Lundbeck has posted flat revenues and a 28% decline in earnings for the fourth quarter as US generic competition continued to ravage sales of the antidepressant Lexapro.
Sales came in at 3.85 billion kroner (about $698 million), while net income was 146 million kroner. The antidepressant Cipralex (escitalopram) rose 5% to 1.50 billion kroner, while revenues from Lexapro, the US version of the product sold by Forest Laboratories, sank 98%% to just 10 million kroner.
The Alzheimer’s disease drug Ebixa (memantine) was up 4% to 677 million kroner, while sales of Azilect (rasagiline) for Parkinson’s disease increased 6% to 326 million kroner. As for Lundbeck’s newer products, Xenazine (tetrabenazine) for the treatment of chorea associated with Huntington’s disease posted sales of 322 million kroner, up 33%, while epilepsy drug Sabril (vigabatrin) brought in 78 million kroner (+1%).
Lundbeck also noted that the antipsychotic Sycrest/Saphris (asenapine) generated revenues of around 33 million kroner, while Onfi (clobazam) for the treatment of Lennox Gastaut-syndrome, which was launched in the USA in January 2012, “has been well received by physicians”. Fourth-quarter revenues of the drug reached 80 million kroner.
Chief executive Ulf Wiinberg said that going into 2013, Lundbeck plans to launch three new products – its next-generation antidepressant Brintellix (vortioxetine), its once-monthly version of Abilify (aripiprazole) for schizophrenia and the alcohol dependence treatment Selincro (nalmefene).
