Novartis India's net profit for the third quarter ended December 2005 moved up by 5.8 per cent to Rs 23.06 crore from Rs 21.80 crore in the corresponding period of last year. Lower provision for depreciation and taxation and lower cost of raw material helped the company to push its bottom line during the quarter. Its net sales increased only by 2.3 per cent to Rs 138.25 crore from Rs 135.16 crore. Though the pharmaceutical sales increased by 11.2 per cent to Rs 90.01, the sales of generics declined sharply by 52.6 per cent to Rs 12.10 crore from Rs 25.52 crore. The OTC sales, however, increased by 38 per cent to Rs 25.39 crore.

The profit before interest and tax of pharmaceutical and generics declined by 25.3 per cent and 37.9 per cent to Rs 15.14 crore and Rs 3.14 crore respectively. However, the profit from OTC segment improved by 46.1 per cent to Rs 5.74 crore from Rs 3.93 crore.

The depreciation provision lowered to Rs 0.75 crore as compared to Rs 1.33 crore. Further, the cost of raw material consumed declined to Rs 3.38 crore as compared to Rs 6.82 crore.

For the nine months period, the net profit increased significantly by 35.9 per cent to Rs 87.90 crore from Rs 64.66 crore in the similar period of last year, basically due to selling of its assets and business at Goregaon and Mahad for a total consideration of Rs 52.35 crore. The other income for the nine months period went up by 124.3 per cent to Rs 49.24 crore from Rs 21.95 crore in the last period. This has impacted its bottom line positively during the first nine months of 2005-06. The net sales for the first nine months improved by 7.3 per cent to Rs 421.17 crore from Rs 393.40 crore. The earning per share worked out to Rs 27.5 as against Rs 20.23 in the preceding period.