Morgan Stanley downgrades Cipla to "underweight"

Reuters Market Eye - Morgan Stanley downgrades Cipla Ltd to "underweight" from "equal-weight" and reduces its target price on the stock to 386 rupees from 414 rupees citing slower growth prospects and valuations.

The bank adds that the drugmaker's move to build a marketing and sales front-end operation in the United States and Europe will yield results only in the longer term.

Morgan Stanley's downgrade comes a day after Macquarie upgraded Cipla to "outperform" from "neutral", saying the drugmaker's April-June earnings were "significantly above" their estimates.

Cipla on Saturday posted an 18.5 percent jump in April-June net profit to 4.75 billion rupees.

Cipla shares are up 1.8 percent at 12.14 p.m.

(Reporting by Abhishek Vishnoi)