Biogen Misses Q1 Estimates, Shares Slide

Shares of

dropped over 4 percent in pre-market trading after the company reported weaker-than-expected earnings for the first quarter on Friday. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company reported a quarterly profit of $822.5 million, or $3.49 per share, versus a year-ago profit of $480 million, or $2.02 per share. Excluding items, Biogen earned $3.82 per share. Its revenue surged 20 percent to $2.55 billion. However, analysts were expecting a profit of $3.91 per share on revenue of $2.66 billion. Tecfidera sales gained 63 percent to $824.9 million in the quarter, while revenue from Tysabri climbed to $462.6 million versus $441 million. ELOCTATE revenue came in at $54 million during the quarter, while ALPROLIX revenue came in at $43 million. The average estimate among 29 Estimize users was for earnings of $4.07 per share and revenue of $2.7 billion. "In the first quarter, we continued to gain share in the MS market and we believe that our MS product portfolio is well positioned to provide patients the breadth of choices that they need," said Chief Executive Officer George A. Scangos, Ph.D. "While we saw moderating patient growth of our oral MS therapy TECFIDERA in the U.S. and Germany, the launch of PLEGRIDY continued to go well, and we have seen continued strong performance from TYSABRI. We believe that our portfolio offers patients leading choices among oral, interferon, and high-efficacy therapies, and we look forward to continued growth in our global market share." Biogen shares fell 4.48 percent to $411.01 in pre-market trading.