Aurobindo Pharma has posted lower growth of 6.1 per cent in consolidated net profit during the third quarter ended December 2008 to Rs 41.84 crore mainly due to provision for foreign exchange loss, higher interest and employees cost. Its operating profit before interest, depreciation, taxation and foreign exchange loss went up sharply by 93.3 per cent to Rs 157.78 crore from Rs 81.61 crore in the corresponding period of last year. The company provided Rs 57.05 crore for foreign exchange loss during the quarter as against a gain of Rs 9.53 crore. Further, its interest burden increased by 152 per cent to Rs 25.47 crore from Rs 10.10 crore in the last period.

The company's consolidated net sales increased by 29.1 per cent to Rs 735.11 crore from Rs 569.56 crore in the similar period of last year. The other operating income moved up significantly to Rs 87.71 crore from Rs 2.82 crore. The formulations sales increased by 43.2 per cent to RS 353.10 crore and that of APIs increased by 14.1 per cent to Rs 403.7 crore. The sales of formulation in US increased by 187 per cent to Rs 142.7 crore, but same declined in Europe by 27.1 per cent to Rs 46.7 crore.

With better growth in operating profit level, the company management declared interim dividend of 60 per cent (Rs 3 per share of face value of Rs 5 each) for the current financial year 2008-09.

For the first nine months ended December 2008, Aurobindo's consolidated net profit dwindled by 88.2 per cent to Rs 19.85 crore from Rs 168.37 crore in the same period of last year. This de-growth in profit is mainly due to the provision of Rs 215.86 crore for foreign exchange loss as against a gain of Rs 61.50 crore in the last period. Its operating profit before interest, depreciation, taxation and provision for foreign exchange loss, increased by 59.1 per cent to Rs 397.18 crore from Rs 249.61 crore. The earning per share for the nine months worked out to Rs 3.69 as compared to Rs 31.41 in the last period.

Its consolidated net sales moved up by 22.3 per cent to Rs 2116 crore from Rs 1730 crore in the first nine months of 2007-08. The company filed four ANDAs during the quarter under review and its cumulative total reached at 145. It received US FDA approval for 87 ANDAs and it has so far launched 43 products in the USA market.