TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Amgen Inc. shares jumped in extended trading after the maker of osteoporosis drug Prolia easily beat Wall Street’s second-quarter profit expectations and hiked its 2015 financial forecast.
Amgen, based in Thousand Oaks, California, said Thursday that net income rose to $1.65 billion, or $2.15 per share, due to higher revenue and restrained spending.
Excluding one-time charges, adjusted income was $1.98 billion, or $2.57 per share. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were, on average, expecting earnings of $2.43 per share.
Total revenue climbed 3.7 percent to $5.37 billion, edging past the $5.32 billion analysts expected.
A year ago the company earned $1.55 billion, or $2.01 per share, on revenue of $5.18 billion.
Sales of the biotech drugmaker’s newest medicines— Prolia, related drug XGeva for preventing bone damage from tumors and Kyprolis for multiple myeloma — all rose by more than 10 percent.
Kyprolis, approved in the U.S., awaits European approval, while Repatha, an expensive biologic drug for lowering cholesterol in patients not helped enough by statin pills such as Lipitor, was approved in Europe this month and could win U.S. Approval in late August.
Sales of biologic rheumatoid arthritis drug Enbrel, long a company mainstay, rose 8 percent mainly due to price hikes, to a total of $1.35 billion.
Together, Enbrel and the new medicines offset declines in sales of older Amgen medicines for anemia in chemotherapy and kidney dialysis patients and for preventing infections in chemotherapy patients.
One of those drugs, infection fighter Neupogen, is the first and only drug in the U.S. for which a biosimilar version has been approved. Biosimilars are like generics but aren’t identical to the original medicine because the drugs are produced in living cells rather than by mixing chemicals like pills.
Neupogen sales already have been falling steadily since a similar drug, Granix from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., was approved late in 2013. Now Zarxio, made by Novartis AG, is to go on sale Sept. 2 at a somewhat lower price. That should further reduce Neupogen sales, which fell 14 percent to $256 million in the second quarter. Still, that’s less than a quarter of the $1.16 billion posted by Neulasta, which is favored because it needs to be injected far less frequently.
Amgen hiked its 2015 adjusted earnings per share forecast to $9.55 to $9.80, up from $9.35 to $9.65. It also nudged up its revenue forecast, to a range of $21.1 billion to $21.4 billion from between $20.9 billion and $21.3 billion. Analysts expect earnings per share of $9.62 on revenue of $21.13 billion, on average.
In after-hours trading, Amgen shares rose $3.31, or 1.9 percent, to $175.00.
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Follow Linda A. Johnson at www.twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma
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