Hospira achieves year-on-year sales increase in 2011

Hospira has published its financial report for the 2011 fourth quarter and full year periods, highlighting its success in meeting its revised expectations.

The company's Q4 net sales came to $1.01 billion (646.3 million pounds), up by 2.2 percent, while sales across the entire 12 months rose by 3.6 percent compared to 2010, reaching a total of $4.057 billion.

Chief executive officer F Michael Ball said 2011 had been a "challenging year" as a result of Hospira's ongoing quality transformation efforts, but the company was still able to achieve various financial and clinical goals.

For example, two key oncolytic products and an anti-infective drug were successfully introduced in the US, while phase III trials were also commenced for the biosimilar treatment erythropoietin.

"We remain firmly committed to reinforcing our foundation and instilling a culture of high quality throughout the organisation, actions we believe will create a strong competitive advantage for Hospira," he said.

This comes after the company announced a series of changes to its leadership team this month, including the appointment of Richard Davies as senior vice-president and chief commercial officer and Zena Kaufman as senior vice-president for quality.