Mylan Q1 profit increases

Mylan has reported a major increase in first-quarter profit, due mainly to robust sales in North America.

The generic drugmaker said profits rose 71 per cent to $104.2m, or 23 cents per share, for the quarter ended March 31, up from $61.1m, or 20 cents per share, a year ago. Excluding charges, the company earned 44 cents per share.

Revenue spiked 12 per cent to $1.45bn, with $1.34bn of that total attributable to generic drug sales. Speciality drug revenue came in at $97m, an increase of about 17 per cent over the same period last year. Speciality revenues were driven in large part by double-digit growth from the company's EpiPen Auto-Injector. 

"We are very pleased with our performance for the first three months of 2011, which was in line with our expectations," Mylan CEO Robert Coury said during a conference call with analysts and the media. 

Coury noted that the company's Board of Directors has authorised a share repurchase of up to $350m in Mylan stock equity. "The decision to execute this buyback at this time reflects our disciplined effort to maintain a constant share count, especially in light of the recent appreciation of our share price," he said. 

John Sheehan, Mylan's chief financial officer, said during the call that the company expects its second-quarter top- and bottom-line results to be very similar to the first quarter "before seeing an acceleration in EPS during the second half of 2011."

Mylan released its earnings directly on the heels of the news that the company had lost a court case in its battle to get a generic version of Pfizer's blockbuster cholesterol drug Lipitor onto the US market. 

The federal judge in the case dismissed the suit, in which Mylan had aimed to force the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to act on its competitor Ranbaxy's generic Lipitor marketing application as a first step in moving an application of its own toward approval. The judge ruled that companies may not sue the FDA over pending applications filed by competitors. 

"Even though we did not incorporate any financial benefit from generic Lipitor in our 2011 guidance, we are disappointed in the court's ruling in granting the FDA's motion to dismiss our complaint," Coury said during the conference call. "We fully intend to evaluate all available options to help facilitate a timely consumer access to generic versions of Lipitor."