Alembic Pharma surges 39% post FDA nod for antidepressant tablets

The company received approval for NDA for Desvenlafaxine ER, the drug used for treatment of Depression is bio-equivalent version of Pristiq by Pfizer.

Alembic Pharma has rallied 12% to Rs 111 in late noon deals, extending its over 20% gain in past four trading sessions after the company received approval for NDA (New Drug application) for Desvenlafaxine ER, the drug used for treatment of Depression is bio-equivalent version of Pristiq by Pfizer.

Alembic is the sponsor and manufacturer of the NDA however marketing would be done by Ranbaxy Laboratories, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Ranbaxy expects the product to be available in the U.S. marketplace during the first quarter of 2013.

Analyst at Nirmal Bang Research, recommend investors to BUY the stock on declines with price target of Rs 119 as the company’s domestic business growing at decent 12-14% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) and new businesses like US are growing at a much faster pace around 30-35%.

The stock has outperformed the market by surging 39% in past one week compared to 4.3% rise in benchmark Sensex post announcements on BSE.

Today, the stock opened at Rs 99.90 and hit a low of Rs 98.35.  As many as a combined 1.26 million shares have already changed hands on the counter so far against an average less than 600,000 shares that were traded daily in past two weeks on BSE and NSE.