{"id":328501,"date":"2010-02-16T12:03:59","date_gmt":"2010-02-16T17:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/health\/2010\/02\/16\/merck-follows-pfizer-on-earnings-but-avoids-its-footsteps\/"},"modified":"2010-02-16T12:03:59","modified_gmt":"2010-02-16T17:03:59","slug":"merck-follows-pfizer-on-earnings-but-avoids-its-footsteps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/328501","title":{"rendered":"Merck Follows Pfizer on Earnings, but Avoids Its Footsteps"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"merck\"With an apparent eye on Pfizer’s experience early this month, Merck officials made one thing abundantly clear during the morning’s earnings report<\/a>: “Nothing in our guidance has changed,” CFO Peter Kellogg said on a conference call with analysts.<\/p>\n

The emphasis was undoubtedly a reaction to Pfizer’s Feb. 3 earnings report when it lowered its 2012 guidance<\/a>. Pfizer officials dismissed the import of the change at the time, saying it merely reflected some divestitures. Still, the news pushed down Pfizer shares <\/a> 2.3%, and weighed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the day.<\/p>\n

Merck made no such adjustments to its long-term guidance while reporting its first results since taking over Schering-Plough in November. Merck said it aimed for a yearly growth rate for earnings per share between 2009 and 2013 in the high single digits, excluding items. The drug maker didn’t provide a specific 2010 outlook, saying it would do so in April.<\/p>\n

As careful as the company was to reaffirm its previous expectations for the long term, its statements lacked detail. Officials said that would come later. “Obviously we need to grow the business, and we’re looking forward to putting together a strategy to do that,” CEO Richard Clark said.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, there was little way to compare the combined company’s performance during the fourth quarter with what it would have been a year earlier had the merger been in effect. Still, analysts praised Merck’s latest results and noted the growth of key products. (See Dow Jones Newswires’ report here<\/a>.) <\/p>\n

Photo: Associated Press<\/em> <\/p>\n

<\/img><\/a>
\n<\/img><\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With an apparent eye on Pfizer’s experience early this month, Merck officials made one thing abundantly clear during the morning’s earnings report: “Nothing in our guidance has changed,” CFO Peter Kellogg said on a conference call with analysts. The emphasis was undoubtedly a reaction to Pfizer’s Feb. 3 earnings report when it lowered its 2012 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5782,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5782"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}