Pfizer’s ongoing restructuring results in $337 million 4Q loss

Adjusted earnings of $3.11 billion fell short of analysts’ expectations.

Pfizer’s ongoing restructuring is significantly reducing revenue, resulting in a $337 million loss in its fourth quarter and a slight miss of Wall Street’s profit expectations.

The biggest U.S. drugmaker, which is divesting lower-profit segments to focus on its more lucrative new prescription drugs business, on Tuesday reported a net loss of 6 cents per share. That was mainly due to shifting its consumer health business into a joint venture last year.

In the year-earlier quarter, Pfizer lost $394 million, or 7 cents per share.

Adjusted earnings of $3.11 billion, or 55 cents per share, fell short of the 58 cents a share expected by analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Revenue totaled $12.69 billion in the October-December quarter. That topped the $12.61 billion that analysts were expecting, but was 9% lower than a year earlier. Sales in emerging markets like China and India jumped 14% to $3.24 billion.

Pfizer Biopharma, its innovative prescription drug business, posted quarterly revenue of $10.53 billion, led by Prevnar 13, Eliquis, rheumatoid arthritis pill Xeljanz and breast cancer pill Ibrance.

Its Upjohn business, which sells off-patent drugs such as Lipitor and Viagra, had revenue of $2.16 billion.

In early trading, Pfizer shares fell $1.30, or 3.2%, to $38.86

The New York-based company has been steadily working through a major slim down to focus on developing new drugs.

Last July, Pfizer moved its huge stable of nonprescription medicines — including pain reliever Advil and Centrum vitamins — into a new joint venture with partner GlaxoSmithKline. Pfizer owns 32% of the JV, which brought Pfizer a profit of $129 million in the quarter. Meanwhile, Pfizer plans to combine its Upjohn business with generic drugmaker Mylan by mid-summer to create a new drugmaker called Viatris.

Pfizer noted it has three recently approved biosimilar drugs, near-copies of pricey biologic drugs “manufactured” in living cells, that have just launched or will by mid-February. Those are versions of three widely used cancer drugs, Herceptin, Avastin and Rituxan.

The biosimilars are being sold for nearly 25% less than the list price of the now off-patent brandname versions as Pfizer aims to be a top seller of these injected medicines.

For all of 2019, Pfizer reported net income of $16.27 billion, or $2.87 per share. Revenue totaled $51.75 billion, down 4% from 2018’s revenue. It spent $8 billion on shareholder dividends and $8.9 billion on share repurchases during the year.