The Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA) share price went up over 6% in early trading Wednesday following increased fiscal earnings and revenue forecasts for the second quarter.
Rising stock prices were also down to rosy news on the potential deal between Teva and Allergan. Teva revised earnings estimates to $1.19 to $1.22 a share for the quarter, up from the previous estimate of $1.16 to $1.20 per share, writes Berkeley Lovelace Jr. for CNBC. The consensus estimate is currently hovering at $1.17 per share.
Allergan deal could be closed within two weeks
Generic drugmaker Teva also said that second quarter revenue will be $4.9 billion to $5 billion versus a previous estimate of $4.8 billion to $4.9 billion. The revision came on the back of encouraging news of an impending deal with Allergan.
“We expect the closing of the Allergan generic deal any time now,” said Erez Vigodman, Teva’s president and CEO, during Wednesday’s conference call. CNBC cited sources who said that the deal could be finalized in the next 14 days.
Despite the positive predictions from Vigodman, both companies have in fact set a longer deadline for the completion of the deal. They have now committed to completing the transaction by October in order to give more time for U.S. regulators to approve the deal.
A regulatory filing from Allergan revealed that the company is going to exclude two products from the impending deal. They are Actonel and Carafate.
Teva to benefit from acquisition
Vigodman said that upon completion of the deal, Teva forecast earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) will increase to between $10.7 billion to $11.5 billion dollars by 2019. Its current EBITDA is $6.6 billion for fiscal year 2015.
The Teva CEO also claimed that he expects other benefits of the merger will result in savings of $1.4 billion per year by end 2019. This includes tax savings.
Shares in Teva have dived more than 20% this year. However analysts now seem optimistic on the stock, with 14 of 18 rating it a Buy and none giving it a Sell rating on Wednesday.
Fellow biotech stocks Juno Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:JUNO), and Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX) have also been in the spotlight today. Juno is up 22% at $31.91, but is still down 22.6% for the year. Valeant is up 5.6% at $24.52 but is down more than 75% in 2016.
