Pfizer’s India arm posts profit jump on lower costs, price hikes

Reuters

BENGALURU – Pfizer Ltd, the Indian arm of U.S. pharma giant Pfizer Inc, reported a rise in second-quarter profit on Friday, boosted by price hikes and lower input costs.

Profit before tax and exceptional item rose to 2.26 billion Indian rupees ($27.97 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30, from 1.75 billion rupees in the year-ago period.

The company booked a one-time gain of 1.89 billion rupees on the sale its off-patent and generic medicines business, Upjohn.

Pfizer’s revenue from operations rose 0.3% to 6.38 billion rupees.


Its cost of materials consumed fell 2.1% to 944 million rupees, accounting for about 21% of total expenses in the quarter.


Though the volume of drug sales in India took a hit last quarter, drugmakers benefited from price hikes and product launch-led growth, BOB Capital Markets said in a recent note.

The Indian pharma market grew 8.2% year-over-year in value terms during July-September quarter, supported by higher revenue from medicines treating chronic illnesses even though volumes were flat, analysts at ICICI Securities said in a note.

Pfizer’s shares have fallen nearly 13% this year, while the Nifty Pharma index has shed about 9%.

Earlier in the day, peer Zydus Lifesciences reported an 82.6% slump in second-quarter profit, hit by rising expenses.

($1 = 80.7500 Indian rupees)

($1 = 80.7920 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Ashna Teresa Britto in Bengaluru; Editing by Eileen Soreng)

tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEIAA0GZ-BASEIMAGE

You appear to be using an ad blocker

Shore News Network is a free website that does not use paywalls or charge for access to original, breaking news content. In order to provide this free service, we rely on advertisements. Please support our journalism by disabling your ad blocker for this website.