Cadila Healthcare, a Rs.2,175 crore pharma major from Ahmedabad, has posted lower consolidated net profit at Rs.134.21 crore during the third quarter ended December 2011 as against Rs.140.38 crore in the corresponding period of last year, a fall of 4.4 per cent. Due to change in accounting policy, its net profit is stated higher by Rs.30.79 crore. Its consolidated net sales increased by 20.4 per cent to Rs.652.86 crore from Rs.542.13 crore. With lower net profit, its earnings per share declined to Rs.6.55 as compared to Rs.6.86 in the last period.

Its formulations business grew by 18 per cent and it launched 15 new products, of which 7 were the first in India. The company launched PegiHep, the first true biosimilar pegylated interferon alfa-2b in India. Used in the treatment of Hepatitis B&C, PegiHep is the fifth biosimilar product from the robust biologics pipeline developed at the Zydus Research Centre.

The company's US sales increased by 45 per cent and the same in Japan by 44 per cent during the quarter. It filed 9 new product dossiers in EU market taking the cumulative to 132. The group received 8 new product approvals for the EU market taking the cumulative approvals to 82. It supplied 7 new products to Spain from India. Currently, it is supplying 12 products to Spain. Additionally, Cadila filed 11 new product dossiers for the Brazilian market and 10 new product dossiers for the Mexican market, taking the cumulative to 79 and 14, respectively.

The interest and finance charges increased to Rs.44.30 crore during the quarter under review from Rs.7.48 crore in the same period of last year. It incurred a foreign exchange loss of Rs.34.17 crore. Its employees cost increased by 22.3 per cent to Rs.44.30 crore from Rs.7.48 crore. The company divested from ZEST Aviation Pvt Ltd for an amount of Rs.2 crore and increased its stake in Zydus BSV Pharma Pvt Ltd by investment of Rs.2.60 crore. Recently, it acquired 100 per cent stake in Biochem Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, Mumbai.

For the first nine months ended December 2011, Cadila posted net sales growth of 8.9 per cent to Rs.1820 crore from Rs.1671 crore in the similar period of last year. Its net profit, however, declined marginally by 0.5 per cent to Rs.518.12 crore from Rs 520.62 crore.