Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer
Pfizer said profit per share in the full year would be $2.01-$2.07 rather than $1.95-$2.05 Reuters

US Pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer saw its vaccine sales jump by 44% but that could not prevent a 7% fall in like-for-like sales to $11.85bn (£7.58bn, €10.7bn) in the second quarter of 2015.The company reported a 6% in profit in the second quarter, while over the first half year, profit rose by 10%.

"Overall, I am very pleased with our second-quarter 2015 financial results," chief financial officer Frank D'Amelio commented. "We were able to grow revenues by 1% excluding the impact of foreign exchange, marking the third consecutive quarter of operational revenue growth, despite the continued significant negative impact from product losses of exclusivity, primarily Celebrex and Zyvox in the US, and Lyrica in certain developed Europe markets."

The company lifted its sales forecast from $44bn-$45bn to $45bn-46bn and said profit per share would be $2.01-$2.07 rather than $1.95-$2.05. The pharmaceutical said that the strong dollar was one of the main reasons its sales suffered a slump.

Despite anti-vaccine protests in the US, the company's global vaccine revenue rose to $1.58bn as two thirds of overall sales come from overseas. Consumer healthcare sales fell by 8%, which the company said was "due to the non-recurrence of initial retailer stocking associated with the launch of Nexium 24HR in the US".

Pfizer is operating in a market that has seen many big mergers in 2015 but says it is expecting to focus on oncology in the future, arguing that cancer drugs will be a major market. The company's share price, which has jumped by almost 15% since 28 July 2014, rose 2% in pre-market trading.

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