France's Ipsen sees strong 3rd quarter and nine month 2009 performance

French biopharmaceutical company Ipsen reported a 5.8% rise in sales in the first nine months of 2009, at 777.5 million euros ($1.17 billion), with turnover growth of 7.8% to 256.4 million euros in the third quarter.

Commenting on the performance, Jean-Luc Belingard, chairman and chief executive, said: 'Ipsen's first nine months performance continued to show good growth across all specialist care products in all regions. One year after the closing of our US acquisitions, all the building blocks are now in place to ensure long-term growth, through the successful launches of Somatuline Depot, Increlex, Dysport and Apokyn. T

For the third quarter of 2009, drug sales grew by 8.4% to 248.9 million euros year-on-year or 9.4% excluding foreign exchange impacts driven by dynamic specialty care growth up 15.1% year-on-year or 16.7% at constant currency. This performance is related to the continued solid growth of the endocrinology and neurology franchises up 30.3% and 22.5%, respectively, the company said.