Sales of Cancer Drugs Help Boost Genentech’s 3rd-Quarter Profit

Genentech Inc., the pioneer biotechnology company, said Wednesday that its third-quarter profit rose 27%, led by higher sales of its two cancer drugs, Herceptin and Rituxan.

Genentech said profit from operations rose to $85 million, or 31 cents a share, from $66.9 million, or 26 cents a share in the year-ago quarter. The results met the average estimate of analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial.

Revenue rose 29% to $445.2 million. Sales of Herceptin, a treatment for breast cancer, rose 52% to $72.6 million. Some analysts had expected a bigger increase.

Sales of Rituxan, a treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma that Genentech developed and markets with Idec Pharmaceuticals Corp., climbed 62% to $117.9 million.

Combined sales of the company’s two clot-busting drugs, Activase and TNKase, fell to $50.7 million from $59.2 million for Activase alone in the year-ago quarter. That decline resulted from increased competition and a shrinking market for the product, the company said.

In the third quarter, Genentech took charges relating to Roche Holding’s redemption of Genentech shares, resulting in net income of $4.5 million or 2 cents a share. In the year-ago quarter, the company recorded a net loss of $62.8 million or 25 cents a share.

Shares of the South San Francisco-based Genentech fell $4.31 to close at $149 on the New York Stock Exchange.