Last checked at 
LONDON (Alliance News) - Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC on Wednesday reported a fall in pretax profit in 2015, but forecast a significant rise in revenue for the year ahead, helped by its recent acquisition of the Roxane Laboratories Inc, despite lowering its guidance for the Roxane business last month.
The company reported a pretax profit of USD318 million, down from USD362 million in 2014, as revenue slipped to USD1.44 billion from USD1.49 billion the year before.
Analysts had expected Hikma to report a pretax profit of USD302.2 million on revenue of USD1.44 billion, so it beat expectations for profit and met them for revenue.
The fall in revenue was primarily as a result of a decline in Hikma's Generics business due to increased competition, in line with the company's most recent guidance, which was down 30% to USD151 million in 2015 from USD216 million in 2014.
Hikma proposed a final dividend of 21 cents per share, taking its total dividend to 32 cents for the year, in line with what it paid in 2014.
Looking ahead, the company said it expects to see revenue in 2016 in the range of USD2.0 billion to USD2.1 billion at constant currency, driven by strong growth from all three of its business segments and boosted by ten months of revenue from the Roxane business.
This is despite expecting Roxane's full-year revenue in 2016 to be below USD650 million, although Hikma expects this to increase to USD700 million to USD750 million in 2017.
"The integration of the acquisition of Roxane, which closed at the end of February, will be a key focus this year and will transform our non-injectables business in the US, adding complementary and well differentiated products, an attractive pipeline, proven R&D capabilities and greater overall scale," said Chairman and Chief Executive Said Darwazah in a statement.
"From 2017, we expect the benefits from the investments that we have made in recent years - in R&D, M&A, co-development partnerships and licensing agreements - to accelerate. We have an exciting pipeline across our business segments that will drive accelerated and sustainable future growth," Darwazah added.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
Copyright 2016 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
