Teva Pharmaceutical (TEVA 0.16%), one of the world's largest generic drug producers, reported its third-quarter results before the opening bell this morning just one day after its CEO, Jeremy Levin, announced he was stepping down from his role as CEO.
For the quarter, Teva delivered sales growth of 1.7% to $5.06 billion, helped primarily by generic and branded pharmaceutical growth in the United States, while producing a profit of $1.27 per share, down marginally from the $1.28 EPS reported in the year prior. Comparatively, Wall Street expected revenue of just $5 billion in sales and EPS of $1.26.
This quarter was really all about the U.S. in the positives column, and foreign-exchange rates in the negative.
Within the U.S., Teva grew its generic business by 6%, aided by the recent launch of generic versions of cholesterol drug Niaspan and brain tumor treatment Temodar. Its specialty brands segment (i.e., its branded drug segment) produced 3% growth, aided primarily by a price increase for Copaxone, the best selling multiple sclerosis drug in the world. Copaxone brought in $1.05 billion in worldwide revenue, up 1% from the prior year, and was responsible for nearly 21% of Teva's revenue this quarter.
On the flip side, Teva struggled in its rest of the world (ROW) market segment excluding Europe. Currency conversion, most notably from the Japanese Yen, produced a minus 8% effect on ROW revenue, which accounts for 18% of Teva's total sales. The company also pointed towards weaker sales of Copaxone in Russia when explaining the subpar results in this segment.
Sales in Europe were also affected negatively by fluctuating currencies, but to a lesser degree -- minus 4%. What weakness was visible in European generic operations, which saw sales decline by 1% (excluding currency effects), was more than made up for by 12% sales growth (excluding currency effects) in its specialty brands business.
Looking ahead, Teva tightened both its revenue and EPS projections from prior forecasts to a range of $19.7 billion to $20.3 billion in sales and $4.95-$5.05 in EPS.
