Mumbai: Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, which faced an investigation by the US state of Texas for an alleged misrepresentation of drug price data early this year, has settled the charges with the state authority with a payment of around $40 million (around ₹ 244 crore today), the company told stock exchanges on Thursday.
“Under the settlement agreement, Ranbaxy will make payments to the State of Texas totaling $39.75 million in a series of tranches through August 2015,” Ranbaxy said in a note to BSE.
The Texas investigation was related to the manner in which Ranbaxy has historically reported pricing data to Texas Medicaid for certain drugs.
“The company believes that it fully complied with all relevant laws, however, it decided to settle the matter to avoid any further distraction and uncertainty of continued litigation with the State of Texas,” Ranbaxy said.
Ranbaxy had already made a provision of ₹ 238 crore in its June quarter results.
A pharma stock analyst said the payment will not have a significant impact on the company’s financials.
“The said liability will not have a major impact on the company’s financials and hence we maintain our neutral rating on the stock,” said Sarabjit Nangra, an analyst with Angel Broking Ltd.
Ranbaxy, in an unrelated development, also informed the stock exchanges on Thursday that the company has notified the Bank of New York Mellon to terminate a July 1994 deposit agreement and an underlying global depository receipt (GDR) programme.
Following this, Bank of New York had on Wednesday issued the notice of termination of GDR programme to the GDR holders and accordingly it will complete the process of termination.
Ranbaxy shares closed 1.37% lower at ₹ 589.85 on BSE, while the exchange’s benchmark Sensex shed 1.33% to 25,999.34 points.
