Analysts prepare for Teva Q1 report: Expect weak quarter

Average forecast is 39 cents earnings per share, vs 53 cents per share in the previous quarter

Teva Pharmaceuticals (TASE, Nasdaq: TEVA) will be publishing its results for the first quarter of 2007 on Wednesday, and analysts are getting in their last-second estimates.

On average the equity analysts covering Teva, the biggest generic drugs company in the world, expect that it had a weak quarter, netting $318 million or 39 cents per share. That is sharply less than the 53 cents per share in earnings that it posted for the last quarter of 2006.

The main reasons for their pessimism regarding the quarter are a paucity of launches, and the expiry of exclusive marketing terms for major sellers, including Zoloft, Pravachol and Zocor.

On average the analysts predict that Teva's first-quarter sales reached $2.1 billion.

A year over year comparison is not sensible, because Teva began consolidating its results with Ivax at the end of January 2006.

Israel Brokerage & Investments actually disagrees that the first quarter was a feeble one. It did not have any noteworthy launches of new drugs, to be sure, but analyst Noa Weisberg sees revenues of $2.06 investment bank and earnings of 40 cents per share.

Weisberg doesn't know of any major launches scheduled for the second quarter either, but predicts a better second half.

Meanwhile, Teva is one of the front-runners in the race to buy Merck KGaA, the drug company's generic unit. Ivax cost it about $7.5 billion, and this might cost as much as $6 billion. IBI thinks the acquisition would be a good move, though not at any price. Not all analysts agree.

Clal Finance Batucha analyst Yisca Erez also sees the upswing happening in second-half 2007 but says that what matters most to Teva's share price is whether, or not, it buys Merck KGaA.

Excellence-Nessuah thnks that Ivax's inhalers will prove to be a major growth engine for Teva this year, after it raised the price of Copaxone, its drug for relapsing/remitting multiple sclerosis, by 10%, which lowered sales.