Amgen’s profit falls 63%

Biotech giant Amgen Inc. reported a 63% drop in third-quarter profit compared with the same period last year, but net income for the Thousand Oaks company beat analysts’ expectations.

Amgen said profit fell partly because it set aside $780 million for a pending legal settlement.

The company reported profit of $454 million, or 50 cents a share, during the three months that ended Sept. 30, compared with net income of $1.24 billion, or $1.28, a year earlier.

Net income adjusted for the money set aside and other costs was $1.28 billion, or $1.40 a share. On that basis, analysts on average had expected earnings of $1.29 a share.

The company reported $3.94 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 3% from $3.82 billion a year earlier.

“Amgen is in a good place,” Chief Executive Kevin Sharer told analysts on a conference call. “We look forward to finishing a strong year.”

The earnings announcement came less than a week after Amgen laid off about 380 workers at its operations in Thousand Oaks, South San Francisco and other locations in the U.S. and England. The company said the layoffs were necessary to refocus research-and-development efforts on drugs in later-stage clinical trials.

Amgen also said Monday that its board of directors had authorized an increase in its share-buyback program to $10 billion.

It said that Neulasta and Neupogen, its largest combined sellers this quarter, rose 6% from a year earlier to $1.34 billion. The drugs are used to reduce the risk of infection in chemotherapy patients.

Amgen shares gained 36 cents to $58.95 in trading before the earnings announcement. The share price appeared to move little in after-hours trading.

duke.helfand@latimes.com