Two months since becoming chief executive at Forest Laboratories (FRX), and Brenton Saunders is putting his mark on the drug maker.
On Monday, Forest outlined "Project Rejuvenate," a plan to cut costs $500 million by 2016, while scaling back research and development efforts and reducing the company's work force.
It's been a common story among big pharmaceutical companies. The industry has grown to depend on acquisitions and licensing deals or partnerships with small drug makers rather than in-house efforts to produce the blockbuster products needed to grow sales and offset revenue lost to generic rivals.
Investors seem to approve. At $55.54, the stock surged 8.2% during afternoon market action.
It was actually a pretty busy day for Forest. Though it restructuring plans attracted the most attention, the company also announced the sale of $1 billion of new debt to help fund $400 million in accelerated stock buybacks as part of a larger $1 billion share repurchase plan and a $250 million deal to acquire exclusive rights to the schizophrenia medication Saphris from Merck & Co. (MRK).
Altogether, it could be quite a boon for Forest's bottom line. Leerink Swann analyst Seamus Fernandez raised his per share earnings estimate for 2015 and 2016 to $2.89 and $3.24 respectively from the previous $1.87 and $1.19. Fernandez writes:
We see several potential accretive Saphris-like opportunities for FRX particularly as companies like MRK partner or exit cost-intensive primary care/specialty categories (e.g., respiratory, antibiotics/antifungal, cardiology, GI, CNS). Incorporating these changes (and assuming no impact to sales ests of FRX’s existing portfolio), our new DCF valuation increases to $63/shr.
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