Acquired R&D cost impairs Mylan's 4th qtr

In fourth-quarter 2007, US drugmaker Mylan reported a loss from operations of $1.27 billion, because of a $1.27 billion one-time charge to write-off acquired in-process R&D. Excluding these amounts, the US drugmaker said earnings from operations would have been $118.5 million, a decrease of $65.1 million from the prior year. Total revenues increased 188% to $1.16 billion, with $793.5 million contributed through acquisitions.

Income from Mylan's generics segment were derived from sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, North America and the Asia-Pacific region. Revenues from North America were $416.3 million vs $401.8 million. $54.4 million was realized in North America as a result of the acquisition of Merck Generics, which it bought last year for 4.9 billion euros ($6.7 billion; Marketletter May 21, 2007).

Robert Coury, Mylan's chief executed, said: "the strength of this first quarter as a consolidated company showcases Merck Generics' contribution to our growth. The strong performance of Merck Generics bolstered the solid nine-month results of the legacy Mylan operations. Further, these strong results were achieved while tremendous progress was made, both on the integration and on achieving our targeted synergies. Looking forward, we will continue to execute on our strategies and leverage the additional opportunities and benefits that we see from the global platform created by the combination of Mylan, Merck Generics and Matrix," the Indian generics company that Mylan purchased two years ago, (Marketletter September 4, 2006).