Aliso Viejo-based drug maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International reported higher fourth-quarter income and upped its profit outlook for 2009 on Tuesday.
Valeant, which makes antiviral, skin and neurology drugs, said adjusted fourth-quarter profits were $43.2 million, up 72% from a year earlier and besting the $23.3 million analysts had been expecting on average.
The higher profits came even as Valeant’s sales declined 3% to $183 million and missed the $185.2 million analysts were looking for.
Chief Executive J. Michael Pearson has spurred profits by selling off global units, cutting jobs and acquiring companies in his past year.
Investors, who are looking for Valeant’s cost cutting to give way to growth, were muted in driving a 2% gain in the company’s shares at the close of trading.
Valeant has a market value of about $1.6 billion.
For 2009, Valeant said it now forecasts profits of $112 million to $133 million, well above the $76 million analysts had been expecting.
“We continue to see the impact of our cost reduction efforts,” Pearson said.
The company didn’t offer a revenue forecast.
Wall Street now is looking to Pearson to spur growth after restructuring that spurred a runup last year. Valeant ended 2008 up 90%, the best showing of any major Orange County stock last year.
For growth, Pearson told the Business Journal in December he’s looking to expand the businesses Valeant already is in. Last year, he made several deals to boost the company’s skin drug business.
In December, Valeant paid $285 million for Dow Pharmaceutical Industries Inc., a Northern California-based maker of drugs to treat acne and skin conditions.
A few months earlier, Valeant bought Australia’s DermaTech Pty Ltd. for $12.2 million and Fort Worth, Texas-based Coria Laboratories Ltd. for $95 million.
Valeant also is looking to retigabine, an epilepsy drug in late-stage development.
The company, which is working with GlaxoSmithKline on retigabine, plans to seek Food and Drug Administration and European approval this year with possible clearance in 2010.
Pearson is the second chief executive to try his hand at reworking Valeant since its days as ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. under autocratic founder Milan Panic, who was ousted by dissident shareholders in 2002.
