India's Gland Pharma posts Q2 profit drop hurt by Europe business

(Reuters) - Indian generic injectables maker Gland Pharma reported a drop in second-quarter profit on Monday, hurt by lower sales in its Europe business and temporary production issues at its French unit Cenexi.

The company reported consolidated net profit of 1.64 billion rupees ($19.5 million) for the quarter ended Sept. 30, a 15.7% decrease from the year-ago period.

Revenue from operations climbed 2.4% to 14.06 billion rupees.

Sales from Gland Pharma's Europe business fell over 1% for the quarter ended Sept. 30 from a year ago.

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KEY CONTEXT

Gland Pharma acquired French pharmaceutical group Cenexi, which makes sterile and injectable pharmaceutical products, in January 2023.

The company said its overall revenue growth was hurt by temporary production issues at Cenexi. The unit has helped boost Gland's sales in Europe since its acquisition.

Excluding Cenexi, Gland Pharma's revenue grew 5% during the quarter. Sales from the U.S., its biggest market, increased 3%, and sales from its other markets of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand rose 45%, the company said.

Most of India's generic drugmakers derive a significant share of their revenue from the U.S., and the competition in the generic drugs market has been weighing on these firms' margins.

Rivals Sun Pharma and Cipla reported second-quarter profit above estimates last week, helped by strong demand, while Dr Reddy's will report its results on Tuesday.

PEER COMPARISON

Estimates Analysts'

(next 12 sentiment

months)

RIC PE EV Reve Prof Mean # of Stock Div

/E nue it rati anal to yiel

BI grow grow ng* ysts price d

TD th th targe (%)

A (%) (%) t**

Gland 26 15 11.4 22.7 Hold 10 0.90 1.22

Pharma .6 .6 2 4

Ltd 0 1

Cipla 24 16 7.87 9.33 Hold 33 0.96 0.92

Ltd .2 .0

2 8

Dr 18 11 9.42 3.56 Hold 34 0.96 0.64

Reddy's .1 .3

Laborato 7 9

ries Ltd

Sun 35 26 9.53 14.6 Buy 32 0.95 0.73

Pharmace .8 .6 1

utical 1 0

Industri

es Ltd

* Mean of analysts' ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell

** Ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT

JULY TO SEPTEMBER STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG

-- $1 = 84.0810 Indian rupees

(Reporting by Kashish Tandon and Anuran Sadhu in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K and Abinaya Vijayaraghavan)