BENGALURU (Reuters) – Indian generic drugmaker Alembic Pharma reported a 17% rise in fourth-quarter profit on Thursday, driven by strong sales, especially in the key North American market.
Consolidated profit rose to 1.78 billion rupees ($21.3 million) in the three months ended March 31, from 1.53 billion rupees a year earlier.
Indian generic drugmakers like Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Cipla and Sun Pharmaceutical have been benefitting from price recovery in the U.S. market as well as strong sales, especially of their copycat versions of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s blockbuster cancer drug Revlimid.
On Tuesday, Dr Reddy’s beat fourth-quarter profit estimates, boosted by strong U.S. sales of its generic version of Revlimid.
Alembic Pharma, which also sells a copycat version of Revlimid, said overall revenue rose nearly 8% to 15.17 billion rupees.
Sales in North America grew 19%, while domestic sales climbed 3% in the quarter. India and the U.S. contributed around 61% of the drugmaker’s total revenue. ($1 = 83.5000 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza)
