Ranbaxy net dips to Rs 101 cr

CORPORATE SCORECARD

India's largest drugmaker Ranbaxy Laboratories today announced a 48 per cent decline in profits after tax for the quarter ended June 30, 2005, to Rs 101.3 crore from Rs 195.8 crore.

The consolidated sales of the company during the quarter grew by 7 per cent to Rs 1347.9 crore compared with Rs 1258 crore in the same quarter previous year.

"There has been an intense pricing pressure in the US across the board of our product portfolio and it impacted our profit in this quarter," the company's CEO Brian W Tempest said.

The pressure is expected to continue through the year. Doubling of research and development expenditure and expenses on the development of the Atorvastatin drug were the other factors that contributed to the performance.

Tempest said the company had spent "considerable" amounts of money on intellectual property litigation. He also said Ranbaxy would double its R&D expense to $26 million.

"The growth strategy of the company will be to focus on new product introductions and volume growth in the US, along with a stronger performance from other regions. We are also focusing our efforts on implementing cost control initiatives," said Tempest.