Allergan’s Income Rises; Shares Fall on Forecast

Allergan Inc. on Monday reported fourth-quarter net income of $112.5 million on higher sales of eye-care drugs and the company’s anti-wrinkle drug, Botox.

However, shares of Allergan sank after the company forecast that 2005 earnings would come in lower than expected.

For the fourth quarter, the Irvine company reported profit of 85 cents a share, contrasted with a loss of $90.8 million, or 70 cents, a year earlier.

Excluding charges, earnings came to $114.9 million, or 86 cents a share.

Sales rose 16% to $556.2 million from $479.4 million.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call expected fourth-quarter earnings of 84 cents a share on sales of $528.2 million.

Allergan forecast that net income for the first quarter would rise to 66 cents to 67 cents. The company earned 61 cents a year earlier. Pharmaceutical sales will be $490 million to $505 million. For 2005, pharmaceutical sales will be as much as $2.1 billion, with as much as $840 million of that coming from Botox, the company said.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call estimated Allergan would post a first-quarter profit of 75 cents a share and 2005 earnings of $3.23 a share, on average.

“My feeling is it’s going to come down to Allergan’s pipeline,” said Timothy Chiang, an analyst at New York-based Natexis Bleichroeder Inc. “There’s a number of products that could get approved this year ... [and] none of these products has the same kind of potential as a Botox.”

For all of 2004, Allergan had net income of $377.1 million, or $2.82 a share. Sales came to $2.05 billion.

Allergan restated some prior periods to reflect a new accounting standard.

For 2003, earnings per share decreased by 1 cent to $2.30. For the first nine months of 2004, they fell 2 cents.

It also boosted its quarterly dividend by 1 cent to 10 cents.

On Monday, shares of Allergan fell $4.63, or 5.9%, to $73.52 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock has dropped 15% in the last year.

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Bloomberg News and Dow Jones/Associated Press were used in compiling this report.