(Reuters) – Amgen Inc said on Tuesday second-quarter revenue rose 6% as higher sales of newer drugs, including recently added psoriasis treatment Otezla, offset declining sales of older medicines which were due in some cases to people staying home to avoid exposure to the new coronavirus.
The results were largely in line with Wall Street estimates, and the company’s shares fell nearly 2% in extended trading.
Amgen said sales of drugs such as osteoporosis treatment Prolia fell as people, especially older women who use the physician-administered drug, put off going to the doctor due to the pandemic.
“Stringent stay-at-home orders resulted not just in social distancing, but in medical distancing,” Amgen commercial operations chief Murdo Gordon said on a conference call.
But he added that sales of Prolia and other drugs picked up in the latter half of the quarter, in part because the company worked closely with healthcare providers to identify alternative sites for patients to receive their injections.
For the full year, Amgen narrowed its outlook for adjusted earnings per share to between $10.73 and $11.43 from its previous range of $10.65 to $11.45. The company said it still expects full-year revenue of $25 billion to $25.6 billion.
The current pandemic “creates significant uncertainty,” Chief Financial Officer Peter Griffith said.
Total revenue for the quarter of $6.2 billion was in line with the average Wall Street estimate as compiled by Refinitiv.
Otezla, acquired from Celgene Corp in November, had sales of $561 million for the quarter, beating analyst expectations of $540 million.
Adjusted earnings, helped by lower expenses, rose 4% to $2.52 billion, or $4.25 per share, beating the average estimate of $3.84 per share.
Amgen’s “performance was solid during the quarter,” Edward Jones analyst Ashtyn Evans said in an emailed statement, adding that investor focus is now shifting to the company’s drug development pipeline.
Amgen expects key clinical data in the second half of this year from trials of experimental drugs, including tezepelumab in patients with severe asthma, omecamtiv mecarbil in heart failure patients and sotorasib for lung cancer.
Amgen shares fell 1.7% after hours to $251 from their Nasdaq close at $255.27.
(Reporting by Deena Beasley in Los Angeles; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Matthew Lewis)
