Forest Labs posts third-quarter loss, hit by Lexapro sales slump

US drugmaker Forest Laboratories (NYE: FRX) saw its shares fall 5.6% to $35.39 in pre-market trading yesterday, when the company reported a third-quarter 2012/13 loss of $153.6 million, or $0.58 a share, on net income of $278.4 million, or $1.04 a share, in the year-ago period. The company's adjusted loss in the latest quarter totaled $0.21 a share. Net revenue fell to $722.7 million from $1.21 billion. Wall Street analysts expected Forest Labs to lose $0.11 a share, according to a survey by FactSet. Consensus analysts’ estimates for turnover were $764 million.

Sales were hit by the patent expiry last March of Forest’s lead product, the antidepressant Lexapro (escitalopram oxalate), which fell to $20.3 million compared with $593.0 million in the year-ago period.

Alzheimer’s treatment Namenda (memantine HCl) recorded sales of $345.8 million during the quarter, an increase of 1.6% from last year’s fiscal third quarter. Namenda sales were negatively impacted by higher contract rebates, largely driven by the Medicare Part D Coverage Gap liability, which peak in the fiscal third quarter and are expected to return to normal levels in the fiscal fourth quarter.