This is what can happen when a company pays too much for an acquisition. The drugmaker plans to more than double the number of planned job cuts - to more than 7,600 positions, or 11 percent of its workforce - after quarterly profit fell 11 percent on costs related to the $15.2 billion purchase of MedImmune.

AstraZeneca is buying MedImmune and Cambridge Antibody Technology Group to boost its thinning product pipeline. But in February, the drugmaker said it would fire just 3,000 workers, or about 4.6 percent of its workforce, by 2010. The cuts will come from European sales and marketing, regulatory affairs and some unspecified R&D areas.

“We are determined to maintain a competitive financial performance in the challenging environment that affects the pharmaceutical sector,” ceo Dave Brennan said today in a conference call with journalists, Bloomberg News reports.

The London-based company also reduced its earnings per share forecast for the year to $3.60 to $3.75 from a previous range of $3.80 to $4.05. Net income in the second quarter fell $1.43 billion, or 95 cents a share, compared with $1.6 billion, or $1.02, a year ago. The company was expected to earn $1.6 billion, or $1.07 a share, on sales of $7.18 billion in the second quarter, according to the median estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. You can look at figures and charts here.

To keep investors at bay, the board recommended a 6 percent increase in the first interim dividend to 52 cents.

From Bloomberg:
Revenue increased 9.8 percent to $7.27 billion. Sales of hypertension medicine Toprol XL fell by 4.4 percent to $457 million, the company said. Sales of the Nexium ulcer drug, the world’s fourth best-selling med, rose 2.3 percent worldwide to $1.3 billion and fell 1 percent in the US. “Nexium faced a more competitive market in the quarter,” Brennan said. “We’re adapting our U.S. sales strategy to take account of the changes taking place in the U.S. market.”

Sales of Seroquel for schizophrenia, the company’s second- best selling medicine, climbed 13 percent to $963 million, while those of the No. 3 drug, cholesterol-lowering Crestor, rose 41 percent to $678 million. Crestor sales were closely watched, analysts said. Last week Pfizer reported that revenue from its competing drug Lipitor, the best-selling medicine in the world, fell 13 percent worldwide and 25 percent in the U.S. as cheaper generic copies of Merck’s Zocor gained.

Sales of the asthma inhaler Symbicort grew 34 percent after the company began marketing the inhaler in the U.S. on June 25. Symbicort will compete against Glaxo’s top-selling Advair.

The company is searching for a new chief financial officer to replace Jon Symonds, who is departing at the end of July to join Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Paul Kenyon, AstraZeneca’s controller, was appointed to be the interim CFO.