Earnings Preview: Bristol-Myers 3Q Earnings Report

LINDA A. JOHNSON

NEW YORK (AP) — Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., the world's No. 15 drug maker by revenue, reports earnings for the third quarter on Thursday morning. The following is a summary of key developments and analyst opinion related to the period.

OVERVIEW: Growing competition for its top drugs threatens revenue for the maker of blood thinner Plavix, the world's second-bestselling medication, and psychiatric drug Abilify. That's before generic competition to multiple medicines starts hitting in a couple years.

Plavix has long been the standard anti-clotting treatment. It brought the company about $5.6 billion in revenue last year, and partner Sanofi-Aventis SA made about $3.7 billion more on foreign sales.

Plavix got its first real competition when Eli Lilly & Co.'s Effient got approved in July. Effient prevents more heart attacks than Plavix, but also causes more internal bleeding, so it will carry a boxed warning about that risk.

Three other blood thinners could get approved in the U.S. soon.

Research in August showed one of them, Brilinta from AstraZeneca PLC, reduced patients' chances of dying by 20 percent, compared with Plavix. Johnson & Johnson's Xarelto got a favorable review from FDA advisers in March, and Boehringer Ingelheim's Rendix already is on sale in about 40 other countries.