Bristol-Myers Results Boosted by Cancer Drugs -- Update
July 28 2016 - 12:26PM
Dow Jones News
By Jonathan D. Rockoff and Tess Stynes
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. said its second-quarter revenue rose
17% and it raised its earnings forecast for the year as the
company's bet on cancer immunotherapies continues to pay off while
other drugs show gains.
The drugmaker was the first to bring to market an immunotherapy,
which aims to fight cancer by unshackling the body's immune system.
Sales of its newest immunotherapy, Opdivo, rose to $840 million in
the quarter, up $718 million from a year earlier and accounting for
much of Bristol's revenue gains in the quarter.
Sales of hepatitis C treatments and the blood thinner Eliquis,
which Bristol sells with Pfizer Inc., also increased
substantially.
"We just finished another good quarter," Bristol CEO Giovanni
Caforio said during a conference call Thursday.
For the three-month period ended June 30, Bristol's revenue rose
to $4.87 billion from $4.16 billion a year earlier. The company
reported profit of $1.17 billion, or 69 cents a share, compared
with a year-earlier loss of $130 million, or 8 cents a share.
Analysts expected per-share profit of 67 cents.
The year-earlier period included charges of 48 cents a share
related to the company's acquisition of biotechnology company
Flexus, which provided Bristol-Myers with a pipeline of
investigational immunotherapy treatments.
Per-share earnings and revenue both beat expectations, and
Bristol now expects per-share earnings of $2.55 to $2.65 for the
year, up from its previous estimate of $2.50 to $2.60.
Opdivo and Eliquis do face stiff competition, and Bristol
executives cautioned that the company's hepatitis C sales would
probably drop as a new rival regimen from Gilead Sciences Inc.
starts getting reimbursed in Europe.
Opdivo, also known as nivolumab, was first approved for sale in
December 2014 for advanced melanoma and has since received
approvals for other diseases, most recently for classical Hodgkin
lymphoma. Sales could rise even higher, according to analysts, if
the drug's development for front-line treatment of lung cancer pans
out; Bristol could report results from a pivotal clinical trial in
the third quarter.
Sales of Yervoy, Bristol's first skin-cancer immunotherapy drug,
declined again in the latest quarter, falling 19% to $241 million
globally. Opdivo's growth likely cannibalized Yervoy's sales and
contributed to the drop, analysts said. In the U.S., Yervoy sales
increased 32% to $179 million thanks to the drug's use in
combination with Opdivo.
Eliquis sales grew 78% to $777 million, and sales of hepatitis C
drugs increased 14% to $546 million.
Write to Jonathan D. Rockoff at Jonathan.Rockoff@wsj.com and
Tess Stynes at tess.stynes@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 28, 2016 13:11 ET (17:11 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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