Nicholas Piramal India Ltd (NPIL), a Rs 1400-crore pharma giant, has reported satisfactory financial performance during the quarter ended September 2004. Though its gross sales declined slightly to Rs 395.30 crore from Rs 396.83 crore in the corresponding period of last year, its net sales improved by 0.3 per cent to Rs 353.05 crore from Rs 351.96 crore. NPIL's net profit after during the quarter moved up by 7.7 per cent to Rs 54.39 crore from Rs 50.52 crore. The earning per share worked out to Rs 14.6 as against Rs 14.

Lower cost of consumption of raw material helped the company to achieve small growth in profits. The cost of consumption of raw material amounted to Rs 137.73 crore during the second quarter ended September 2004 as compared to Rs 174.50 crore. Its research and development expenditure increased by 114 per cent to Rs 11.82 crore from Rs 5.52 crore in the previous period. Similarly, its staff cost worked out to Rs 39.29 crore as compared to Rs 36.15 crore.

On a continuing businesses basis, NPIL's domestic formulations continued to outperform the market for the tenth consecutive quarter, growing 12.5 per cent against industry growth rate of 7.7 per cent. Formulations growth - without excluding the returned Roche Biotech products, was 5.8 per cent during the quarter ended September 2004. During the Quarter, NPIL outperformed therapy area growth in 6-of-10 therapy areas. Performance was particularly strong in Respiratory, Anti-infective, CVS, Anti-diabetic, GI, and Dermatology segments. Recently, Strepsils and Saridon have also been selected among the Top-100 Super Brands of India. NPIL's inlicensing strategy also gained momentum during HY-FY05 resulting in in-licensing deals with Ethypharm, Genzyme, Pierre Fabre, and takeover of Dobutrex rights for India.

NPIL's exports continued to expand, reaching 11.8 per cent of its net sales in the quarter under review as against 7.2 per cent in last period. These exports sales, at Rs 44 .41 crore, do not yet include any turnover under the AMO custom-manufacturing contract, which is under implementation and slated to commence shipment in January 2005.

Though the July-September quarter was not shown any strong growth, the company's net sales for the first half ended increased by 7.6 per cent to Rs 696.61 crore from Rs 647.64 crore. The net profit has taken quantum jump of 34.2 per cent and touched to Rs 103.13 crore from Rs 76.84 crore in the corresponding half of the previous year mainly due to lower cost of consumption of raw material and higher non operating other income. However, its R&D expenditure during the first half went up sharply to Rs 21.18 core from Rs 10.99 crore in the previous half of 2003-04.

Meanwhile, NPIL has discontinued exclusive distribution of Roche Diagnostic Products in India. The company had registered sales of Rs 72.6 crore from the Diagnostic products of Roche in India during 2003-'04. The process and negotiations to discontinue the agreement had commenced since early-2004. The Company had lower sales of Roche Diagnostic products and certain other Roche biotech formulations because of the planned return to the parent company.

Nicholas Piramal's Exports continued to expand, reaching 11.8 per cent of net sales, for Q2-FY05 vs. 7.2 per cent in Q2-FY04. These exports sales, at Rs. 444.1 million, do not yet include any turnover under the AMO custom-manufacturing contract, which is under implementation and slated to commence shipment in January 2005.

The Board of Nicholas Piramal approved a 5:1 Split of the Company's shares. The Company's shares will therefore, have a face value of Rs 2 after the stock split.