Cephalon Beats Profit Targets

Cephalon (CEPH) beat its own and Wall Street's targets for the second quarter and increased guidance for full-year 2008 after the market close Tuesday.

Shares of the Frazer, Pa.-based biotech company were down 1% at $71.50 in recent after-hours trading.

The company said Tuesday that it earned $60.1 million, or 89 cents a share, vs. a loss of $4.3 million, or 6 cents a share, a year prior.

On an adjusted basis, the company reported profit of $84.5 million, or $1.25 a share, vs. $1.14 a share a year prior. Sales increased to $485 million, from $453.2 million a year prior.

Cephalon had previously guided to an earnings range of between $1.10 and $1.20 a share on sales of between $455 million and $465 million. Results surpassed the company's view and the expectations of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, who were looking for earnings of $1.07 a share on revenue of $469.8 million.

Central nervous system (CNS) sales rose 9% to $251 million and pain franchise sales rose 3% to $134 million. Meanwhile, oncology franchise sales climbed 86% year over year due to sales of Treanda, which launched in April, and European sales of Myocet.

Last week, Cephalon entered a patent infringement suit with Barr Pharmaceuticals (BRL) after Barr filed for Food and Drug Administration approval of a generic version of Cephalon's pain drug Fentora. Fentora generated roughly $135 million in sales in 2007.

Looking ahead, Cephalon reaffirmed expectations for adjusted EPS of between $5.10 and $5.20 for 2008, but raised its revenue guidance to a range between $1.86 billion and $1.91 billion. Earlier in the year, the company raised sales guidance to $1.83 billion and $1.88 billion from a previous range of $1.8 billion to $1.85 billion.