Forest Laboratories outlines future growth strategy

Forest Laboratories has highlighted core product strategies designed to deliver future growth in its financial report for the 2012 business year.

The company generated annual sales of $4.6 billion (2.88 billion pounds) for the 12 months ending March 31st, up by 3.8 percent year-on-year, though fourth-quarter revenue was impacted by the loss of patent protection on Lexapro.

Howard Solomon, chairman and chief executive officer of Forest, said the company's drug pipeline will be crucial to mitigating this in the coming months and years, with its two newest primary care products Daliresp and Viibryd launching recently.

Over the last four years, three additional drugs – Bystolic, Savella and Teflaro – have also been introduced, while key regulatory and developmental milestones have been achieved for aclidinium, linaclotide, cariprazine and levomilnacipran.

Mr Solomon said: "We expect that some of these new products will be especially successful and that together, these nine products will enable us to grow well beyond our present [patent expiry] cliffs."

Last month, the company reported positive data from a levomilnacipran trial for major depressive disorder, in association with partner Pierre Fabre Medicament.