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January 29, 2013

Pfizer Q4 net jumps on sale of nutrition business

New York drug maker Pfizer Inc., which has Groton research operations, said its fourth-quarter profits more than quadrupled, despite competition from generic drugs hurting sales of Lipitor and other medicines, because of a $4.8 billion gain from selling its nutrition business, The Associated Press reports.

The world's biggest drugmaker said Tuesday that its net income was $6.32 billion, or 85 cents per share, up from $1.44 billion, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding the windfall from selling its nutrition business to Nestle SA for $11.5 billion on Nov. 30, and a total of $888 million for restructuring, legal and other one-time items, the Viagra maker would have had a profit of $3.51 billion, or 47 cents per share. That's 3 cents more than analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting.

Revenue fell 7 percent to $15.1 billion, mainly due to generic competition to cholesterol blockbuster Lipitor. Analysts expected $14.35 billion.

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