Ranbaxy reports loss in Q4, 2011 sales forecast flat

NEW DELHI: The country's largest drugmaker Ranbaxy Laboratories disappointed markets with a weak sales forecast, after it swung into loss in its fourth quarter ending its run of six straight quarterly profits emerging from a turbulent phase.

As per ET's calculation, it made a loss of 97.5 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2010 compared with a profit of 262 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. The Gurgaon-based company's sales also fell 9.82% at 2,066 crore during the quarter eneded December 31, 2010 from last year.

The company's share price closed at 494.20, down 3.05% at the Bombay Stock Exchange in a weak Mumbai market on Tuesday after Japan's Daiichi Sankyo-owned company forecast flat sales on 'base case' at $1.87 billion or 8,400 crore for the year ending December 31, 2011. The company revenues for the year ended December 2010 stood at $1.868 billion or 8,550 crore.

But the forecast exclude the launch opportunity of a potential blockbuster medicine for the Gurgaon-based company that could rake in millions of dollars in six months alone. The company has an settlement with Pfizer Inc which allow the Indian firm to sell its low-cost version of the world's best selling drug Lipitor in the US in November this year with a 180 day exclusivity period.

Ranbaxy is widely believed to have filed application for the drug from its Poanta Sahib plant in Himachal Pradesh, which is under a harsh scrutiny of the US drug regulator. "The company has said anything on launch opportunity also," Ranjit Kapadia, VP (Institutional Sales) at brokerage firm HDFC Securities.