Amgen third-quarter sales rise 5%, profit up before charge

By Deena Beasley

(Reuters) -Amgen, which earlier this month acquired Horizon Therapeutics for $27.8 billion, said on Tuesday its third-quarter product sales rose 5% as double-digit volume growth was offset by lower prices.

Amgen said it would discuss sales of Horizon's drugs on a conference call with analysts and investors, but raised its post-acquisition forecast for full-year sales to between $28 billion and $28.4 billion from a previous estimate of $26.6 billion to $27.4 billion.

The California-based biotech also raised the low end of its forecast range for 2023 adjusted earnings and now expects $18.20 to $18.80 per share, from $17.80 to $18.80 earlier.

Wall Street analysts, on average, have forecast 2023 earnings of $18.47 per share on revenue of $28 billion, according to LSEG data.

Horizon "is a great rare disease business ... We're confident now that we've officially closed and joined forces," Amgen Chief Financial Officer Peter Griffith said in a phone interview.

The deal closed after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission backed down from its contention that Amgen would be able to leverage its big selling drugs to pressure insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers to favor Horizon's products.

The Horizon portfolio of drugs generated $945 million in sales, with $453 million coming from thyroid eye disease treatment Tepezza while gout drug Krystexxa garnered $253 million, Vikram Karnani, an executive who joined Amgen from Horizon, said during an investor conference call.

Excluding a $650 million charge for discontinuing experimental prostate cancer drug AMG340, Amgen said quarterly profit per share rose 6% to $4.96, which was higher than the average analyst estimate of $4.67. Including the charge, net income per share fell 19% to $3.22.

Shares of Amgen were down 4% in early trading.

Total revenue for the quarter rose 4% to $6.9 billion.

Analysts had expected adjusted earnings per share of $4.67 on revenue of $7 billion.

Quarterly sales of cholesterol drug Repatha rose 31% from a year earlier to $406 million, while sales of osteoporosis drug Prolia rose 14% to $986 million.

Sales of Amjevita, Amgen's new biosimilar version of AbbVie's blockbuster arthritis drug Humira, rose 30% to $152 million, but sales of cancer drug Lumakras fell 31% to $52 million and sales of arthritis drug Enbrel fell 6% to $1.1 billion.

Amgen said it expects to announce findings from an early-stage trial of experimental obesity drug AMG786 in the first half of next year, and to have results from a mid-stage trial of a different obesity candidate, AMG133, by late next year.

The global market for weight-loss drugs is forecast to reach as much as $100 billion annually within the decade.

(Reporting By Deena Beasley and Leroy Leo in BengaluruEditing by Bill Berkrot)