Drugmaker Merck & Co. swung to a fourth-quarter profit because of lower acquisition and restructuring charges and slightly higher sales.
The company forecast little improvement this year, when its top-selling drug, the allergy and asthma drug Singulair, is set to face competition from cheaper generic versions.
The maker of the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil and allergy drug Claritin said Thursday that net income was $1.51 billion, or 49 cents per share. A year earlier, Merck lost $531 million, or 17 cents a share.
Adjusted income was $2.98 billion, or 97 cents a share, up from $2.76 billion, or 88 cents a share. The earnings topped expectations for 95 cents per share, according to FactSet.
Revenue rose 1.6 percent $12.29 billion, short of expectations for $12.52 billion.
The company, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., forecast 2012 earnings per share of $3.75 to $3.85, excluding charges. Analysts expect $3.83. Including charges, Merck expects earnings per share of $2.04 to $2.30. The company said it expects revenue at or near 2011's total, whic was just over $48 billion.
Total pharmaceutical revenue was up 3 percent to $10.76 billion, led by double-digit sales growth for diabetes pills Januvia and Janumet, HIV drug Isentress and cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil. Sales rose 8 percent to $1.46 billion for Singulair, which gets generic competition in August.
Generic competition hurt sales of several prior blockbusters, including osteoporosis pill Fosamax. Meanwhile, recently approved hepatitis C drug Victrelis appeared to be off to a modest start, with revenue of $87 million in its third full quarter on the market.
Merck took charges of $1.48 billion for acquisition-related costs and $692 million for restructuring. Both are related to its ongoing integration of fellow New Jersey drugmaker Schering Plough Corp., which it bought in November 2009 for $49 billion. That deal gave Merck Schering's biotech, consumer health and veterinary medicine businesses, plus a stronger pipeline of experimental drugs. The combined company has been shedding jobs and closing some factories to reduce costs.
Merck posted much lower revenue from biologic immune disorder drug Remicade, which was down 28 percent at $511 million. That's because of a new, less-favorable revenue sharing agreement with Johnson & Johnson that followed arbitration after Merck bought Schering Plough, which had marketed the blockbuster drug jointly with J&J.
Sales of veterinary medicines rose 6 percent to $868 million. Sales of consumer health products such as nonprescription Claritin fell 5 percent to $361 million.
"We are positioning Merck to perform well by advancing and growing our innovative pipeline, meeting the evolving needs of customers around the world and achieving a more efficient operating model," CEO Kenneth Frazier, who took over a year ago, said in a statement. "We are optimistic about our underlying business, our current momentum and the early success of our strategy."
For the full year, Merck posted net income of $6.27 billion, or $2.02 per share, up from $861 million, or 28 cents a share. Revenue totaled $48.05 billion, up 4 percent from $45.99 billion in 2010.
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Linda A. Johnson can be followed at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma
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