Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., the world's biggest generic-drug maker, raised its 2008 profit forecast after fourth-quarter profit jumped 24 percent on sales of a copy of Wyeth's Protonix heartburn medicine.

Net income rose to $570 million, or 69 cents a share, from $460 million, or 56 cents, a year earlier, the Petah Tikvah, Israel-based company said today. The drugmaker was expected to earn $555.3 million, according to seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Revenue increased 13 percent to $2.6 billion.

Teva flooded the U.S. market with copies of Protonix Dec. 21, pushing 2007 earnings per share to $2.38 instead of the forecast high of $2.36. Teva said 2008 revenue will reach $10.75 billion, with EPS between $2.60 and $2.75. Teva 's EPS probably will ``exceed $3.00'' next year, Chief Financial Officer Dan Suesskind said on a conference call today.

``We plan to allocate significantly more resources to R&D than in our original three-year plan,'' he said. Teva devoted 6.2 percent of revenue to research and development last year, and increasing spending by 1.5 percent of revenue will not affect the guidance through 2009, he said.

Teva shares closed the day unchanged at 168 shekels in Tel Aviv. The decision to raise the 2008 forecast from $2.50 didn't necessarily excite investors, said Ori Hershkovitz, who follows Teva at Sphera Funds Management in Tel Aviv.

``2008 is history,'' he said. ``People are looking at 2009, and the guidance there is the same as it was before.''

In addition, the decision to raise research spending ``might have long-term repercussions,'' he said.

U.S. Market

In the U.S., its main market, Teva is challenging more brand-name pharmaceutical companies than competing generic-drug makers, and is willing to risk selling products before the patents expire, according to Goldman Sachs analysts. Teva used this ``at risk'' strategy when it released Protonix and a version of Novartis AG's Lotrel heart medicine.

``Lotrel still has no competition, and Protonix - in those few days, they sold enough merchandise for two or three or four months,'' said Noa Weisberg, who follows Teva at Israel Brokerage & Investments in Tel Aviv, before the earnings were released.

Teva grabbed a 68 percent share of the U.S. market for Protonix and has the right to 180 days of exclusive sales, Suesskind said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration offers generic-drug makers who are the first to challenge patents sales exclusivity to encourage the introduction of inexpensive medicines.

Wyeth Talks

Teva stopped selling its Protonix copy in December pending the outcome of legal settlement talks with Madison, New Jersey- based Wyeth. The negotiations ended Jan. 31 without an agreement, and Teva hasn't made any new sales.

``Our decision not to release is based on strictly commercial considerations,'' Chief Executive Officer Shlomo Yanai said on the conference call. The company is confident that its patent case against Wyeth is sound, he said.

Wyeth began shipping its own ``authorized generic'' version to compete with Teva's product.

Teva this month also won the exclusive right to sell multiple dosages of Merck & Co.'s Fosamax osteoporosis treatment, which had branded sales of $1.9 billion in the year ended Sept. 30.

Teva has 160 new-drug applications at the FDA, representing branded annual sales of about $101 billion, the company said. About 12 of them probably will be approved in 2008, Yanai said.

Teva says it's the first to file 49 of these applications, which target branded sales of $40 billion, the company said.

Copaxone Demand

Sales of Copaxone, Teva's proprietary treatment for multiple sclerosis, rose 15 percent to $436 million. Both the price of the medication and the number of patients using it in the U.S. increased, the company said. Revenue from Teva's other non- generic product, Parkinson's disease medication Azilect, surged 79 percent to $34 million.

The Israeli drugmaker is profiting from sales of the Pro-Air asthma inhaler it acquired through the purchase of Ivax Corp. in 2006. International environmental law requires countries to phase out traditional chlorofluorocarbon inhalers, which deplete the ozone layer, and switch to hydrofluoroalkane products such as Pro-Air.

Sales of respiratory products rose 18 percent to $189 million in the fourth quarter of 2006, Teva said.

Teva's board yesterday decided to pay a dividend of 0.45 shekels (13 U.S. cents) a share. Teva's Israeli shares have risen about 14 percent since Yanai took over on March 1.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Kuli in Budapest at akuli@bloomberg.net; Tal Barak in Tel Aviv at tbarak@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 12, 2008 11:03 EST