A takeover by Schering Plough drove up fourth-quarter earnings for pharmaceuticals company, Merck, but with the price of 15% staff cut.
The New Jersey based drugmaker took in $6.5 billion, or 79 cents per share for the fourth quarter, as compared with $1.6 billion, or 87 cents per share in a year ago. Fourth quarter sales reached $10.1 billion, a $4 billion improvement on 2008 sales.
Merck, following the November acquisition of Schering-Plough for an approximate $41.1 billion, is the world’s largest drug maker after Pfizer. Merck’s income improved drastically from both a $7.5 billion increase linked with taking controlling interest in the Merck/Schering-Plough partnership and from the $3.2 billion sale of an animal health company in which Merck had interest.
Schering-Plough products bolstered sales, particularly the big-seller, Nasonex, as Merck’s type 2 diabetes treatments Januvia and Janumet. The latter accounted for roughly $2.6 billion in sales for 2009.
In the aftermath of the news shares of Merck shot up 77 cents, or 2.1 percent to $37.69.
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