Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said Wednesday fourth-quarter net income nearly tripled from a year ago to 767 million dollars, boosted by the acquisition of rival drugmaker Wyeth.
Pfizer, the maker of blockbuster cholesterol treatment Lipitor and Viagra for erectile dysfunction, said the results pushed its yearly profit for 2009 up seven percent to 8.6 billion dollars.
Revenues for the world's biggest drugmaker rose 16 percent in the October-December period to 16.5 billion dollars, and for the year were up four percent to 50 billion dollars.
"During the fourth quarter, we closed the Wyeth acquisition and immediately began the integration of our operations, advancing the transformation of the company," Pfizer chairman and chief executive Jeff Kindler said in a statement.
"We are pleased with the rapid pace of the integration and our ability to quickly realize the benefits of our combined organization. We remain excited about our more diverse in-line product and pipeline portfolio, which we expect will result in improved opportunities for the company in 2010 and beyond."
The fourth quarter results amounted to a profit of 49 cents a share excluding special items, a penny below Wall Street forecasts. Revenues meanwhile were better than expected.
The jump in profits in the quarter also reflected the prior year's charges due to litigation over its pain medications Bextra and Celebrex, and from cost cutting. Another factor was the divestment of biotech unit Vicuron required under the Wyeth tie-up.
The company's 2010 outlook was below forecasts calling for per-share profit in a range of 2.10 to 2.20 dollars instead of 2.27 dollars expected. But its revenue outlook was better than anticipated, a range of 67 to 69 billion dollars.
