Pfizer weathers patent expiry storm
pharmafile | February 1, 2012 | News story | |
Pfizer has managed to keep its head above water in its full year results, but faces a tough 2012 without Lipitor.
The company’s total revenue for 2011 was up by 1% to $67.43 billion, due primarily to favourable exchange rates and growth in emerging markets.
A number of one-off costs meant profits for the fourth-quarter 2011 fell 50% to $1.4 billion, and reported diluted earnings per share also fell to $0.19, a decline of 47 per cent.
But full-year 2011 profits hit $10 billion, up 21% compared with the previous year, and reported diluted EPS was $1.27, an increase of 25 per cent.
Revenues were hit in November and December when blockbuster statin Lipitor went off-patent in the US, opening up its $10 billion annual revenues to generic competition.
Sales slipped by a massive 42% in the US to just $816 million for the fourth quarter, despite an aggressive sales policy to hold on to revenue from the drug.
Full year sales for the drug fell 11% to $9.58 billion, and will slide further this year as Lipitor begins to lose its patents across Europe, and US generic competition increases.
Pfizer’s chief executive Ian Read said: “Overall, 2011 was a year of setting new direction and focus for Pfizer.
“I am pleased with our 2011 financial performance, which was achieved in the face of a challenging global market and product losses of exclusivity of approximately $5 billion.”
Read added that Pfizer was ‘finalising the strategic decisions’ for its animal health and nutrition businesses this year, which it is looking to sell.
The animal health unit grew by 13% to $1.11 billion, and sales from the infant nutrition unit rose 22% to $598 million.
Read said he expects the sale of these businesses to occur between July 2012 and July 2013.
The firm also reduced its R&D costs by 3% for the full year to $9.1 billion, moving towards a target of a $7 billion annual budget by 2013.
One of the ways it is making cuts is by axeing its main European R&D centre in Sandwich, Kent, with the loss of around 1,500 jobs.
New treatments
The company has been cheered by a handful of notable new approvals – FDA lung cancer drug Xalkori in August and just last week, its kidney cancer treatment Inlyta.
Anticoagulant Eliquis is currently being reviewed by the FDA for its first US approval, the prevention of stroke in high-risk heart patients. The decision is expected in March, and analysts believe Eliquis could make peak annual sales of between $2 – $4 billion.
Collectively Pfizer’s crop of new drugs could generate a maximum of $5.2 billion in peak annual sales, still a long way off the $13 billion in peak sales Lipitor managed on its own.
Ben Adams
