Merck & Co. said Monday that its third-quarter profit plunged 35 percent because of competition from generic drugs, lower sales of its top-selling medicine, and restructuring and acquisition charges. It still beat Wall Street’s profit expectations, but sharply lowered its own forecast for the full year, sending shares down.
Generic competition continued to hammer asthma and allergy drug Singulair, cutting sales 53 percent in the quarter to $280 million. The drug had been bringing in $5.5 billion a year until its patent expired in August 2012 and cheap copycat versions flooded the market.
