 in midmorning trading.
The company expects to spend about $2.3 billion on research
and development this year, Shedlarz said.
In the second quarter, Pfizer also agreed to sell two of its
less profitable medical-device units for a total of $2.2 billion.
Boston Scientific Corp. agreed last month to buy Pfizer's
Schneider unit for $2.1 billion. The unit makes devices used in
heart procedures, such as angioplasty where a catheter is used to
push back build-ups in arteries and create a wider space for
blood to flow.
Pfizer Wednesday said it will sell its American Medical
Systems unit for $130 million to E.M. Warburg Pincus & Co.
The company did have a setback in June when the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration failed to approve its schizophrenia drug,
Zeldox. Neither the FDA nor Pfizer has commented on the rejection
of the drug.
--Kerry Dooley in New York and Marion Gammill in the Princeton |
