Bristol-Myers Squibb posts 8 percent profit jump

The company recorded $42 million in earnings from discontinued operations, related to its April deal to sell ConvaTec, its high-tech dressing and wound-care business, for about $4.1 billion by August.

Pharmaceutical sales rose 16 percent to $4.5 billion, mainly due to U.S. sales increases for Plavix, bipolar disorder treatment Abilify, the HIV drugs Sustiva and Reyataz, Baraclude for hepatitis B, and recently launched Orencia for rheumatoid arthritis and Ixempra for advanced breast cancer.

Top seller Plavix posted a 17 percent jump in sales, to $1.39 billion, as U.S. sales jumped 19 percent. Sales rose 13 percent to $335 million for blood-pressure drug Avapro, jumped 28 percent to $529 million for Abilify, and rose by double digits for colorectal cancer treatment Erbitux and the HIV medicines.

Sales of nutritional products, including Enfamil, totaled $728 million.

Also during the quarter, Bristol-Myers bought Kosan Biosciences Inc., a Hayward, Calif., company developing novel cancer treatments, and took a $32 million charge for research and development acquired in the deal.

The Kosan purchase is the third transaction under the company's "String of Pearls" strategy of making deals to acquire compounds, pipelines or companies that fit 10 major diseases it's made a priority. In May, Bristol-Myers licensed a compound for treating heart attacks, and in October it bought a biotech company called Adnexus Therapeutics.

Chief Financial Officer Jean-Marc Huet said Bristol-Myers has already begun making more than one-third of the cuts identified under the $1.5 billion restructuring.

Bristol-Myers has promised 15 percent annual earnings-per-share growth from 2007 through 2010 but faces what executives call "the cliff years" of 2012-13. Plavix loses patent protection in the second quarter of 2012, and at the end of that year, Bristol-Myers loses its right to sell Abilify in the U.S.

For the first six months, Bristol-Myers had net income of $1.43 billion, or 72 cents per share, up 2 percent from $1.4 billion, or 71 cents per share, in the prior-year period. Revenue was up 18 percent to $10.1 billion.

In afternoon trading, shares were up 38 cents, or 1.7 percent, at $22.27.