Piramal Healthcare posts ₹89 cr profit in June quarter
Piramal Healthcare posts ₹89 cr profit in June quarter
Mumbai: Piramal Healthcare Ltd posted a net profit of ₹ 89 crore on sales of ₹ 512 crore for the June quarter.
The numbers are not comparable with those of the year-ago period as the company sold its domestic formulations business, which contributed about half of its revenue, to Abbott Laboratories Inc. in September.
Its latest-quarter profit was mainly due to increased income from interest on the large cash deposits and investments on its book post the sale.
Piramal Healthcare’s other businesses—manufacturing service, hospital medicine and consumer products—together had sales of ₹ 419 crore in the year-ago quarter. Profits of these businesses last year were not available.
The company spun off its drug research unit into a separate company, Piramal Life Sciences Ltd, four years ago.
Chairman Ajay Piramal said on Tuesday Piramal Healthcare has got approval from the stock exchanges to re-merge the cash-intensive new drug discovery business of the spin-off entity into itself.
The unit wants to pursue new drug discovery to the final development stage, which requires large investments, said Swati Piramal , director, Piramal Healthcare. “Once successful on this project, Piramal Healthcare will be able to sell these new drugs under patent protection worldwide," she said.
“Since new drug discovery is risky and capital intensive, the practice so far in the Indian industry has been to license out these drug candidates from the research pipeline to big multinational drugmakers," said a pharma analyst with a foreign brokerage, who didn’t want to be identified. “If Piramal can take them to the final stage on its own, it will certainly be a big opportunity for the Indian company though it would largely depend on how promising are the drug candidates," the analyst said.
Piramal Healthcare also plans to diversify into financial services, insurance and infrastructure using the cash it received from selling the domestic formulations business. “Piramal Healthcare will not continue as an exclusive pharmaceutical company and will soon become a diversified business entity," said Ajay Piramal.
The company’s share prices fell 0.31% to close at ₹ 380.65 on Tuesday on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The Sensex fell 1.12% to 18,109.89 points.
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