NEW YORK - Pfizer, the world's biggest drugmaker, said Tuesday its first-quarter profits sank 87 percent from a year ago to 301 million dollars, hit by the cost of pulling the anti-inflammatory drug Bextra.
The world's biggest drugmaker said its earnings also took a one-time hit due to taxes on repatriated earnings.
The earnings excluding one-time costs amounted to 54 cents a share, a penny better than the average analyst forecast on Wall Street.
Revenues in the January-March period rose five percent to 13.1 billion dollars, better than most forecasts.
The profit for the latest quarter included a number of items, including a charge of 622 million dollars related to purchase accounting for acquisitions, 766 million in charges related to the suspension of sales of Bextra and 2.189 billion dollars in tax expenses related to repatriated earnings.
A number of companies are bringing back profits from overseas under a law allowing a one-time discounted tax rate. Pfizer will use this to repatriate 28.5 billion dollars.
"Several factors affected first-quarter results, including several unique to the quarter," said Alan Levin, chief financial officer. "Revenue growth benefited from strong performances of many major in-line medicines, as well as three additional days in our fiscal calendar compared to the first quarter of 2004."
Sales of Lipitor, the company's blockbuster cholesterol drug, showed the most growth, rising 23 percent in the quarter to 3.08 billion dollars.
Looking ahead, Pfizer forecast adjusted earnings of 1.98 dollars per share for 2005.
The company estimates the suspension of sales of Bextra will reduce adjusted and reported earnings by five cents per share in fiscal 2005.
04/19/2005 13:31 GMT