Major pharma companies like Pfizer (PFE – Free Report) , Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (TEVA – Free Report) , Sanofi, Allergan and Novo Nordisk reported third quarter results last week.
Recap of the Week’s Most Important Stories
Why Did Teva’s Shares Plunge after Q3 Earnings? Teva’s shares plunged 19.9% following the release of third quarter results. While the company missed on earnings, revenues were in-line with expectations. However, the key reason for the stock’s poor performance was the lowered outlook with the company facing huge revenue erosion with its key branded drug, Copaxone, facing generic competition for the 40 mg formulation as well. This development alone is expected to hit 2017 earnings by 30 cents per share. Meanwhile, the Generics business continues to face headwinds with price erosion remaining a major challenge.
Key Takeaways from Pfizer’s Q3 Conference Call: Pfizer’s third quarter earnings surpassed expectations and resulted in the company raising its earnings outlook for the year. The company said that key brands including Ibrance and Eliquis globally and Xtandi, Lyrica, Xeljanz and Chantix in the United States continue to perform well.
However, the company is facing supply shortages for products from the legacy Hospira portfolio mainly due to capacity constraints and technical issues. At the time of acquiring Hospira (completed in September 2015), Pfizer had expected that it would take up to a couple of years to integrate the manufacturing plants and resolve the majority of the supply chain issues. On the third quarter call, the company said that it expects to make substantial progress in 2018 toward cutting down the sterile injectable shortages.
Regarding Inflectra, Pfizer’s biosimilar version of J&J’s Remicade, the company said that penetration in the United States continues to be slower than expected due to the exclusionary contracting of Remicade by J&J. We remind investors that Pfizer has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court against J&J related to providing patient and physician access to lower cost biosimilars.
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