Stronger sales of nearly all its medicines and a multibillion-dollar, one-time gain brought drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. — Wallingford’s leading private employer — a huge jump in fourth-quarter profit, the company said Thursday.
The maker of blockbuster blood thinner Plavix said its net income in the October-December quarter was $8.03 billion, or $4.06 per share. In December Bristol-Myers sold off its interest in infant formula maker Mead Johnson for a gain of $7.2 billion, or $3.62 per share.
The sale was the last step in a strategy to transform Bristol-Myers into a pure biopharmaceutical company. Bristol now has about $9.9 billion available for deals or other uses.
Bristol-Myers had 1,150 full-time employees as of last July at its Wallingford research and development center, according to the town’s economic development office.
In the fourth quarter, the company’s sales totaled $5.03 billion, up 11 percent from $4.54 billion in 2008’s fourth quarter, boosted by about 4 percentage points by favorable currency exchange rates. Sales were led by double-digit jumps in sales for Plavix and HIV treatments Reyataz and Sustiva. Only cancer drug Erbitux, which Bristol-Myers markets jointly with Eli Lilly & Co., saw a dip in sales.
That’s partly because Bristol’s medicines are all for serious, even life-threatening conditions, so patients aren’t likely to cut back on them even in a recession.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had been expecting adjusted earnings per share of 41 cents, or 6 cents less, on sales of $4.99 billion.
Bristol-Myers said it expects earnings per share in 2010 to range from $1.94 to $2.04. That’s based on revenue growing in the mid-single digits and excludes the impact of any U.S. health care overhaul.
Last August, Bristol-Myers spent $2.1 billion to buy biotech company Medarex for its antibody technology, used to make biologic drugs that can fight cancer or immunologic disorders, a deal praised by some analysts as visionary.
For the full year, Bristol reported net income of $10.61 billion, or $5.34 per share, on revenue of $18.81 billion. In 2008, the company posted net income of $5.25 billion, or $2.62 per share, on revenue of $17.72 billion.
In morning trading, shares of Bristol-Myers rose 4 cents to $24.34. (AP)
