Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, India's largest drugmaker, reported its first fall in quarterly profits in a year on Tuesday (February 14), due to slower sales in the United States, its largest market.
Net profit in the last three months of 2016, fell to Rs 1,472 crore ($219.87 million) from Rs 1,545 crore in the same period a year ago, the Mumbai-based company said in a statement. Analysts on average had expected a profit of Rs 1,783 crore, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S Estimates.
US sales rose 4 per cent, while those in India were up 5 per cent. The firm's business in the United States has been pressured over the past year due to increasing competition and regulatory restrictions after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found violations in manufacturing practices at Sun's Halol factory in western India.
The company has spent months trying to resolve the concerns, but the FDA remains dissatisfied and outlined further problems with the plant in an inspection report in December.
Sun's majority-owned US subsidiary Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd has also been hit by pricing pressures, and last week reported third-quarter sales down 15 per cent compared with a year earlier.
Sun also said sales in its emerging markets rose 14 per cent, and those in the rest of the world were up 33 per cent.
(Reuters)
