Sun Pharma profit slips 59%

Sun Pharma reported a decline in consolidated net profit in the second quarter of FY 2018

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries reported a 59 per cent year-on-year decline in consolidated net profit in the second quarter of FY 2018 due to price erosion in the US market and increased spending on research and development.

India's largest drug-maker by sales reported a net profit of Rs 912 crore against Rs 2,235 crore in the year-ago period, on account of 15 per cent decline in sales. The drug-maker beat Bloomberg's profit estimate by 14 per cent but fell short on the revenue estimate. “A challenging US generic pricing environment, coupled with continued investments in building our global specialty business, has impacted our Q2 performance. We expect our performance to gradually improve in the second half of this year,” Sun Pharma’s Managing Director Dilip Shanghvi said in a statement.

Revenue fell 15 per cent to Rs 6,590 crore on a year-on-year basis, largely on account of muted performance in the US market, where the company saw a 44 per cent decline in sales. Domestic sales grew 11 per cent to Rs 2,221 crore.

With its continued focus on complex and specialty products, the company spent Rs 511 crore on research and development and this accounted for 7.7 per cent of sales. In a post result conference call Shanghvi said the company was ramping up sales of oncology drug Odomzo which it acquired from Novartis last December. He also indicated that European approval for its novel biologic drug Tildrakizumab was expected in late 2018 or early 2019.