Bristol Myers sales fall, cuts 2023 forecast as drugs face competition

By Michael Erman

(Reuters) -Bristol Myers Squibb on Thursday said its second-quarter sales fell more than expected and cut its full-year forecasts as two of its top drugs, the blood cancer treatment Revlimid and blood thinner Eliquis, face generic competition.

The company said sales of Revlimid and another blood cancer drug Pomalyst were also hurt by an increase in patients receiving them at no cost through its patient assistance foundation. It now expects 2023 revenue to fall by low-single-digit percentages, compared with its previous forecast of a 2% increase in revenue for the year.

The New York-based drugmaker does not see the increase in patients seeking free Revlimid and Pomalyst as a drag on sales next year.

"We expect this issue to be limited to this year because we are seeing that the applications for free product from our patient assistance foundation ... are returning to normal," CEO Giovanni Caforio said in an interview.

Bristol shares were off 3.2% at $61.38.

Bristol Myers is in the midst of a leadership change. Caforio is expected to step down in November and be succeeded by Chief Operating Officer Christopher Boerner.

The new CEO will be under pressure to execute on the launch of new products as Revlimid, Eliquis and cancer immunotherapy Opdivo eventually face cheaper competition.

The company also announced plans to buy back $4 billion of its shares in the third quarter.

Revenue in the quarter fell to $11.23 billion from $11.89 billion a year earlier, missing analysts' average forecast of $11.8 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

Revlimid sales of $1.47 billion in the quarter fell short of analyst expectations of $1.67 billion. The company cut its full-year sales forecast for the drug, which began facing generic competition in the United States last year, by $1 billion to around $5.5 billion.

Sales of Eliquis, which Bristol Myers shares with Pfizer , were hurt by generic competition in Canada and the UK. They came in at $3.2 billion for the quarter, down 1% from last year and $200 million below analysts' forecasts.

Opdivo sales were $2.15 billion, $150 million short of analyst estimates.

Bristol Myers said it earned $1.75 per share in the quarter, well below analyst expectations of $1.96.

It cut its 2023 earnings forecast by 60 cents to a range of $7.35 to $7.65 a share. That put even the high end far below analysts' estimates of $7.99 a share for the year.

Separately, Bristol Myers in a filing on Thursday said it had settled lawsuits against rival AstraZeneca alleging patent infringement for two of its cancer drugs.

Bristol Myers, which is sharing the settlement with Japan's Ono Pharmaceutical Co and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, will receive about $418 million in the settlement.

(Reporting by Michael Erman; Additional reporting by Leroy Leo and Bhanvi Satija; Editing by Sonali Paul, Mark Porter and Bill Berkrot)