Biocon’s contract research arm, Syngene, contributed about a third to Biocon’s revenue. Photo: Hemant Mishra/Mint
Hyderabad: Biocon Ltd fiscal second-quarter profit rose 52%, led by the company’s biologics and small molecules businesses.
Net profit rose to Rs147 crore in the three months ended 30 September from Rs97 crore a year ago. Revenue rose 21% to Rs992 crore from Rs819 crore in the year-ago period.
“Our performance in Q2 FY17, was led by strong growth across small molecules, biologics and research services,” said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson and managing director of Bengaluru-based Biocon. “Expansion of our biologics footprint in emerging markets and licensing agreements boosted the revenue further.”
The company’s contract research arm, Syngene, contributed about a third to Biocon’s revenue.
The small molecules division, which consists of differentiated active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) posted a revenue growth of 15% to Rs389 crore, led by better product-mix of differentiated APIs and a higher contribution from statins.
Sales in emerging markets of Latin America and Africa & Middle East regions as well as sales to India-based customers servicing the needs of the US market made a significant contribution to the improved performance of this business, the company said.
In the generic formulation business, the company received its first ever tentative approval from the US Food and Drug Administration in the second quarter for generic rosuvastatin calcium tablets to treat high cholesterol.
Commercial launch preparations for rosuvastatin calcium in the US are underway, the company said.
The biologics vertical comprising novel biologics and biosimilars, including rh-insulin, insulin analogs, monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins, reported growth of 26% at Rs96 crore on account of improved performance in key emerging markets.
“We made significant progress with trastuzumab sales and licensing in some of the key emerging markets of Latin America and Africa & Middle East, which augurs well for this business,” the company said.
The branded formulations business includes our finished dosages business in India and overseas posted sales growth of 15% to 137 crore, despite the business being impacted as some of its key products were brought under drug price control in India.
Biocon which is developing five biosimilars including breast cancer drug trastuzumab in partnership with Mylan said the program is on track for regulatory filings for some of these molecules in the developed markets in FY17.
European drug regulator the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in August accepted the proposed biosimilar trastuzumab filing for review to grant marketing authorization. Trastuzumab is Biocon’s second filing taken up for review by EMA, in July the company’s biosimilar pegfilgrastim was taken up for review.
“Our long-term investments in R&D, manufacturing facility in Malaysia and clinical advancement of our programs will enable us to unlock greater value, going forward,” Mazumdar-Shaw said.
Biocon spent about Rs113 crore or 11% of revenues on research and development in the second quarter.
A biosimilar product is a complex biological product that follows a different approval pathway compared to chemical drugs. Biosimilars involve clinically testing the drug on animals and humans to demonstrate that the drug is highly similar to the innovator biological product.
Shares of declined 2.04% to close at Rs980.25 on BSE, the benchmark Sensex gained 0.52% to end 28,129.84 points.
[“Source-Gadgets”]
