Lupin Q2 profit lags as costs rise

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Lupin Ltd, India's third-largest drugmaker by sales, reported a 57.6 percent jump in quarterly profit on Wednesday, but missed analysts' expectations due to higher research spending.

The Mumbai-based company, founded by billionaire Desh Bandhu Gupta, said net profit rose to 6.62 billion rupees ($99.62 million) from 4.20 billion rupees during the same period a year earlier. That was below the average estimate of a 7.16 billion rupees profit, drawn from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Lupin, the world's seventh-largest generic drugs maker, said North America sales rose 73.1 percent to about 20 billion rupees. Analysts expect this was mainly due to price rises and higher sales of its diabetes drugs portfolio.

Sales in most of Lupin's markets rose, including in India, the company's second-biggest market, where sales were up 12.1 percent.

Total expenses rose about 25 percent. Lupin said it spent about 13.6 percent of its sales of 42.11 billion rupees on research in the quarter. Like most of its peers, Lupin has been spending on building up its portfolio of niche drugs that are harder to make and therefore face limited competition.

The company's shares were up nearly 2 percent at 0948 GMT in Mumbai on Wednesday, while the broader market was down about 1.3 percent.

($1 = 66.4500 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath)