PFIZER yesterday reported sharply lower quarterly earnings, hurt by generic forms of its Lipitor cholesterol drug, and the firm trimmed its 2012 forecasts because of negative effects of the stronger dollar.
The world’s biggest drugmaker said yesterday it had earned $1.4bn (£888m), or 19 cents per share, in the fourth quarter. That compared with $2.8bn, or 36 cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding special items, Pfizer earned 50 cents per share. Analysts on average expected 47 cents.
Pfizer said results in the latest quarter appeared so unfavourable largely because of a big tax benefit in the year-earlier period.
Revenue fell four per cent to $16.7bn, but was slightly higher than Wall Street expectations of $16.6bn.
Last year, Pfizer vowed to slash billions of dollars in costs, largely through layoffs of thousands of researchers, to weather plunging sales of Lipitor.
The pill had been the world’s top-selling drug for years, capturing annual sales of more than $13bn at its peak, but it lost US patent protection in late November.
