ICN Pharma earnings take a downturn

ICN Pharmaceuticals has posted second-quarter 2001 revenues of $206million, up 7% on the like, year-earlier period, while net income fell 32.3% to $21.3 million or $0.26 per share (-31.6%). Operating income decreased 10.4% to $43 million, and ICN noted that the decline in earnings was due to significantly-higher R&D costs and taxes, as well as a slowing royalty stream from Rebetol (ribavirin), ICN's hepatitis C treatment sold by Schering-Plough in combination with its own Intron A (interferon alfa-2b) as Rebetron.

Royalties from S-P's sales of Rebetron fell to $31 million from $43 million for the second quarter of 2000, which ICN said was a result of doctors who normally prescribe the drug waiting for S-P's Peg-Intron (peginterferon alfa-2b) to get regulatory approval in the USA. However, just preceeding the announcement of the results on August 2, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Rebetol as an individual therapy (Marketletter August 6), which led ICN's chief executive, Milan Panic, to predict that royalties will pick up in the second half of the year.

In geographic terms, North American second-quarter revenes were up 64% to $44 million, while operating income in the region also enjoyed a 64% rise to $19 million, helped by sales of Mestinon (pyridostigmine bromide), a treatment for myasthenia gravis. The latter also sold well in western Europe, where turnover rose 15% to $50 million, and ICN also noted strong sales for its generic form of the antiulcerant omeprazole, sold as Nuclosina. The company additionally benefitted from the performance of the Swiss drugmaker Solco, which it acquired last year (Marketletter July 17, 2000).