Ranbaxy Q1 net profit plunges, lags estimates

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Ranbaxy Laboratories, India's largest drugmaker by sales, reported a 90 percent drop in first quarter net profit compared to the same year-ago period, when it had exclusive rights to a generic version of cholesterol lowering drug Lipitor in the United States.

Ranbaxy said consolidated net profit fell to 1.26 billion rupees in the fiscal first quarter ended March, from 12.47 billion rupees last year. Sales fell 34.2 percent to 24.4 billion rupees.

Analysts, on an average, had estimated a net profit of 1.41 billion rupees on net sales of 26.48 billion rupees, according to I/B/E/S.

Shares in Ranbaxy were down 1 percent at 2:02 p.m.. The stock is down nearly 11 percent this year as compared to 2.4 percent rise in Mumbai market. (Reporting by Kaustubh Kulkarni; editing by Miral Fahmy)