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Barr Labs 4Q doubles
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August 7, 2001: 3:31 p.m. ET
Drugmaker's earnings soar; company boosts first-quarter guidance
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Drugmaker Barr Laboratories more than doubled its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday, and excluding one-time items beat analysts' consensus estimates.
For the quarter ended June 30, Barr, which won approval to sell a generic form of Prozac last week, reported fourth-quarter earnings of $18.5 million, or 49 cents a share, up from $8.4 million, or 23 cents a share, a year earlier.
But those results include a $1.5 million charge, or 4 cents a share, related to legal fees incurred in winning the rights to launch Fluoxetine, its generic form of the Prozac anti-depressant.
Excluding the charge, the company earned 53 cents per share, beating First Call's consensus expectations by 3 cents per share.
Shares of Barr (BRL: up $2.13 to $81.08, Research, Estimates) rose more than 3 percent in late afternoon trading.
Looking forward, Barr officials said in a conference call with analysts that
the company expects to earn between $1.40 and $1.45 per share for the fiscal first quarter ending in September, more than a threefold rise from the 33 cents per share reported in the year-earlier quarter.
The First Call consensus estimate is $1.02 per share for the first quarter. Barr said the results would be boosted both by the launch of generic Prozac and the rest of the company's business.
For the year, Barr earned $62.5 million, or $1.66 a share, up from $44.2 million, or $1.24 a share, in the prior year. Analysts expected $1.60 a share.
Sales jumped to $141 million from $113 million for the quarter and to $510 million in fiscal year 2001 from $440.1 million a year earlier.
Barr Labs launched several new products during the quarter and the year, and continued to post strong sales growth for established drugs. The company said fourth-quarter sales increased 22 percent to $138 million, due in part to a 15.8 percent jump in sales of its Tamoxifen breast cancer treatment to $87.5 million.
Research and development spending increased 10 percent in the quarter to $13.2 million.
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The company currently has 26 drug patent applications pending before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, five of which are for generic forms of existing drugs. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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Barr Labs
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