Orion benefits from Pharmacia payment

Finland's Orion Group has posted a 2.5% rise in nine-month 2001 netsales to 720.0 million euros ($646.7 million), while pretax profits (before extraordinary items) increased 5.3% to 105.9 million euros.

Turnover at Orion Pharma rose 8.9% to 367.1 million euros and operating profits improved significantly, due to the receipt of a 33.8 million euro upfront payment from Pharmacia in connection with the licensing and development of Orion's investigational new drug deramciclane in the USA. Deramciclane is a 5-HT2 receptor antagonist currently in Phase III development (Marketletter September 3).

Orion's sales of the Parkinson's disease drug Comtess (entacapone), which is also marketed by Novartis, were up 4.3% to 41 million euros, and the company noted that its heart-failure treatment Simdax (levosimendan) is performing well, having just been launched in Finland, Norway, Iceland, Austria and Portugal.