New products do well, but sales and profit down at Lundbeck

In what was clearly a difficult period for Danish CNS specialist Lundbeck (LUND: CO) due to patient expiries, the company reported a downturn in both sales and earnings for the third-quarter and first nine months of 2014, despite a strong showing from news products. The company’s shares fell 3.8% to 120.90 Danish kroner by mid-morning trading.

Third quarter net profit was 5 million Danish kroner ($840,000), down sharply from a net profit of 267 million kroner in the same period last year. Operating profit fell to 94 million kroner from 511 million kroner, compared with a Reuters poll predicting a loss 161 million kroner. Sales in the third quarter fell 10.4% to 3.19 billion kroner, mainly due to generic competition for Ebixa (memantine) and Cipralex (escitalopram) in Europe, but beating Reuters poll of 3.14 billion kroner for revenues.

For the nine-month period, core revenue fell 6% to 10.22 billion kroner, with core earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) slumping 34% to 1.46 billion kroner and core earnings per share down 47% at 4.27 kroner.