The year 2001-02 had been an excellent year for Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Limited in terms of financial results. Sales increased by 58 per cent to Rs 1,557.80 crore from Rs 984.10 crore in 2000-01; earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) doubled to Rs 531.40 crore from Rs 260.60 crore; profit after tax (PAT) more than trebled to Rs 459.70 crore from Rs 144.50 crore and earnings per share (EPS) grew from Rs 22.83 in 2000-01 to Rs 60.41 in 2001-02.

On April 1, 2001, Dr Reddy's became the first Indian pharmaceutical company to list on the New York Stock Exchange.

Besides the two anti-diabetes drugs licensed to Novo Nordisk, yet another diabetes drug DRF-4158 has been licensed to Novartis and an anti-cancer DRF-1042 drug has completed phase-I clinical trial.

R&D requires state-of-the-art laboratories. By the middle of 2002-03 the company would have five such facilities in India and the US. Three are already in business - Dr Reddy's Research Foundation (DRF) and the new Technology Development Centre (TDC) at Hyderabad; and Dr Reddy's US Therapeutics Inc. (RUSTI) in Atlanta, USA. By September, the company's subsidiary, Aurigene Discovery Technologies, would have set up a highly specialised research laboratory in Boston, USA. And Aurigene's Bangalore laboratories will go fully on stream by December 2002.

In order to reap the benefits of the generics market worldwide, the company has already filed 23 abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) with the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA). Of these, the company has 10 USFDA approvals, and the 13 that are pending, including eight Para-IV patent challenges, represent a potential annual market of $11 billion. The company was confident of capturing a reasonable share of this potential market.