Depakote’s decline depresses Abbott
pharmafile | July 16, 2009 | News story | Sales and Marketing |Â Â AbbottÂ
A rapid drop in sales for epilepsy drug Depakote cast a shadow over second quarter results from Abbott Laboratories.
While sales at the group were up 2.5% to $7.5 billion as a whole, pharma sales were down 4.3% to $3.9bn with the US market falling 5.6% to $1.9bn.
Shares fell on the back of the announcement, where the main problems were generic competition for Depakote and a strong dollar.
Depakote was expected to drop after it went off-patent last year, but sales of the brand fell a sobering $306 million to $102 million – a 75% decline – in the three months to June.
A strong dollar also had a negative effect on the manufacturer's overseas performance – an unfavourable 8% effect on global sales, it said.
Earnings overall fell 2.6%, and the US drug maker earned $1.29bn (83 cents per share) compared with $1.32bn (85 cents per share) year on year.
Nevertheless the company achieved its performance goals for the quarter, with Abbott chief executive Miles White saying the results were at the high end of our previous expectations.
The company stands by its earnings-per-share guidance for the full-year 2009 of $3.65 to $3.70.
And it was not all gloom: sales of rheumatoid arthritis treatment Humira were up 20% to $1.31bn – $635m of it in the US.
The drug is the company's biggest seller and brought in $4.5 billion last year. It has several indications in phase III development, including ulcerative colitis and paediatric Crohn's disease.
When it came to other drug brands, the picture was mixed, however.
For example, global sales of cancer therapy Lupron rose 28% $197m in Q2 but those of HIV treatment Kaletra fell 3.5% to $343m.
In the pipeline, Abbott said its collaboration with Genentech/Roche to develop two oncology compounds it has discovered "continues to progress".
It says a pivotal study for multi-targeted kinase inhibitor ABT-869 will begin later this year.
And ABT-874, Abbott's anti-IL 12/23 biologic, is in phase III for psoriasis with a regulatory submission expected next year.
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