Merck dipped into the red as 2010 ended
pharmafile | February 4, 2011 | News story | Sales and Marketing | 2010 pharma results, Merck & Co
Merck & Co made a $531 million loss in the final quarter of 2010 – down from a profit of $6.5 billion the year before.
The slide was largely due to $3.9 billion of restructuring costs following the $41 billion acquisition of Schering-Plough in 2009.
But Merck also booked a $1.7 billion charge related to the halting of its trial for pipeline drug vorapaxar last month.
The anticoagulant was seen as one of the company’s brightest prospects, with analysts predicting annual sales over $3 billion.
It is aimed at preventing a second heart attack or stroke in people who had already suffered one, but results suggest it in fact raises the risk of strokes because of excess bleeding.
Merck has also released its figures for the full year of 2010, with the company making a profit of $861 million on worldwide sales of $46 billion.
Among its star performers was the Januvia/Janumet diabetes franchise, with sales of $962 million in Q4 2010 (up 27% year on year), and $3.3 billion for the whole of last year (up 29%).
Sales of asthma treatment Singulair were $1.3 billion for quarter and $5 billion for the year, both rises of 7% year on year.
But the company has ditched its previously announced long-term profit forecast due to financial pressure on a number of fronts.
Merck had suggested that it would offer annual profit growth between 2009 and 2013 in high single digits.
But it says “greater EU austerity measures and the additional impact of US health care reform”, as well as its travails with vorapaxar, have now made this untenable.
Merck chief executive Kenneth Frazier said research spending over this year would be $8.1 to $8.5 billion.
Adam Hill
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