Teva Pharmaceutical fourth-quarter profit falls, sees weaker than expected 2019

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israel's heavily indebted Teva Pharmaceutical Industries reported a slightly larger-than-expected drop in fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday and forecast a weaker-than-expected 2019.

The world's largest generic drugmaker earned 53 cents per share excluding one-time items in the October-December period, down from 93 cents a year earlier. Revenue fell 16 percent to $4.6 billion.

Analysts had forecast Teva would earn 54 cents a share ex-items on revenue of $4.5 billion, according to I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv.

For 2019 it forecast adjusted EPS of $2.20-$2.50 and revenue of $17.0-$17.4 billion. Analysts were forecasting EPS of $2.81 on revenue of $17.9 billion.

(Reporting by Tova Cohen; Editing by Steven Scheer)