TRENTON, N.J. - Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. on Thursday posted a 29 percent jump in second-quarter profit due to higher sales of several key products and significant cost-cutting that overcame negative effects of the strong dollar.

The solid report comes the morning after Bristol announced a crucial $2.1 billion acquisition - and company executives said Thursday they are looking to snap up more gems.

"We plan to continue buying additional products and companies," President Lamberto Andreotti said during a conference call.

Chief Executive James Cornelius told the analyst he "wouldn't rule out" a purchase three to five times the size of Wednesday's deal for Medarex Inc. It owns successful antibody technology used to create biologic drugs that make the immune system attack cancer cells - plus has two dozen of its own drugs in development.

"We're not done with the String of Pearls," Cornelius said, referring to the company's strategy of transforming itself into a biopharmaceutical company by buying biotech drug compounds or companies in priority disease areas. "After celebrating last night, we'll take today off, but will start tomorrow looking for other pearls."

The Medarex deal strategically is the most important in the eight deals Bristol-Myers has done since unveiling the strategy in December 2007, Chief Financial Officer Jean-Marc Huet said.

Prior deals have cost significantly less, and many have just been licensing agreements and alliances.

"In one fell swoop," Cornelius told reporters, "we've made a dramatic step in terms of the future of the company in biologics."

The maker of blood thinner Plavix, the world's second-bestselling medicine, and psychiatric drug Abilify said its net income was $983 million, or 49 cents per share. That compares with $764 million, or 38 cents per share, a year earlier.

New York-based Bristol-Myers, which turned in one of the industry's best reports this quarter, said revenue rose 3.5 percent to $5.4 billion from $5.2 billion in the second quarter of 2008.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting, on average, earnings per share of 47 cents and revenue of $5.3 billion.

Sales in the Bristol-Myers pharmaceutical division rose 4 percent, to $4.67 billion. Revenue from the company's share of the Mead Johnson nutrition business was flat at $719 million.

Several key drugs posted sales increases in the double digits. Plavix, which the company markets jointly with Sanofi-Aventis SA, posted a revenue boost of 11 percent, to $1.54 billion. Sales of psychiatric drug Abilify jumped 22 percent to $643 million and HIV drug Sustiva was up 11 percent to $312 million. But Bristol's sales of cancer drug Erbitux, which it markets jointly with Eli Lilly & Co., fell 12 percent to $173 million.

Bristol-Myers lowered the high end of its 2009 profit forecast, sending a new range of $1.58 to $1.68 per share, compared with the prior $1.58 to $1.73. Excluding one-time charges, the company raised its forecast slightly, to $1.95 to $2.05, from $1.85 to $2.

While many of its competitors have seen flat or down revenue this quarter because of unfavorable exchange rates, Bristol-Myers, the world's No. 15 drugmaker, said they only reduced total revenue by 5 percent. In addition, Bristol-Myers only gets a little more than one-third of its sales overseas, while many global drugmakers draw a roughly half their revenue from foreign countries, giving currency rates a bigger impact.

For the first six months, Bristol-Myers posted net income of $1.62 billion, or 81 cents per share. That was up 14 percent from $1.43 billion, or 71 cents a share, in the first half of 2008.

In trading Thursday, shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb rose 57 cents, or 2.8 percent, to close at $20.86. The stock is not far off its 52-week high of $23.98, reached in early January.

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.