Ranbaxy reports Q4 loss on provision for product recall, forex

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd , India's top drugmaker by sales, reported a quarterly net loss of 4.92 billion rupees after setting aside 1.86 billion rupees towards costs that might arise due to a product recall in the United States.

The drugmaker in November voluntarily recalled its cholesterol lowering generic of Lipitor from the U.S. market after it discovered contamination with tiny glass particles in certain lots of 10mg, 20mg and 40mg doses of the drug.

Ranbaxy, controlled by Japan's Daiichi Sankyo Co , said consolidated sales fell 28.8 percent to 26.71 billion rupees in the fiscal fourth quarter ended December. The drugmaker had reported a loss of 29.83 billion rupees over the same period last year.

The drugmaker also reported 1.8 billion rupees of foreign exchange loss in derivative tools, it said.

Analysts on average had estimated consolidated net profit at 1.44 billion rupees on net sales of 26.96 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

(Reporting by Kaustubh Kulkarni; Editing by Matt Driskill)