That was partly offset by climbing sales of Merck’s newest medicines and its top vaccines. Wall Street analysts were expecting the company to earn $0.91 per share on revenue of $10.36 billion. Fourth- quarter revenue fell 2.5 percent to $10.2 billion, while full- year sales dropped 6.5 percent to $39.5 billion.
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CIT shares have declined 25 percent since the beginning of the year. (MRK – Get Report) stock is down by 1.57% to $49.61 in pre-market trading on Wednesday, after the health care company reported its 2015 fourth quarter earnings results.
Sales quadrupled to $214 million for Keytruda, a new cancer drug.
Competition in Europe from biosimilars – near-copies of biologic drugs, which are “manufactured” in living cells, rather than by mixing chemicals – slashed sales of immune disorder drug Remicade by 29 percent, to $396 million.
Revenue totaled $10.2 billion, below the $10.45 billion analysts expected.
For FY16, Merck guided EPS to be in the $3.60-3.75 range, which missed the consensus expectation of $3.72 at the range’s midpoint.
During this quarter, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Zepatier (elbasvir and grazoprevir), a once-daily, fixed-dose combination tablet for the treatment of adult patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotypes 1 or 4 infection, with or without ribavirin.
“We will continue to invest resources to launch and grow our strongest brands, support the most promising internal assets, enhance our pipeline with the best available external science and maintain a balanced and differentiated portfolio with the goal of delivering long-term growth and shareholder value”, Merck Chairman and CEO Kenneth Frazier said.
For the year, the company reported profit of $1.06 billion, or $5.67 per share.
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Earnings per share were 93 cents, up from the 87 cents Merck reported for the Oct.-Dec. quarter in 2014.
