Monday, August 10, 2009

Allston plant woes drop Genzyme’s profit outlook

By Julie M. Donnelly

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Genzyme Corp. has decided to discard 80 percent of the drug that was in progress when the company shut down its Allston-based manufacturing plant due to contamination by a virus. This development is bad news for Genzyme’s finances, and for patients who take the drug Cerezyme. Genzyme projects that the shortfall for the Gaucher’s disease treatment will now last until the end of the year, rather than until October, as the company had projected.

As a result of dumping the unfinished batches of Cerezyme, Genzyme will have to take an $8.4 million write-off in addition to the $14.2 million already announced.

The company has also revised its second quarter profit down to $187.6 million from $192.2 million. Genzyme expects revenues from  Cerezyme, and overall revenues, to be at the low end of the previously released range.

The company still has to decide the fate of the remaining 20 percent of the drug that was in progress when the plant was shut down. If that too must be discarded, the company will take another $2.7 million write off, officials said.