NEW YORK (AP) - Eli Lilly & Co. reported a jump in second-quarter sales along with upbeat guidance, pushing shares higher in early trading.
The company also said it will spin off its Elanco Animal Health unit into a separate publicly traded company.
The drugmaker swung to a loss of $259.9 million, or 25 cents per share, during the quarter on charges related to the acquisition of Armo BioSciences and Aurka Pharma. Both companies focus on cancer treatment development.
Earnings adjusted for those costs were $1.50 per share, topping Wall Street expectations of $1.31 per share.
Revenue rose 9 percent to $6.36 billion, beating forecasts of $6.09 billion.
The Indianapolis-based company is spinning off the animal health unit and investing in new drug development as it faces patent expirations on some key drugs that could cut into sales. Its key seller, erectile dysfunction drug Cialis, will soon face generic competition.
Sales of Cialis fell 14 percent, to $538.7 million during the quarter. The decline was offset by a 13 percent jump to $769.8 million for sales of the insulin Humalog.
Other key sales gains included a 62 percent boost to $779.8 million for sales of the diabetes drug Trulicity.
Looking ahead, Lilly expects full-year earnings in the range of $5.40 to $5.50 per share, with revenue in the range of $24 billion to $24.5 billion. Analysts had forecast profit of about $5.15 per share on revenue of $23.94 billion.
Shares rose $4.75, or 5.4 percent, to $93.61 in premarket trading.
Lilly shares have climbed 5 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has climbed 5 percent. The stock has climbed 5 percent in the last 12 months.
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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on LLY at https://www.zacks.com/ap/LLY
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