Lundbeck has posted a 10% rise in revenues for the third quarter, though net income fell 43% as a result of write-offs related to R&D restructuring.
Sales came in at 3.98 billion kroner (about $733 million), while net income fell to 352 million kroner. However, that includes a 341 million kroner write-off which also had the effect of pushing up R&D costs 44% to 1.10 billion kroner. Around 150 employees have been made redundant in connection with the restructuring.
Lundbeck’s flagship antidepressant Cipralex (escitalopram) climbed 5% to 1.46 billion kroner, while the US version of the product – sold by Forest Laboratories as Lexapro – fell 12% to 498 million kroner. The Alzheimer’s disease drug Ebixa (memantine) increased 18% to 707 million kroner, while sales of Azilect (rasagiline) for Parkinson’s disease rose 20% to 301 million kroner.
Lundbeck’s newer products also made gains. Xenazine (tetrabenazine) for the treatment of chorea associated with Huntington’s disease posted sales of 193 million kroner, up 12%, while epilepsy drug Sabril (vigabatrin) brought in 77 million kroner, an increase of 47%.
In terms of pipeline, Lundbeck said it expects to file nalmefene for alcohol dependence in Europe before year-end. Also “several initiatives to speed up the recruitment process” of Phase III trials for desmoteplase mean that the ischaemic stroke treatment may now be filled in the first half of 2014.
The severe epilepsy drug Onfi (clobazam) was approved in the USA last month and will be made available in January. As for Sycrest (asenapine), the Merck & Co antipsychotic that Lundbeck is selling outside the USA, China and Japan, it has been launched in Denmark and Germany and will hit other major European markets during the next six months.
For the full year, Lundbeck is sticking by its forecasts of 15.3-15.8 billion kroner for revenues and 2.3-2.6 billion kroner for net income. Chief executive Ulf Wiinberg said “we are now entering a new era with many new products”, thanks to the launch of Lexapro in Japan, plus the roll-out of Sycrest and Onfi.
