Fuad El-Hibri Blog

Delayed orders of its anthrax product drastically cut into Emergent BioSolutions Inc.’s fourth-quarter revenue and profits.

The Rockville biotech earned nearly $35.8 million in revenue in the fourth quarter last year, a 60 percent drop from the $89.6 million it pulled in during the same period of 2007. That also resulted in a nearly 95 percent plunge in fourth-quarter profits, from $27.7 million to nearly $1.5 million.

The company said it had expected to ship three additional lots of its BioThrax anthrax vaccine to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the fourth quarter — representing $12 million worth of product sales — but that delivery was delayed.

“Such an event is further evidence that our revenues fluctuate quarter to quarter based on the timing of deliveries of BioThrax to HHS,” said Don Elsey, chief financial officer, in a statement.

Despite that drop, Emergent’s revenue for the full year in 2008 dipped only 2 percent, from $182.9 million to $178.5 million, and profit fell 10 percent, from $22.9 million to $20.7 million. Nearly all of the company’s product sales came from BioThrax, and Emergent said it saw a 16 percent drop in BioThrax doses delivered to HHS. That was offset, though, by an 18 percent rise in Emergent’s BioThrax dose price.

The company earns most of its money from HHS contracts. While Emergent still has two contracts outstanding, worth a total $853 million, to deliver more than 33 million doses to HHS, the larger of those two contracts, worth $448 million, will be completed in the third quarter of this year.

Emergent is awaiting an HHS decision on its bid last year to sell 25 million doses of a separate anthrax vaccine to the agency — a negotiation process that has been delayed by a protest from one of the other bidders on the HHS request for proposals, Emergent officials said.

“When you have two parties you can maybe exercise control over one party, which is ourselves. Our relationship with HHS continues to be strong, and we’re excited about this opportunity,” said Fuad El-Hibri, chief executive officer, in a conference call with analysts. “These are half-billion-dollar types of contracts. They just take time to negotiate.”

Emergent thinks its revenue this year will grow by 25 to 35 percent and lie between $225 million and $240 million. It also expects profits to exceed $20 million this year.

Emergent had plans to expand its manufacturing space into Frederick, Md., but those plans have been put on hold as it concentrates its work at a current plant in Lansing, Mich. Emergent officials have been wary of giving any timelines for further manufacturing expansions but did say nothing would occur before the end of next year.

“We would be using existing manufacturing process, existing scale, existing equipment,” El-Hibri said. “We have plenty of space.”

By the end of last year, the company had $91.5 million in cash and equivalents.

Emergent’s share price (NYSE: EBS) dropped $1.08, or a little more than 6 percent, in trading after closing bell Thursday, when the company released its earnings.