Hospira 4Q profit falls on lower sales, costs

Hospira Inc. fell the most in two years in New York trading after the hospital supply company forecast 2011 profit that was less than analysts estimated.

Hospira dropped $4, or 7.3 percent, to $51.05 at 4:03 p.m. on the New York Stock Exchange, the biggest single-day decline since January 2009. Hospira's shares fell less than 1 percent in the past 12 months.

The Lake Forest, Illinois-based company forecast full-year earnings excluding some items of $3.90 to $4 a share, below the $4.33 average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Fourth-quarter net income fell 37 percent to $60.6 million, or 36 cents a share, as sales declined 6 percent to $992.1 million, Hospira said. The results were hurt after the company voluntarily stopped shipping some Symbiq products because of quality issues. Sales and profit excluding one-time items also missed analyst estimates.

“Hospira sales will likely come under pressure as investors digest a below-expectations, messy quarter in which Hospira missed both the top and bottom lines,” said Rick Wise, an analyst at Leerink Swann & Co. in New York, in a note to clients today.

The profit forecast excludes one-time acquisition costs and some expenses related to correcting the alarm on some Plum A+ pumps on the market, Hospira spokesman Daniel Rosenberg said in a telephone interview. Hospira bought Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc. in July for $140.8 million.

Hospira will service the Plum A+ pumps in the field and aren't being required to pull any off the market, Chief Executive Officer Chris Begley said on a conference call today.

Hospira expects U.S. regulators to make a decision on its generic version of Sanofi-Aventis SA's prostate cancer drug Taxotere in the first quarter of this year, Rosenberg said.