Wockhardt Q2 profit plunges on U.S. export bans

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Generic drugmaker Wockhardt Ltd reported a 97 percent drop in quarterly net profit, as regulatory bans on the company's manufacturing plants in India due to poor production processes hit sales in the United States, its largest market.

The company's consolidated net profit for the quarter ended September was 36.3 million rupees ($591,446), compared with a profit of 1.39 billion rupees a year earlier. Net sales fell 21 percent to 9.48 billion rupees.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last year banned two of Wockhardt's major manufacturing plants from exporting to the United States after finding manufacturing quality violations there.

In May this year, Wockhardt said the FDA had also expressed concerns over production processes at its Chicago-based Morton Grove Pharmaceuticals unit, which accounts for more than 50 percent of Wockhardt's sales in the United States.

The company has said that it had been working on resolving the regulatory issues.

Concerns over quality control in India's export-driven drug industry surfaced in the past year after plants run by Ranbaxy Laboratories and Wockhardt were banned from exporting to the U.S. for falling short of the FDA's production practices.

That has hurt India's reputation as a supplier of safe, affordable drugs. Indian drug exports grew by just 2.6 percent in the 2013/14 fiscal year ended in March. Two years ago, the growth rate was 23 percent.

($1 = 61.3750 rupee)

(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui; Writing by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Biju Dwarakanath)