World Business

TRENTON, N.J. —

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Pfizer on Wednesday said its second-quarter profit again than doubled as restructuring charges declined and the weak dollar helped lift overseas revenue, offsetting new generic competition and enabling the company to just maul Wall Street expectations.

New York-based Pfizer, the universe’s biggest drugmaker, said advancement rose to $2.78 billion, or 41 cents per participate in, compared with $1.27 billion, or 18 cents by share, a year ago.

Revenue rose 9 percent, to $12.13 billion from $11.08 billion, strange to say though U.S. revenue dropped by 2 percent. International sales made up for that, surging 18 percent, with favorable currency exchange rates adding $800 the public, or 7 percent, to revenue.

Excluding one-time charges, Pfizer Inc. declared it earned 55 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were expecting proceeds of 54 cents per share and $11.46 billion in revenue. Such estimates usually restrain one-time items.

Revenue in Pfizer’s pharmaceutical category jumped 9 percent to $11.1 billion. Higher revenue from favorable exchange rates, and growing sales of many clew products, offset forfeited sales from U.S. generic competition with a view to three drugs. Those were blood-pressure drug Norvasc, allergy drug Zyrtec and colon-cancer drug Camptosar, which saw revenue fall by a combined $496 million.

Sales of cholesterol fighter Lipitor, the globe’s top-selling drug, increased 9 percent to $3 billion. Sales were up by means of double digits for arthritis and pain treatment Celebrex, at $589 a thousand thousand, and nerve-pain treatment Lyrica, at $614 million.

Sales of animal soundness products jumped 13 percent to $715 million.

Chief Executive Jeff Kindler said in a statement that the results “clearly demonstrate our ability to endure to deliver solid performance in an increasingly challenging environment.”

He noted Pfizer reached an agreement during the quarter with Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. to hold off U.S. generic competition until at least December 2011 for Lipitor, which has been facing tougher competition since a generic version of competitor pill Zocor became available two years ago.

Pfizer reaffirmed its proceeds forecast for the 2008 fiscal year, at $2.35 to $2.45 per share, excluding one-time charges.

Chief Financial Officer Frank D’Amelio said that as of the end of the promote quarter, Pfizer had reached $1.2 billion of its target of cutting annual expenditure, from 2006 levels, by $1.5 billion to $2 billion by year’s end. He said the circle expects to perform many of the remaining cuts in the fourth deal out.

For the first six months, net income rose 19 percent to $5.56 billion or 82 cents per share, from $4.66 billion or 66 cents per share. Revenue totaled $23.98 billion, up nearly 2 percent from $23.56 billion in the first half of 2007.