Sector News

Lundbeck names new CEO after first-quarter loss

May 6, 2015
Life sciences
Danish pharmaceutical company H.Lundbeck A/S said Wednesday it had appointed a new chief executive after the company swung into a net loss amid heightened uncertainty during the first quarter.
 
Lundbeck, which has been facing tough competition and a price erosion of some of its mature products, said it had named Kare Schultz as its new president and chief executive officer starting May 20.
 
Prior to joining Lundbeck, Mr. Schultz forged a long career at Lundbeck’s bigger Danish rival, the insulin maker Novo Nordisk A/S NVO, -2.32% where he rose to become the company’s chief operating officer.
 
However, Mr. Schultz resigned from Novo last month when the company’s board decided that Novo’s current CEO Lars Rebien Sorensen should remain in his position for the time being.
 
Lundbeck’s quarterly net loss for the three months through March was 81 million Danish kroner ($12.2 million), compared with a net profit of DKK331 million in the year-earlier period.
 
The net loss figure was precisely the same as the median analyst forecast in a poll carried out by financial data provider SME Direkt.
 
Lundbeck’s quarterly revenue was DKK3.56 billion, slightly down from DKK3.59 billion a year earlier and above a median forecast of DKK3.20 billion.
 
The company said that it is experiencing unusually high uncertainty as it invests in the launch and late-stage development of new products.
 
Lundbeck kept its full-year 2015 guidance unchanged. It is expecting its core revenue to be between DKK13.2 billion and DKK13.7 billion in 2015, compared with DKK13.5 billion in 2014, and its core operating profit to be at zero, down from DKK1.2 billion in 2014.
 
“The outlook reflects constant exchange rates and expectations for continued robust performance of the portfolio of strategic core products which partly offsets the continued generic erosion of mature products,” the company said.
 
By Juhana Rossi 
 
Source: Wall Street Journal via MarketWatch

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