Dr Reddy's Laboratories retained its place among 200 best companies outside the US with revenues less than $1 billion, according to a rating by the well-known financial magazine Forbes. The 200 were selected from 2,000 companies worldwide, in the category of " under a billion Forbes Global's 200 best small companies for 2002."

This was the second consecutive year that Dr Reddy's had made the prestigious list, and also the first Indian pharmaceutical firm to find a place in the Forbes list. In terms of sales DRL had $195 million and a profit of $94.2 million.

It may be recalled that DRL's founder Chairman, Dr K Anji Reddy, was featured on the cover of Forbes Global in December last year. That issue discussed the emergence of India as the " Pill factory to the world."

Twelve other Indian companies figured in the Forbes list of 200. They are Asian Paints, Britannia Industries, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Indo Gulf, Infosys Technologies, Mastek, Polaris Software, Rolta India, Satyam Computers, VisualSoft and Zee Telefilms. Of the 13 Indian companies in the list, eght are IT companies.