Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc., the world's biggest drugmaker, said profit tripled as higher sales outside the U.S. and job cuts offset falling sales of its cholesterol pill Lipitor and antismoking drug Chantix.

Third-quarter net income jumped to $2.28 billion, or 34 cents a share, from $761 million, or 11 cents, a year earlier, when the New York-based company took a $2.8 billion charge for abandoning inhaled insulin, Pfizer said today in a statement. Profit excluding some items beat by 2 cents the 60-cent average estimate of a dozen analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Revenue stayed at about $12 billion after a favorable foreign currency exchange rate helped offset a 15 percent drop in U.S. sales. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler in 2006 began cutting more than 11,000 jobs and closing factories to save at least $2 billion annually as the drugmaker braces for generic competition in 2011 to Lipitor. The drug accounted for more than a quarter of Pfizer's $48.4 billion in revenue last year.

``The company is going through a really challenging environment, like all the pharma companies, so they need to curtail expenses and become more efficient until Lipitor's patent expires,'' said Linda Bannister, an analyst with Edward Jones & Co. in Des Peres, Missouri, in a telephone interview today. ``Hopefully after that we will see the pipeline products produce some growth.''

The shares rose by 39 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $17.73 at 9:53 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Pfizer had lost 28 percent of its value in the 12 months before today.

Forecast Narrowed

Pfizer raised the lower end of its revenue forecast for this year by $1 billion to between $48 billion and $49 billion. The company said it expects adjusted earnings of $2.36 to $2.41 a share, compared with analysts' average estimate of $2.38.

Revenue in the U.S. fell on declining sales of Lipitor and Chantix. In the U.S., Chantix sales plunged 49 percent to $96 million after U.S. regulators cautioned the pill may increase the risk of suicidal thinking and erratic behavior. Sales jumped 60 percent outside the U.S. to $86 million, Pfizer reported. Lipitor fell 1 percent worldwide to $3.1 billion on competition from cheaper copies of a rival pill, Merck & Co.'s Zocor.

The lost sales were offset by a 45 percent jump for the pain pill Lyrica to $675 million. Lyrica last year was the first drug to win U.S. approval for fibromyalgia, a condition that causes chronic fatigue and pain. Lyrica also is approved for pain caused by shingles and diabetes.

59 Percent of Revenue

Overall, Pfizer's sales outside the U.S. increased by 13 percent to $7.1 billion, with 10 percentage points of that gain coming from foreign exchange rates. International sales accounted for 59 percent of the company's revenue.

Pfizer cut 11,000 jobs last year alone, leaving it with 86,600 employees as of Dec. 31. That compares with 115,000 workers at the end of 2004 -- more than the population of Charleston, South Carolina. The company said today it expects to save at least $2 billion by the end of 2008 as cost cuts announced in 2007 take effect.

Pfizer has combined its research and marketing departments and stopped work on experimental heart disease and obesity treatments to focus on cancer and other more profitable diseases.

Earnings in last year's third quarter were dented by a $2.8 billion write-off for the inhaled insulin Exubera, which the company junked because of poor sales. Other big drugmakers subsequently scrapped their inhaled versions of the drug, still pursued by MannKind Inc. of Valencia, California.

Pfizer took a pretax charge of $894 million in the quarter to resolve lawsuits claiming its pain killers Celebrex and Bextra caused heart attacks and strokes.

To contact the reporter on this story: Shannon Pettypiece in New York at spettypiece@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 21, 2008 09:59 EDT