Sales of the Lunesta sleeping pill may be rising, but the rest of the profit picture is keeping Sepracor execs awake at night. And so Adrian Adams, the new ceo who arrived recently from what used to be Kos Pharmaceuticals, is doing what many big drugmakers are doing - he’s cutting the sales force. Along with some other steps, the move should slash sales and marketing expenses by up to $100 million this year.

Meanwhile, the little drugmaker reported that profits fell 33 percent, to $42.9 million, or 37 cents a share, from $64.4 million, or 56 cents, a year earlier. And revenue declined 1.8 percent to $283.9 million, driven down by a 25 percent drop in sales for the most commonly used form of its Xopenex inhaled asthma drug.

This is the second straight quarter of declining sales for that form of Xopenex since Medicare cut the drug’s reimbursement rates, Bloomberg News reminds us. Sales of Lunesta, Sepracor’s top-selling product, rose 14 percent and Adams hopes future revenue may be boosted after selling rights outside the US and Japan to Glaxo.

“The commercialization agreement to market Lunesta in European markets represents a good opportunity, but it is longer-term in nature, and currently we believe it does not fully offset” the company’s problems in the US, Angela Larson, an analyst with the Susquehanna Financial Group, wrote last month in a note to investors, Bloomberg points out.

Sales of Lunesta in the quarter rose to $160.9 million from $141.6 million a year earlier, while the most commonly used form of Xopenex fell to $94.4 million from $125.4 million. An aerosol form of Xopenex had $17.3 million in sales for the quarter, compared with $13.1 million.