Lipitor loss continues to hit Pfizer sales
pharmafile | July 31, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Enbrel, Lipitor, Pfizer, Prevnar, Q2
Pfizer has posted a loss in revenue for the second quarter as the firm continues to feel the impact of losing Lipitor’s exclusivity.
The company reported sales of $15.1 billion, down 9% on last year’s results. This comes as its statin Lipitor went off patent in the US in November and began to lose market exclusivity in Europe from May.
The drug was making $13 billion a year at its peak, but sales were more than halved (53%) compared to last year, down to $1.2 billion for the quarter.
But despite its problems, net income rose 25% to $3.3 billion as the firm continued to cut costs across its businesses.
The firm had a strong showing from a number of established products, including its pain drug Lyrica, which saw sales grow by 14% to $1 billion.
Arthritis drug Enbrel and pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar 13 also did well, growing by 8% and 12 % respectively, and are both now nudging near the $1 billion mark for the quarter.
Geographically its biggest growth driver came from emerging markets, which saw revenues grow 14% operationally.
This was primarily due to volume growth in China and Russia as a result of more targeted promotional efforts for key products, including Lipitor, Norvasc and Lyrica, the firm said.
Animal health spin-off
Pfizer said it was also looking to sell as much as 20% of its animal-health unit in an initial public offering in mid-August.
This spin-off is part of chief executive Ian Read’s plan to focus his company’s future on producing prescription drugs – which are much higher growth drivers than animal units and its nutrition business – to help replace Lipitor’s revenue.
This comes after the firm sold its nutrition business to Nestlé earlier this year for just under $12 billion.
Read said: “We delivered solid results this quarter. This performance was achieved despite the $1.8 billion, or 11%, negative impact on revenues of product losses of exclusivity compared with the year-ago period, primarily Lipitor in most major markets.
“Overall, I am confident that Pfizer is well-positioned for long-term success given the potential of our innovative late-stage and emerging pipeline, strong operating cash flow, streamlined organisation and disciplined approach to capital allocation.”
Frank D’Amelio, the firm’s chief financial, said he was reaffirming Pfizer’s 2012 financial guidance.
This, he said, reflected its “solid performance year-to-date, our continued confidence in the business, our financial flexibility and the significant cost savings generated by our cost-reduction and productivity initiatives”.
He added that the firm expects to repurchase around $5 billion of its common stock this year, with $3 billion repurchased through 30 July.
Ben Adams
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