Mylan Laboratories reported a loss for its fiscal fourth quarter, reversing a year-ago profit, as hefty writeoffs for costs related to its acquisition of India's Matrix Labs offset strong revenue growth.
Losses for the three months ended March 31 totaled $71.3 million, or 31 cents a share, compared with last year's profit of $57.6 million, or 27 cents a share.
Excluding a loss of 31 cents a share related to writing off $147 million of in-process R&D on the Matrix deal and any contribution from the company's launch of generic blood pressure treatment amlodipine besylate in late March, adjusted profit totaled 46 cents a share in the latest period.
Total revenue increased 53% to $487.3 million from $324.5 million a year earlier, helped by the launch of oxybutynin in the company's third quarter and sales of Mylan's fentanyl transdermal system, which treats chronic pain related to joint diseases.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were looking for higher adjusted profit of 50 cents a share on revenue of $492.1 million.
There have been multiple court and regulatory decisions related to Mylan's current status as the only FDA-approved marketer of amlodipine besylate, but since that status may change, most of the revenue related to amlodipine shipped by Mylan in fiscal 2007 will be recognized in fiscal 2008.
On May 12, Mylan agreed to purchase Merck KGaA's generics business for $6.7 billion in cash. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of calendar 2007, subject to regulatory review and other closing conditions.