India's J B Chemicals and Pharma tops Q1 profit view on domestic business strength

BENGALURU (Reuters) - India's J B Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals beat first-quarter profit estimates on Thursday, helped by growth in its domestic business.

The company's consolidated net profit rose 24.2% to 1.77 billion rupees ($21.1 million) for the quarter ended June, beating analysts' estimate of 1.65 billion rupees.

Consolidated revenue jumped 12% to 10.04 billion rupees due to a 22% growth in the company's domestic business, but fell short of expectations of 10.16 billion rupees.

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KEY CONTEXT

This is Mumbai-based J B Chemicals' eighth straight quarter of higher profit. The company, which makes acid reflux drug 'Rantac', continues to benefit from buoyant demand for its copycat drugs, such as antibiotic drug 'Metrogyl', and lozenges for sore throats.

New launches across its portfolio are expected to further spur growth for the domestic business, analysts said. The share of the domestic business in overall revenue has been growing and stood at 54% for fiscal year 2024.

Cipla and Sun Pharma - its larger peers in the generics business - both topped first-quarter profit estimates on the back of resilient sales in India and the U.S. - a key market for local drugmakers.

PEER COMPARISON

Valuation (next 12 Estimates (next 12 Analysts' sentiment

months) months)

RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div

growth % growth % rating* analyst price yield

s target** (%)

J B Chemicals and 40.25 25.61 14.81 22.66 BUY 10 1.01 0.53

Pharmaceuticals Ltd

Cipla Ltd 25.53 15.91 8.88 9.88 HOLD 31 0.96 0.86

Sun Pharmaceutical 34.97 25.75 10.26 13.39 BUY 31 0.99 0.78

Industries Ltd

Dr Reddy's 19.60 12.32 10.36 3.34 HOLD 33 1.04 0.59

Laboratories Ltd

* The mean of analyst ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell

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

APRIL-JUNE STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG IBES

-- $1 = 83.9280 Indian rupees

(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)