SYNTEX PROFITS HIT BY RESTRUCTURING

Restructuring charges of $140 million, largely due to a further reduction in the company's workforce, have resulted in a downturn for Syntex Corp's third-quarter (ending April 30) earnings. Before the charges, operating income shows a 25% rise to $158.8 million for the quarter.

Third-quarter sales rose 12% to $584.3 million, while net income declined 68% to $40.8 million. Earnings per share were 18 cents, compared with 56 cents for the like, year-earlier quarter. US human-use pharmaceutical sales improved 17% to $371 million and overseas sales rose 6% to $141.2 million. The good sales growth was attributed to increased volume in several human pharmaceutical product lines, according to company chairman and chief executive Paul Freiman, who added that "our expense controls have also really begun to take hold."

Worldwide sales of the antiarthritics Naprosyn (naproxen) and Anaprox (naproxen sodium) increased 5% to $261.6 million, with USA sales of these products up 5%. Mr Freiman noted that the company believes that in the third quarter wholesale customers began rebuilding inventories of these two products in the USA in excess of apparent market demand. Sales of Toradol (ketorolac tromethamine) rose 59% to $95 million, and sales of Ticlid (ticlopidine) reached $12.1 million for the quarter. Cytovene (ganciclovir) sales worldwide leapt 52% to $23.2 million.