DuPont acquisition lifts B-MS earnings
Bristol-Myers Squibb increased its sales for the full year 2001 by 7% to US$19.4bn (€22.1bn), including sales from the acquisition of the DuPont Pharmaceuticals business. Without this contribution, sales would still have risen by 5% to $19.1bn (€21.7bn). Pre-tax earnings from continuing operations increased 11% to $6.4bn (€7.3bn) from $5.8bn (€6.6bn) in 2000 on a stand-alone basis. Net earnings increased 10% to $4.7bn (€5.4bn), compared with $4.3bn (€4.9bn) in 2000.
Chairman and ceo Peter R. Dolan said 2001 was a critical year of transformation for the company as it moved aggressively to focus more on pharmaceuticals. 'We invested in a promising pipeline of new pharmaceutical products, including a number of first- or possibly best-in-class compounds with blockbuster potential that we expect to submit for filing by the end of 2002.
'In addition, we laid important groundwork to achieve greater growth over the long-term. These measures will contribute to our accelerated growth in 2003 and beyond, when we expect to launch at least three blockbuster potential products a year for the next several years.'
Worldwide sales of cholesterol-lowering agent Pravachol, the company's largest selling product, increased 20% to $2.2bn (€2.5bn), while the entire Glucophage (metformin) franchise continued its strong growth, with sales increasing 42% to $2.7bn (€3.1bn).
Sales of Plavix, a platelet aggregation inhibitor, increased by 50% to $1.4bn (€1.6bn), while sales of Avapro, an angiotensin II receptor blocker for the treatment of hypertension, increased 34% to $510m (€581m). Sales of Taxol (paclitaxel), the company's leading anti-cancer agent, fell by 25% to $1.2bn (€1.4bn), with an 8% rise in international sales, particularly in Japan, being offset by a 45% decline in domestic sales as a result of generic competition.
In November, B-MS and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. announced that an NDA was submitted to the FDA for Aripiprazole, an investigational novel drug for the treatment of schizophrenia, followed by a filing of a Marketing Authorisation Application (MAA) with the European Medicines Evaluation Agency the next month. Also in December an NDA was submitted to the FDA for Vanlev, a novel vasopeptidase inhibitor for the treatment of hypertension.
In the same month, the FDA refused to file the application that was submitted by ImClone Systems in October for approval of Erbitux (formerly known as IMC-225) for the treatment of irinotecan refractory colorectal cancer. B-MS has since proposed steps to restructure fundamentally the company's relationship with ImClone Systems, specifically concerning certain economic, financial and other terms of the agreement. These include changes to ImClone senior management effective until FDA approval of Erbitux, and expanded rights for the company to ImClone's intellectual property related to Erbitux.
Dolan said: 'If these conditions are accepted, B-MS will take the lead in the FDA approval process and other clinical and regulatory matters related to Erbitux. We are taking this action because we believe Erbitux has great potential to treat cancer patients, and we want to move the process forward as quickly as possible.'