The combined cocktail of numbers drove down the company's shares in London nearly 8 percent. The company's U.S. shares fell 7.61 percent -- dropping $3.49, to $42.39 -- in New York.
The performance could be summed up by a single drug: Avandia.
Sales of the diabetes drug, the company's second-biggest seller, slid 55 percent in the fourth quarter. The decline sliced $1 billion from sales, capping a swoon that began with a May 2007 analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine suggesting that the pill could cause more heart attacks.
"We took a big hit with Avandia," chief executive officer Jean-Pierre Garnier said.
Still, Chris Viehbacher, who heads U.S. pharmaceuticals for the company, said he hoped to resurrect Avandia. "It needs some period of quiet where the physician and patient can talk about what's best medically," he said by cell phone from England, where the company is based. Philadelphia is one of the firm's two U.S. headquarters.
A competitor's drug, Actos, has gained somewhat from Avandia's fall, suggesting to Viehbacher that physicians have not lost confidence in the class.
"The other thing it tells me, they don't believe Actos is better," he said. "Physicians will need another medicine."
Net profit declined to 1.06 billion pounds ($2.1 billion) in the quarter, compared with 1.18 billion pounds a year earlier. Analysts had predicted about 1.12 billion pounds ($2.2 billion).
Revenue was virtually flat at 5.97 billion pounds ($11.63 billion), compared with 5.96 billion pounds a year earlier.
Full-year net profit slipped 3 percent to 5.21 billion pounds ($10.13 billion) from 5.39 billion pounds, while revenue declined 2 percent to 22.71 billion pounds ($44.16 billion) from 23.23 billion pounds.
Garnier, who steps down in May, left more questions unanswered on the fate of a potential blockbuster, Cervarix, the firm's human papilloma virus vaccine candidate.
The Food and Drug Administration has delayed approving Cervarix even though a competing vaccine, Merck & Co. Inc.'s Gardasil, has been selling in the United States for more than a year and has been racking up hundreds of millions of dollars in sales worldwide.
Garnier declined to say whether the vaccine's adjuvant, a compound that boosts effectiveness, was an issue. He said the company would answer the FDA's concerns by the second quarter and expected the agency's approval "sometime in the future."
"There's not a lot of benefit to us to say what the questions are," Viehbacher said.
The vaccine is available in 53 countries, but the United States remains the biggest potential market. Viehbacher said the vaccine could be available in the United States by the end of 2008.
Garnier sought to buff up the company's new-drug pipeline, saying it had produced seven launches last year and expected an additional 18 during the next two years.
At the same time, five medicines will lose patent protection this year: Lamictal for epilepsy, the antidepressants Wellbutrin XL and Paxil CR, the migraine pill Imitrex, and the original Requip for restless-legs syndrome.
Andrew Witty, who will take over as chief executive in May, also spoke to reporters yesterday, downplaying his appearance by saying: "I'm not going to present my plan for the future."
But, he said, with all the negatives the company is facing, "everybody wants innovative medicine. The system needs new breakthroughs."
Contact staff writer Karl Stark at 215-854-5363 or kstark@phillynews.com.
This article includes information from Inquirer wire services.
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