Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) said Wednesday its profit jumped 41% in the first quarter, buoyed by strong sales of branded drugs and generic medicines in the U.S. and emerging markets which offset Europe's poor performance.

The world's biggest manufacturer of generic drugs said it earned $1.47 per diluted share excluding one-time items in the first quarter, up from $1.04 a year earlier. Net revenue surged 25%, to $5.1 billion.

"2012 is off to a good start for Teva," Teva's President and Chief Executive Shlomo Yanai said in a statement.

"We enjoyed a quarter of strong growth for our branded products, in our U.S. generics business, and in the developing markets Teva operates in. All of these served to offset weaker generics sales in Europe, which resulted primarily from the macro-economic conditions in that region."

The Israeli-based company, which is undergoing a leadership transition, declared an unchanged quarterly cash dividend equivalent to 26.3 cents per share at Tuesday's exchange rates.

Net revenues in the U.S. were $2.8 billion in this year's first quarter, representing 54% of total revenues and a 46% rise on that recorded in the first quarter of 2011.

Net revenues in Europe were $1.3 billion--representing 26% of total revenues--down 2% compared to the first quarter of last year.

Net revenues in the Rest of the World, which includes Canada, Israel, certain markets in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia, totaled $1 billion or representing 20% of total revenues, up 21% on the same year-ago period.

The NASDAQ-listed company recently predicted its earnings and sales would rise in 2012, helped by the introduction of new generic drugs that could help its U.S. business recover.

-By Sten Stovall, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 207 842 9292; sten.stovall@dowjones.com