Submitted by Mark Hanna
Courtesy of MarketMontage. View original post here.
As I’ve said over the past 2 weeks, this is a very different earnings season than the last. Companies that were missing last quarter were being bid up – here we have names that are doing great, but being sold off. Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN) is an example. The company beat EPS estimates by 7 cents, beat the top line estimate, and raised guidance (however, only to where analysts already were)… but after a morning gap up is being sold hard. That is very bad action. It is never the news, but the reaction to the news.
- Alexion Pharmaceuticals’ first-quarter net income climbed 69 percent, fueled by sales gains from the drug developer’s only approved product, the rare blood disorder treatment Soliris. The Cheshire, Conn., company earned $45.4 million, or 23 cents per share, in the three months that ended March 31. That compares to earnings of $26.8 million, or 14 cents per share, in last year’s first quarter. Adjusted earnings were 45 cents per share.
- Revenue, which consists of Soliris sales, rose 47 percent to $244.7 million.
- Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected, on average, earnings of 39 cents per share on $241.2 million in revenue.
- Soliris treats paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, or PNH, which causes a breakdown of red blood cells and leads to anemia. The drug also was approved in late 2011 as a treatment for a second condition, atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome, which often leads to kidney failure and death.
- The drugmaker said the revenue growth reflected the addition of new patients with PNH in the company’s core territories of the United States, Western Europe and Japan and other countries.
- Alexion’s operating expenses climbed 37 percent to $146.4 million in the quarter. That included $12.4 million in costs tied to its acquisition of Enobia Pharma Corp. and an increase in research and development expenses. Enobia is developing a treatment for hypophosphatasia, a metabolic disease that can cause skeletal deformity, severe muscle weakness, and progressive damage to vital organs.
- Alexion now expects adjusted earnings to range between $1.65 and $1.75 per share, up from previous guidance of $1.60 to $1.70 per share. It also raised its revenue guidance to a range of about $1.07 billion to $1.09 billion from $1.04 billion to $1.07 billion.
- Analysts expect earnings of $1.75 per share on $1.08 billion in revenue.
[Mar 26, 2012: Barron’s with Nice Smash and Grab on Alexion Pharmaceuticals]
[Feb 12, 2012: Alexion Pharmaceuticals – One Drug is Enough When it Costs This Much]
Disclosure Notice
Any securities mentioned on this page are not held by the author in his personal portfolio. Securities mentioned may or may not be held by the author in the mutual fund he manages, the Paladin Long Short Fund (PALFX). For a list of the aforementioned fund’s holdings at the end of the prior quarter, visit the Paladin Funds website at http://www.paladinfunds.com/holdings/blog
