(Reuters) - Merck & Co reported lower than expected third quarter revenue, hurt by sharply lower sales of its Gardasil vaccine against cervical cancer, but cost cuts enabled the company to beat earnings forecasts.
The No. 2 U.S. drugmaker on Monday said it earned $895 million, or 31 cents per share, in the third quarter. That compared with $1.12 billion, or 38 cents per share, in the year-earlier period.
Excluding special items, MERCK (MRK.NY)earned 90 cents per share. Analysts, on average, expected 88 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Merck narrowed its full-year 2014 profit forecast, excluding special items, to between $3.46 and $3.50 per share, from its earlier view of $3.43 to $3.53 per share. That would reflect flat earnings from the $3.49 per share it earned last year, as the company continues to be hurt by cheaper generic forms of its Singulair asthma drug and Temodar brain cancer treatment.
Gardasil sales fell 11 percent to $590 million in the third quarter due to lower purchases by U.S. government programs, Merck said. That was in stark contrast to the product's 15 percent growth in the prior quarter.
(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Alden Bentley)
