Glenmark Pharmaceuticals has suffered a setback during the fourth quarter ended March 2018 due to drop in sales in US on accounting of pricing pressure. Its consolidated net profit declined by 17.5 per cent to Rs.152 crore from Rs.184 crore in the corresponding period of last year. Its net sales also declined by 7.3 per cent to Rs.2248 crore from Rs.2424 crore. EPS declined to Rs.5.37 from Rs.6.51 in the last period. The results are strictly not comparable as the company launched Exetimibe, a generic version of Zetia in US with an exclusivity during December 2016. The board has declared equity dividend of 200 per cent for the year 2017-18.

The company’s domestic sales improved by 5.5 per cent to Rs.609 crore during the March quarter from Rs.577 crore in the similar period of last year. Its US sales declined sharply by 30.1 per cent to Rs.700 crore from Rs.1,000 crore and that in Latin America also declined by 4.8 per cent to Rs.128 crore from Rs.134 crore. However, its European sales went up by 38.8 per cent to Rs.319 crore from Rs.230 crore. ROW sales grew by 3.3 per cent to Rs.298 crore from Rs.288 crore. Its APIs sales moved up by 2.6 per cent to Rs.205 crore.

For the full year ended March 2018, Glenmark’s consolidated net sales remained stagnant at Rs.8,972 crore as against Rs.8,970 crore, but its net profit declined by 27.5 per cent to Rs.804 crore from Rs.1109 crore previous year. Lower profit impacts EPS which declined to Rs.28.49 from Rs.39.29. Its interest cost increased to Rs.286 crore from Rs.238 crore and employees cost to Rs.1,872 crore from Rs.1,641 crore. As against the equity capital of Rs.28.22 crore its reserves & surplus increased to Rs.5,135 crore from Rs.4,464 crore.

Glenn Saldanha, chairman and managing director, said, “While FY 2018 was a challenging year mainly on account of pricing pressure in the US, our other key markets like Europe and India performed well on the back of new product launches. Even though we expect pricing pressure to persist, we are glad that FY2019 has started on a positive note for us with approvals for some interesting products in the US. We believe our strong R&D pipeline of novel assets will help propel growth in the long run.”

During 2017-18, Glenmark receive 21 ANDA approvals comprising 18 final approvals & 3 tentative approvals. Currently, the company is making portfolio consists of 131 generic products authorisation for distribution in the US market. Currently, 62 applications are pending of approvals process with US FDA.