Shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. climbed Thursday after the company reported strong first-quarter sales of its eye drug Eylea, and said U.S. sales of Eylea will be about double what it previously expected.
Eylea is approved as a treatment for "wet" age-related macular degeneration, which can cause blindness. The drug was approved in late November, and sales have been stronger than expected. Regeneron reported $124 million in revenue from Eylea in the first quarter, and said it now expects U.S. sales to reach $500 million to $550 million in 2012, up from its previous estimate of $250 million to $300 million.
Shares of Regeneron jumped $11.85, or 9.3 percent, to $138.96 in afternoon trading. Earlier the stock reached an all-time high of $145.04.
The company reported a profit of $11.7 million, or 11 cents per share, in the first quarter. In the first quarter of 2011, it lost $43.4 million, or 49 cents per share. If one-time costs like stock-based compensation are excluded, Regeneron said it earned 37 cents per share in the latest quarter. Revenue more than doubled to $231.8 million from $112.2 million
Analysts were expecting the company to take a loss of 24 cents per share and have $170.3 million in revenue, according to analysts polled by FactSet.
Regeneron developed Eylea through a collaboration with Bayer HealthCare, which handles sales outside the U.S. In the first quarter, the company reported $12.5 million that from its collaboration, the same as last year. Meanwhile, it posted $85 million from its collaboration with French drugmaker Sanofi, down about $300,000 from the year-ago quarter. Its licensing and contract research revenue both declined slightly.
Regeneron, which got approval in Australia for Eylea in February, is trying to win additional marketing approvals for Eylea and Arcalyst, a treatment for a group of rare, inherited auto-inflammatory conditions called CAPS. It's also trying to get more approvals for an experimental cancer drug called Zaltrap.
The Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to make a decision on Arcalyst as a treatment for gout on July 30, while it will make a ruling on Zaltrap as a treatment for colorectal cancer on Aug. 4 and Eylea for central retinal vein occlusion on Sept. 23.