Bristol Myers surges 10%, its biggest increase since 2008, after boosting profit forecast

• Bristol-Myers Squibb reported strong earnings on Friday, raising its full-year profit forecast.
• The company beat both sales and profit estimates in the second quarter.

Bristol-Myers Squibb's stock climbed as much as 11% on Friday, its biggest intraday surge since 2008, after beating profit forecasts and raising full-year guidance.

The drugmaker's second-quarter sales beat was largely driven by its blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis.

Bristol Myers boosted its adjusted earnings for the year to between 60 and 90 cents a share, up 20 cents from its last forecast. The company also reported $12.2 billion in quarterly revenue, marking a 9% year-over-year increase.

"Our focus continues to be on improving the shape of the business over time. And the good news is we have a lot of strategic levers to pull. We have a growing portfolio of young assets," the company's chairman and CEO Christopher Boerner said during Friday's earnings call.

Of Bristol Myers' existing drugs, Eliquis saw a 7% increase in sales year-over-year. Cancer drug Opdivo and blood cancer treatment Revlimid also saw promising results and beat quarterly sales estimates.

However, those three top-performers have patents set to run out in the next few years.

The company's executives are adamant, though, that other drugs in Bristol Myers' portfolio promise long term gain, and they seem to be investing in more research and development to offset any losses. The company reiterated its plan to cut $1.5 billion in costs by 2025, which was announced at its last quarterly earnings call.

"We plan to reinvest the cost savings into higher growth opportunities to drive greater patient impact and accelerate our sales growth in the second half of the decade," the company's executive vice president and CFO David Elkins said on the call.

Going forward, Boerner said the company's priority is to pay down debt and execute already-completed deals, including the launch of its schizophrenia drug KarXT, which the company expects will receive FDA approval in September.

"We saw good growth in the first half [of the decade], and we expect good growth in the back half," Boerner said.

Bristol Myers is only the latest of a host of other drugmakers to raise their earnings guidance this week.

AstraZeneca, Roche, Sanofi and AbbVie all raised their profit forecasts for the year during earnings reports on Thursday. AbbVie, famous for its blockbuster drug Humira, saw its stock soar Thursday after its recent earnings showed the rest of its drug portfolio is more profitable than expected after Humira's market exclusivity expired in 2023.