Schering-Plough Profits More Than Double in Second Quarter

Schering-Plough’s net income more than doubled to $517 million in the second quarter of 2007, compared with $237 million in the second quarter of last year, thanks in part to strong cholesterol product performance. Net sales rose 13 percent to $3.2 billion.

Schering-Plough’s net income for the second quarter includes one-time charges of $106 million — $60 million from an upfront licensing payment and $46 million due to the planned acquisition of Organon BioSciences.

Schering-Plough’s net sales would have been even higher if an assumed 50 percent of global net sales from a cholesterol joint venture with Merck had been included; however, they cannot, under generally accepted accounting principles. Including those figures for the second quarter of 2007, Schering-Plough’s adjusted net sales would have totaled $3.8 billion, up 15 percent compared with $3.3 billion on a similar adjusted basis for the second quarter of 2006.

Seven of Schering-Plough’s 10 best-selling products, including the cholesterol drugs Vytorin (ezetimibe/simvastatin) and Zetia (ezetimibe), posted double-digit sales growth for the quarter. “Even with the recent arrival of multisource U.S. generic competition, our cholesterol franchise continues to be dynamic,” Chairman and CEO Fred Hassan said. “In fact, Vytorin and Zetia are the only major cholesterol-lowering brands to have grown U.S. market share in 2007.”