Higher Costs Hurt Amgen’s Quarter

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Amgen Inc. reported a worse-than-expected 16 percent decline in fourth-quarter net income, as higher costs of marketing and production offset sales growth gains for many of its drugs.

After the Wednesday markets closed, the Thousand Oaks biotech reported net income of $788 million ($1.01 a share), compared with $934 million ($1.08) in the same period a year earlier.

Excluding one-time items, net income would have been $1.40 a share, 2 cents higher than the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Revenue rose 11 percent to $4.42 billion, better than the Wall Street consensus of $4.37 billion. The best performer was Enbrel, which treats immune system disorders and saw sales jump 23 percent $1.16 billion.

Infection fighters Neulasta and Neupogen had a combined $1.31 billion in sales, down 1 percent. In the company’s struggling anemia franchise, Aranesp sales fell 9 percent to $489 million, while its older drug Epogen was down 1 percent to $479 million.

For the full year, Amgen’s net income rose 18 percent to $4.35 billion ($5.52), with revenue up 11 percent to nearly $17.3 billion. For the current year, the company expects net income of $6.85 to $7.15 a share, with revenue between $17.8 billion to $18.2 billion. That’s better than the Wall Street average forecast of net income $7 a share on revenue of $17.7 billion.

“We enter 2013 with good momentum, a broad late-stage pipeline and a continued focus on building our business internationally,” Chief Executive Robert Bradway said in a statement.

Shares earlier closed down 22 cents, or less than 1 percent, to $83.07 on the Nasdaq.

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