Warner Chilcott lowers outlook

Ireland's specialty drugmaker Warner Chilcott ($WCRX) is was looking at "strategic alternatives," buzz words for putting itself up for sale. Today its reasoning was made more apparent. The $30 million in sales of its acne drug Doryx in the last quarter were about half of what they were a year earlier. The company just lost a lawsuit to stave off generic competition for the drug. A creative attempt to keep patent protection by scoring the drug to make easier to split also fell flat. The company does generate a fair amount of cash, and its $1.16-a-share adjusted earnings were better than expected. But what about the future? It lowered its full-year expected return to around $3.30 per share for 2012, down from its earlier forecast of $3.60 to $3.70 per share. Story | More