MUMBAI (Reuters) - Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, India's largest drugmaker by revenue, reported a 15 percent jump in second-quarter net profit on Thursday, slightly lagging estimates due to flat sales in its drug ingredients business.
Sun Pharma's net income for the quarter ended September was 15.72 billion rupees ($255.4 million), up from 13.62 billion rupees a year earlier. Analysts on average expected net income of 15.88 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Sun Pharma's finished drugs sales in its largest market, the United States, rose 15 percent in the quarter, while sales in India grew 21 percent.
Sun Pharma said it used more of the drug ingredients it made in the quarter for its own use, due to which external sales of product were flat compared with a year earlier.
The firm is in the process of acquiring rival drugmaker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd and said it was working on getting approvals for the deal from India and U.S. antitrust regulators. Managing Director Dilip Shanghvi said in a post-earnings call with analysts that there may be "minor delays" in closing the deal if approvals don't come in time.
Sector rival Cipla, India's fourth-largest drugmaker by sales, reported quarterly profit of 2.99 billion rupees, down 16 percent from a year earlier due to higher expenses, and lagging analysts' estimate of 3.51 billion rupees.
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($1 = 61.56 rupees)
(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai; Editing by Prateek Chatterjee and Elaine Hardcastle)