Lamberto Andreotti : Bristol-Myers Poised to Beat Rivals After 2015

Bristol-Myers Squibb's growth should beat that of pharmaceutical rivals after 2015 as new drugs revive its earnings, the drugmaker's chief executive said on Thursday.

Lamberto Andreotti, speaking at a Goldman Sachs Healthcare conference, said Bristol-Myers will have "great" fundamentals after 2015, though the loss of U.S. patent protection on its $6 billion-a-year Plavix blood clot preventer will hurt beforehand.

The New York drugmaker's growth after 2015 should be "better than anybody else can deliver," he told analysts at the conference.

U.S. sales of Plavix, sold in partnership with French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis, are expected to plunge after the pill faces competition from cheaper U.S. generics as soon as November.

A number of company drugs in late-stage testing, including newer blood clot preventer apixaban and a melanoma treatment called ipilimumab, should help revive company sales and earnings, Andreotti said.

Andreotti, who became CEO in May after heading Bristol-Myers' pharmaceuticals business, said he is confident that the company will post "good" results in 2011 despite an expected average 5 to 6% price decrease on its medicines in Europe.