With US sales recovering, Lupin Q2 profit up 97% over Q1 to Rs 211 cr

Mumbai based drug maker Lupin reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 211 crore for the second quarter of the ongoing fiscal primarily led by a recovery in US sales. The company had reported a net loss of Rs 185.3 crore in the corresponding period last year.

Sequentially, Lupin's net profit jumped 97.4 percent over the previous quarter. The revenues, however, dropped by 1.2 percent  on a year on year (YoY) basis to Rs 3,835 crore, but sequentially the revenues rose 8.7 percent. The earnings before income tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) fell 21.1 percent YoY to Rs 606 crore with a resulting Ebitda margin of 16.8 percent for the quarter.

Lupin stock was trading at Rs 937.8 apiece in the morning, down marginally.

For the first half of the year the net profit jumped 80 percent year on year (YoY) to Rs 317 crore for the quarter while revenue from operations dropped by 5.1 percent to Rs 7,362 crore.

"We are very pleased with the strong recovery of our business during the quarter, demonstrated by sequential growth across all our geographies, in particular US and India," said Nilesh Gupta, Managing Director, Lupin. US is a major market for the pharma major, contributing 37 percent of sales and saw a 5.6 percent YoY growth. Lupin launched seven products in the US during the quarter. Gupta added, "This quarter marks the start of monetisation of our complex generic pipeline with the launch of Etanercept biosimilar in Europe and generic Albuterol in the US. We expect to sustain the momentum on margin improvement led by optimisation efforts underway and robust growth in our key businesses."

On the domestic front, the struggle continued as the company saw its India formulations sales drop by 0.7 percent YoY. India is the second important market after the US constituting 35 percent of Lupin's sales.

During the quarter, the company invested 10.2 percent of its sales in research and development (R&D). Lupin's personnel costs declined to Rs 6,854 crore during the quarter compared to Rs 7,936 crore in the previous quarter, while its manufacturing expenses increased to 31.4 percent of sales to Rs 11,868 crore compared to the previous quarter.