BIG PHARMA EARNINGS WATCH: AMGEN, ABBVIE & BRISTOL-MYERS SQUIBB

Brand Name Drug Companies Complete Sweep of Big Pharma Giants Who Beat Wall Street Expectations After Price Hikes In January

In a final round of first quarter earnings reports, three more Big Pharma giants announced they surpassed earnings expectations after hiking prices on American patients. Amgen, AbbVie and Bristol-Myers Squibb all reported sky-high profits after hiking prices on American patients earlier this year.

Last week, brand name drug company Amgen announced it had topped Wall Street expectations on its earnings in the first quarter.

• The company topped sales expectations by raking in $6.2 billion in the first quarter.
• Amgen also beat expectations, reporting earnings per share of $4.17 for Q1, better than the estimate of $3.7.
• Top-selling autoimmune drug Enbrel accounted for an eye-popping $1.5 billion in sales.

• AbbVie reported first quarter revenues of $8.619 billion, beating Wall Street expectations.
• Sales totaled $8.62 billion compared to $7.63 billion a year ago.
• Net revenues of cancer treatment Imbruvica rose more than 20 percent, while sales on AbbVie’s blockbuster drug Humira reached $4.7 billion.

• The brand name company’s revenue for the quarter nearly doubled to $10.8 billion.
• Sales of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis rose 37 percent from a year ago to $2.6 billion – beating analysts’ expectations.
• Bristol-Myers Squibb has surpassed estimates three times over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates three times.

• Already this year, the company has hiked prices five times – including on popular drug Prolia – by an average of five percent.
• In 2019, Amgen hiked the price of its blockbuster osteoporosis drug Prolia and heart medication Corlanor.
• Price hikes on the company’s cancer drug Neulasta were not supported by new clinical evidence and accounted for an unnecessary increase in U.S. drug spending of nearly $500 million from 2017-2018 according to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER).

• AbbVie kicked off the new year with more than 50 price hikes in January.
• AbbVie yet again increased the price on the world’s best-selling drug, Humira, increasing the drug’s price by 7.4 percent.
• Humira’s price has almost doubled since 2012, from about $19,000 to $38,000.Bristol-Myers Squibb
• Bristol-Myers Squibb started off the new year by hiking prices on at least ten medications, including two key cancer drugs, Opdivo and Revlimid, as well as, on blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis.
• Bristol-Myers Squibb acquired Revlimid in a $74 billion deal with Celgene in November. On the day the deal was announced, Celgene boosted the price of Revlimid to $719.82. The drug cost $247.28 in 2007.
• This was business as usual for Bristol-Myers Squibb. From 2015 to 2019 the company had the most price hikes per drug of any Big Pharma company.

Amgen, AbbVie and Bristol-Myers Squibb join a slew of Big Pharma giants who have reported expectation-besting earnings for the first quarter of 2020 after hiking prices on American patients – AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, Eli Lilly, Roche and Johnson & Johnson.