If numbers tell the story… Pfizer reported that profits tripled thanks to higher sales of the Lyrica pain pill Lyrica and lower costs from 11,000 jobs that were cut last year. Net income rose to $2.28 billion, or 34 cents a share, from $761 million, or 11 cents, a year earlier, when Pfizer took a $2.8 billion charge for the Exubera inhaled insulin device. Revenue was roughly flat at $12 billion. The drugmaker raised the lower end of its forecast for 2008 sales by $1 billion to between $48 billion and $49 billion, and plans to save at least $2 billion as part of cost cutting announced last year (here is the Pfizer statement).

Schering-Plough third-quarter earnings fell sharply, hurt by special charges and falling demand for its cholesterol drugs, but results beat expectations. Earnings hit $551 million, or 34 cents per share, compared with $713 million, or 45 cents a year earlier. Excluding special items, the drugmaker earned 39 cents per share, exceeding analyst forecasts of 31 cents. Sales rose 63 percent to $4.58 billion, thanks to favorable foreign exchange and products from the Organon acquisition. However, total sales of the Vytorin and Zetia cholesterol pills dived 15 percent to $1.1 billion. (here is the Schering-Plough statement).

And Roche reported a 1.6 percent rise in third-quarter revenue, to $9.83 billion, as prescriptions rose for its Avastin and Herceptin cancer meds. And ceo Severin Schwan maintained the drugmaker will pursue a “negotiated settlement” in order to acquire all of Genentech. Roche offered to buy the 44 percent of the biotech it doesn’t already own for $43.7 billion, although the bid was dismissed as being too low (here is the Roche statement).