KENILWORTH, N.J. (AP) _ Merck & Co. (MRK) on Thursday reported first-quarter earnings of $4.31 billion.

On a per-share basis, the Kenilworth, New Jersey-based company said it had profit of $1.70. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs and costs related to mergers and acquisitions, came to $2.14 per share.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.81 per share.

The pharmaceutical company posted revenue of $15.9 billion in the period, which also beat Street forecasts. Four analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $15 billion.

Merck expects full-year earnings in the range of $7.24 to $7.36 per share, with revenue in the range of $56.9 billion to $58.1 billion.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on MRK at https://www.zacks.com/ap/MRK

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