Bayer Beats Estimates Following Schering AG Acquisition

Excerpt from our Wall Street Breakfast, a one-page summary of this morning's key market-moving and stock-moving stories:

Bayer Net Falls Less Than Analysts Estimated, Raises Health Unit Forecast [Bloomberg]

Summary: In spite of reporting a 35% decline third quarter profit due to expenses incurred by the acquisition of Schering AG, Bayer managed to beat analysts' expectations and raised its forecast. The leading German drug company reported a net income of 320 million euros, or 42 cents a share which exceeded estimates of 195 million euro, but was 35% lower than the previous year, a decline attributed to the 17 billion euro takeover. Bayer purchased fellow German drugmaker to deal with healthcare reforms worldwide which involve cutting costs and promoting generic drugs. Bayer's most popular drugs include Betaferon for multiple sclerosis and Yasmin birth control pills, both Schering products, which contributed to Bayer's 26% sales increase. The company is promoting Nexavar, a cancer drug which cuts off a tumor's blood supply and which faces fierce competition from Pfizer's Sutent. Shares of Bayer were up 1 euro (2.6%) to 40 euros in Frankfurt this morning.
Related links: Media coverage: Associated Press
Potentially impacted stocks and ETFs: Bayer AP (BAY), Schering AG (SHR) • Competitors: Pfizer (PFE), BASF AG (BF), Dow Chemical (DOW), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Amgen (AMGN)

Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Breakfast summarizes today's key market- and stock-moving news. Receive it by email every weekday morning (free/no spam).

Seeking Alpha is not affiliated with Bloomberg.