Teva's Second Quarter Earnings, Sales Rise On Strong Drug Sales

   By Sten Stovall 
   DOW JONES NEWSWIRES 
 

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA), the world's largest generics drug maker, Wednesday reported higher quarterly earnings that beat analyst forecasts, helped by robust sales of its Parkinson's disease pill Azilect and multiple sclerosis therapy Copaxone.

For the quarter to end-June, Teva's non-GAAP net income was $984 million, up from $981 million a year earlier, giving earnings on a non-GAAP basis of $1.10 per share compared with $1.08 a year earlier. Wall Street analysts had forecast earnings of $1.08 a share for the latest quarter.

Net sales rose 11% in the quarter, to $4.2 billion. Turnover in North America fell 15% while that in Europe surged 82% during the quarter.

Teva Chief Executive Shlomo Yanai said "contributions from across our company enabled us to offset the challenges we faced in our U.S. generics business. We anticipate increased growth in U.S. generics, as well as continued growth across all our geographies and businesses, in the second half of the year."

Teva said it will pay a quarterly dividend of 23.5 cents on Aug. 18.

Teva is in the process of closing its acquisition of Cephalon Inc. (CEPH) for $6.8 billion. The deal is expected to complete in the third quarter, pending regulatory review.

In May, Teva backed its full-year adjusted earnings projection of $4.90 to $5.20 a share on sales of $18.5 billion to $19 billion. The company's guidance doesn't include the Cephalon acquisition.

At the time, it also reiterated a 2012 projection from last year that called for per-share earnings of $5.30 to $5.86 on revenue of $21 billion to $23.2 billion.

As the year progresses, Teva expects new products to help drive growth, including generic versions of Eli Lilly & Co.'s (LLY) antipsychotic Zyprexa and Sanofi-Aventis SA's (SNY, SAN.FR) allergy drug Nasacort AQ.

-By Sten Stovall, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail] (Tom Gryta in New York contributed to this article.)