UPDATE: Schering-Plough 3Q Earnings Down 16% On Charges

Schering-Plough Corp.'s (SGP) third-quarter profit fell 16% on increased charges, while unfavorable currency-exchange rates contributed to slight drop in sales.

Sales of the cholesterol drugs Schering jointly markets with merger partner Merck & Co. (MRK), continued to be under pressure, stemming from clinical studies released last year that raised questions about the safety and effectiveness of Vytorin and Zetia.

Meanwhile, Schering is set to be taken over by Merck by year's end in a deal announced in March. Merck is buying Schering to bolster its pipeline, a move sparked by continuing generic competition, pricing pressure and difficulty in bringing new drugs to market. European antitrust regulators are tentatively due to make a decision on the merger this week.

Schering Chief Executive Fred Hassan said third-quarter results were strong when stripping out charges, and reflected the company's geographic-expansion strategy of recent years. Schering gets a big portion of its revenue from outside the U.S.

Schering-Plough's earnings dropped to $515 million, or 29 cents a share, from $614 million, or 35 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding acquisition-related charges and other items, earnings rose to 40 cents from 39 cents, matching the mean estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Net sales fell 1.7% to $4.5 billion, reflecting a 6-percentage-point hit from currency changes, but coming in above the Thomson estimate.

The cholesterol drugs posted a combined sales decline of 5% to $1.1 billion, with three percentage points of that coming from negative currency trends. Sales slid 10% in the U.S. Neither Merck nor Schering record sales from the venture, but instead results are reflected elsewhere in the companies' income statements.

Among Schering-Plough's non-cholesterol treatments, sales of arthritis drug Remicade rose 8% to $608 million, while allergy treatment Nasonex saw a 3% increase. Cancer drug Temodar grew 2%.

Schering's animal-health product sales declined 12% to $669 million, with Schering citing a difficult economic environment and other factors. Consumer-health sales were roughly flat with a year earlier at $282 million.

Schering-Plough shares closed Wednesday at $29.01 and didn't trade premarket. The stock is up 70% this year, reflecting the Merck deal.

Merck is scheduled to report its results later Thursday.

-Peter Loftus; Dow Jones Newswires; 215-656-8289; [e-mail]

(Mike Barris and Kevin Kingsbury contributed to this article.)