For the risen sales and fallen tax expenses, profit of Amgen Inc easily beat the expectations with surpassing fourth-quarter results announced on Tuesday.
Thousand Oaks, California-based Amgen, for its older medicines, has been facing the growing competition which led to lower than Wall Street estimates forecast regarding 2019 earnings.
For the fourth quarter, revenue of Amgen came rising by 7 percent to $6.23 billion which surpassed the average analyst estimate of $5.84 billion with a clear margin.
Aimovig is new class of migraine drug by Amgen, which is designed to prevent the migraine headaches rather treating it, which made it first to the market among that class and during the fourth quarter sales of that drug totaled $95 million which came up almost double to the analyst forecasted sales amount of $50 million for the new drug.
Demand for medicines like cholesterol fighter Repatha, osteoporosis treatment Prolia and cancer drug Kyprolis also drove the fourth quarter sales of Amgen higher.
Excluding items, the world’s largest biotechnology company Amgen reported adjusted quarterly earnings of $3.42 per share which topped the analysts’ average expectations of $3.27 per share by 15 cents.
For the full-year of 2019, company has projected adjusted earnings of $13.10 to $14.30 per share while Wall Street analysts’ average forecast was $14.61. Revenue has been forecasted between $21.8 billion and $22.9 billion by the company for full-year against Wall Street’s $22.9 billion.
For an increasing focus on the issue of prescription drug affordability in the United States and growing competition against its legacy products like Enbrel for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and Sensipar, a kidney drug,; Amgen has been facing the headwinds, told Chief Financial Officer David Meline, during a conference call.
For 2019 outlook, Amgen has been assuming its global net sales prices to be dropped by 4 percent to 6 percent, which saw decline of 1 percent in 2018, Meline added.
