Merck image

Merck’s Q1 sales drop

pharmafile | April 30, 2014 | News story | Sales and Marketing AstraZeneca, Merck, Pfizer, Q1, merger, quarter, sales 

Merck & Co has released a mixed set of results for the first quarter of 2014, with drug revenue falling but profit increasing overall and the effects of cost-cutting visible.

Overall sales fell 4% year-on-year to $10.3 billion, with pharma sales dropping 5% to $8.5 billion as a result of patent expiries and foreign exchange effects.

However, group net profit rose from $1.59 billion to $1.7 billion as savings from its plans to cut 8,500 jobs – announced last year – start to filter through. The company aims to reduce expenses by $2.5 billion by the end of 2015, pleasing concerned analysts who suggested Merck needs to tighten its belt.

“Investing in the best opportunities for growth while being disciplined in managing our costs enabled us to deliver bottom-line performance,” says Kenneth Frazier, Merck’s chairman and chief executive.

But in a conference call he insists that Merck is not interested in mega-deals such as Pfizer’s $100 billion proposal for AstraZeneca.

“A major consolidation of the industry-type transaction is not our preferred strategy,” he says, adding that Merck will look mostly at smaller deals, Bloomberg reports.

In Q1, loss of exclusivity on several drugs including Singulair is beginning to hit the company, with sales of the asthma treatment down 20% to $271 million in the first three months of the year.

However, there were bright spots: combined sales of diabetes treatments Januvia and Janumet grew 3% to $1.3 billion, with higher sales in Europe, the US and emerging markets partly offset by declines in Japan.

And anti-inflammatories Remicade and Simponi grew 16% to $760 million in the first quarter, with HIV drug Isentress up 8% to $390 million.

By contrast, anti-cholesterol medicines Zetia and Vytorin fell 5% year-on-year to $972 million in Q1, due to lower demand in the US market.

Some news that could well affect Merck’s future figures is that British consumer goods giant Reckitt Benckiser confirmed on Monday it was in talks to buy Merck’s MRK.N consumer health business, the latest asset seemingly up for grabs in a surge of recent pharma deals.

Adam Hill

Related Content

EC approves Pfizer’s Emblaveo for multidrug-resistant infection treatment

Pfizer has announced that the European Commission (EC) has granted marketing authorisation for Emblaveo (aztreonam-avibactam) …

TILT Biotherapeutics shares data on TILT-123 with Keytruda for ovarian cancer treatment

TILT Biotherapeutics has announced promising preliminary safety and efficacy data from its ongoing phase 1 …

AstraZeneca shares results for Imfinzi in phase 3 trial for small cell lung cancer

AstraZeneca has announced positive high-level results from the phase 3 ADRIATIC trial, which demonstrated that …

Latest content