Orchid Chemical and Pharmaceuticals, a Rs.1200
crore plus pharma major from Chennai, has turned the corner and
recorded a net profit of Rs.24.01 crore
during the second quarter ended September 2010 as against a hefty net
loss of Rs.13.20 crore in the
corresponding period of last year. Earnings before interest and taxation
stood at Rs.49.24 crore compared to Rs
49.64 crore. The company's net sales increased by 20.8 per cent to Rs.368.32 crore from Rs.304.85
crore. With improved profits, its EPS worked out to positive Rs.3.41 as against negative Rs.1.87 in the last period.

K Raghavendra
Rao, managing director, said, “The second quarter of this fiscal has
witnessed strong growth which was primarily driven by the enhancement in
supply of niche APIs to global generic majors. We are currently
harvesting the benefits of several investments or strategies that we had
embarked on earlier. We will continue to deliver robust performance in
the quarters to come and create sustainable value for our stakeholders”.


Its regulated generics business continued to post robust
earnings. The earlier launched products in both the oral cephalsporins
segment and the non penicillin, non-cephalosporin (NPNC)segment have
maintained their market shares and market positions. In the API
space,Orchid increased its cumulative filings of its US DMFs to 83. The
cumulative filings of Certificate of Suitability (COS) for the European
market stood at 21 which includes 14 in cephalosporin space, 6 in NPNC
space and one in the betalactam segment. The company's cumulative ANDA
filings for the US market stands at 38. This includes 8 Para IV FTF
filings. In the EU region the cumulative count of marketing
authorizations filings stood at 16.

For the first half ended
September 2010, Orchid's net sales increased by 10.4 per cent to Rs.671.82 crore from Rs.711
crore in the similar period of last year. It earned a net profit of Rs.45.63 crore as against a net loss of Rs.42.96 crore.

The company formed a new
subsidiary namely Orchid Pharma, Inc in the USA and acquired US based
marketing company Karalex Pharma, LLC. Further, Diakron Pharmaceuticals,
Inc., USA has become a subsidiary due to further acquisition of shares.