Drugmaker Pfizer Inc. beat Wall Street expectations with higher profit and revenue in the third quarter, the last before generic competition starts wiping out sales of Lipitor, the cholesterol blockbuster that has buoyed the company for years.
Pfizer said Tuesday that its third-quarter profit more than tripled, lifted by higher international revenue, the sale of a business and much lower charges compared with the year before. Pfizer also raised its earnings outlook.
The world’s biggest drugmaker said its net income was $3.74 billion, or 48 cents a share. That was boosted by a $1.32 billion gain from the August sale of its Capsugel capsule-making business.
A year earlier, Pfizer reported net income of $866 million, or 11 cents per share, depressed by $3.51 billion in charges, including restructuring costs, severence payments and asset writedowns related to Pfizer’s 2009 purchase of fellow drugmaker Wyeth and a $701 million litigation reserve.
The maker of impotence pill Viagra and smoking cessation drug Chantix said adjusted income was 62 cents per share. That excludes net charges totaling nearly $1.1 billion: $2.26 billion for writedowns of assets with reduced values, $242 million for acquisition-related costs and $891 million for restructuring and legal costs, partly offset by the gain from
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