S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) component Forest Laboratories Inc. (NYSE:FRX) reported its results for the third quarter. Forest Laboratories and its subsidiaries develop, manufacture and sell prescription drug products.

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Forest Laboratories Earnings Cheat Sheet for the Third Quarter.

Results: Net income for Forest Laboratories Inc. fell to $278.4 million ($1.04 per share) vs. $320.7 million ($1.11 per share) a year earlier. This is a decline of 13.2% from the year earlier quarter.

Revenue: Rose 9.2% to $1.21 billion from the year earlier quarter.

Actual vs. Wall St. Expectations: FRX beat the mean analyst estimate of $1.01 per share. It beat the average revenue estimate of $1.18 billion.

Quoting Management: Howard Solomon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Forest, said: “We are pleased with the financial performance of the Company reported this quarter and with the continued positive progress of our new product launches. In the quarter, excluding the small increase for Lexapro, we had a sales increase of $91 million which included a $20.6 million increase for Namenda whose patent expires in 2015. The remaining $70.4 million of growth is principally attributable to Bystolic, Savella, Teflaro, Viibryd and Daliresp, all five new products with patents expiring in the next decade.”

Key Stats:

The company has now seen net income fall in each of the last two quarters. In the second quarter, net income fell 12.7% from the year earlier quarter.

The company topped expectations last quarter after falling short of forecasts in the second quarter with net income of 91 cents versus a mean estimate of net income of 99 cents per share.

Looking Forward: Over the past ninety days, the average estimate for the fourth quarter has fallen from 70 cents per share to 69 cents, indicating that analysts are growing pessisimistic about the company’s performance next quarter. The average estimate for the fiscal year is $3.65 per share, down from $3.73 ninety days ago.

Competitors to Watch: Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), AstraZeneca plc (NYSE:AZN), Lannett Company, Inc. (AMEX:LCI), Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE:WPI), Mylan Inc. (NASDAQ:MYL), Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE), Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT), Impax Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ:IPXL), Par Pharmaceutical Companies, Inc. (NYSE:PRX), and Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAZZ).

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(Company fundamentals provided by Xignite Financials. Earnings estimates provided by Zacks)

To contact the reporter on this story: Derek Hoffman at staff.writers@wallstcheatsheet.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Damien Hoffman at editors@wallstcheatsheet.com

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