LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Drug and medical device maker Hospira Inc. said Tuesday it posted a $214 million fourth-quarter loss, as the shutdown of one of its plants reduced its sales for the quarter.
But excluding one-time charges, the company's results beat Wall Street predictions and Hospira shares jumped $2.27, or 6.6 percent, to $36.49 in heavy midday trading, after peaking at $37.70 earlier in the day.
Hospira's loss amounted to $1.30 per share and compared with a profit of $60.6 million, or 36 cents per share, in the year-earlier period. Excluding one-time items, the company said it posted an adjusted profit of 51 cents per share for the recent quarter.
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Revenue rose 2.2 percent to $1.01 billion from $992.1 million.
Analysts, on average, expected a profit of 45 cents per share on $954 million in revenue, according to a FactSet poll.
Hospira said it got a boost from strong sales of its specialty injectable pharmaceutical products. But those gains were partially offset by its efforts to improve its regulatory compliance, including at its Rocky Mount, N.C., manufacturing facility, which reduced sales.
In April 2010, the Food and Drug Administration said the Rocky Mount facility's manufacturing processes did not comply with regulatory standards. The company has been trying to fix its problems since then.
Hospira said in July that its annual profit would be hurt by the cost of those improvements, and in October the company slashed its annual profit forecast, citing lost inventory and quality-improvement costs.
For the full year 2011, Hospira posted a loss of $9.4 million, or 6 cents per share, compared with a profit of $357.2 million, or $2.11 per share, in 2010. Revenue rose to $4.06 billion from $3.92 billion.
The company said it expects to post a 2012 adjusted profit of $2 to $2.30 per share, with the mid- to upper-range of the guidance based on expectations that productivity will improve gradually at the Rocky Mountain facility in the second half of the year.
Analysts polled by FactSet expect a profit of $2.42 per share for the year.
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