Teva Pharmaceutical (TEVA) lagged Wall Street's third-quarter earnings forecast, but Teva stock rallied early Thursday after the company boosted its full-year outlook.
XOn the stock market today, Teva stock jumped 4.6%, to 8.47. By market cap, Teva is the second-biggest generic pharmaceutical company, trailing only Mylan (MYL).
During the second quarter, Teva earned 58 cents a share, on an adjusted basis, on $4.26 billion in sales. Teva earnings slipped nearly 15% year over year and lagged the estimate of analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research by 2 pennies. Sales fell 6% but beat forecasts for $4.24 billion.
The pharma giant also raised the lower end of its full-year sales and earnings outlook.
"Despite the (earnings per share) miss, management appears to be executing as planned to close out the year, and as such we believe the stock could be up slightly on today's results," SVB Leerink analyst Ami Fadia said in a report to clients.
Teva Stock Rises On Guidance
The top-line beat stemmed from better-than-expected U.S. sales of Copaxone. The multiple sclerosis drug generated $271 million. That fell 41% year over year, but beat views by $47 million, Fadia said. Worldwide, Copaxone sales slipped 34% to $397 million.
But Copaxone's performance was offset by U.S. generic drug sales, which lagged by $47 million, Fadia said. In the U.S., sales of generic products slid 1% to $914 million. Globally, generic drugs brought in $2.22 billion in sales, down nearly 2%.
Notably, sales of Teva's new migraine drug also lagged by $6 million. Ajovy — which competes against drugs from Eli Lilly and Amgen/Novartis — generated $25 million in U.S. sales.
For the year, Teva raised the low end of its sales outlook by $200 million. The pharma company now sees $17.2 billion to $17.4 billion in full-year sales. Teva expects to earn $2.30-$2.50 a share. That's up 5 cents at the midpoint from its prior forecast. Analysts called for $2.38 a share.
Teva Announces Biosimilar, New CFO
Teva also announced its biosimilar copy of Roche's (RHHBY) cancer drug, Rituxan, is now available in the U.S. That could help fourth quarter sales, Evercore ISI analyst Umer Raffat said in a report. He noted the copycat version of the drug, dubbed Truxima, will cost 10% less than the original.
Further, the pharmaceutical company announced Eli Kalif will become executive vice president and chief financial officer on Dec. 22. In August, CFO Michael McClellan said he would step down after the third quarter for personal reasons.
Follow Allison Gatlin on Twitter at @IBD_AGatlin.
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