Bausch & Lomb posts preliminary Q1 profit of $19.2 million

Bausch & Lomb Inc., rocked a year ago by the worldwide recall of a contact lens cleaner, posted a preliminary, first-quarter profit of $19.2 million Thursday.

The eye-care products company said it expects to earn the equivalent of 35 cents a share in the January-March period, up from $11.8 million, or 21 cents, a year ago. Its year-ago profit was reduced by recall-related provisions totaling $19.6 million, or 35 cents a share.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial are expecting a first-quarter profit of 28 cents a share on sales of $544.2 million.

Bausch & Lomb delayed submitting a finalized report because of time needed to restate its 2006 earnings. It expects to file the first-quarter report with federal regulators by June 10.

Revenue rose 6 percent to $578.9 million from $546 million a year ago, when the company set aside $19.1 million for customer returns and other reductions in sales associated with the recall. Excluding those provisions, sales rose 2 percent.

It continues to project 2007 sales of around $2.5 billion _ an 8 percent increase over 2006 sales before charges related to the recall.

The company still has to file quarterly earnings results with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the first, second and third quarters of 2006 and the third quarter of 2005.

According to unaudited results released April 25, the company said annual sales of lens care products dipped to $413.8 million in 2006 from $522.2 million in 2005.

Last May, Bausch & Lomb permanently withdrew new-formula ReNu with MoistureLoc from markets around the world when federal regulators called the multipurpose cleaner the "potential root cause" of an outbreak of Fusarium keratitis infections.

A cluster of the potentially blinding infections surfaced in Asia in fall 2005 before an unusual number of victims began showing up in U.S. eye centers. The company stopped selling MoistureLoc in Hong Kong and Singapore in February 2006 and halted U.S. shipments in April.

Lawyers expect several hundred people will seek damages for Fusarium keratitis infections in trials beginning as early as this summer.

Of the 180 infection victims confirmed so far in 35 states, 59 needed cornea transplants to try to restore their vision, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said.

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