Biotechnology company Biocon on Friday reported a 2.98 per cent drop in its fourth-quarter consolidated net profit at Rs 97.8 crore, compared to the corresponding quarter in the previous year, but beat analysts’ expectations.
The city-headquartered company said consolidated net profit declined because of a rise in its research and development spend. It had posted a net profit of Rs 100.81 crore in the year-ago period. Consolidated net sales rose 26 per cent to Rs 589.22 crore.
“The global economic outlook is uncertain. However, we are confident that we will make significant progress across all our businesses in the coming months,” Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairman and managing director of Biocon, said.
Analysts expected Biocon to report a lower profit because of the absence of any contribution from German drug distributor AxiCorp, which Biocon sold in April 2011. If AxiCorp’s figures were excluded from the year-ago results, profit for the January-March quarter was nearly flat, rising only 3.8 per cent.
Biocon’s results cheered investors, sending its stock up four per cent to Rs 239.15 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The Biocon stock has lost a third of its value in the past six months. Sentiment for the stock suffered a setback when Pfizer Inc last month called off an alliance under which the US drug maker was to sell cheaper copies of biotech diabetes products that the Indian company would make.
Analysts expect the stock to get a boost once Biocon succeeds in sealing licensing deals for its two experimental biopharmaceutical drugs — IN-105, an orally administered insulin, and Itolizumab, which can treat psoriasis.
During 2011-12, the company’s branded formulations business, driven by chronic therapies, registered growth of 39 per cent. Research services grew by 29 per cent.