Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, a generic pharmaceutical company, has posted a net loss of $688 million, or $0.88 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared to a net income of $570 million, or $0.69 per diluted share, in the corresponding period of 2007.
For the 12 months ended December 31, 2008, the company reported a net income of $635 million, or $0.78 per diluted share, compared to $1.95 billion, or $2.38 per diluted share, for the 12 months ended December 31, 2007.
The company reported net sales of $2.85 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, an increase of 11%, compared to $2.6 billion for the same quarter of 2007. For the full year 2008, the company posted net sales of $11.1 billion, an increase of 18%, compared to $9.4 billion for the full year 2007.
Shlomo Yanai, Teva’s president and CEO, said: 2008 was a year of record-breaking results and major strategic achievements for Teva. During the year we extended our leadership in the U.S. and globally, had a record number of Paragraph IV launches and achieved record sales of Copaxone which became the world’s number one therapy for the treatment of multiple sclerosis.
During 2008, we also expanded our global reach with the acquisition of Bentley in Spain and our joint venture with Kowa in Japan. Our most exciting strategic achievement of 2008 was, of course, our acquisition of Barr which has elevated Teva’s market leadership to an entirely new level.