Panacea Biotec has posted a 27.9 per cent fall in net profit during the first quarter ended June 2008 to Rs 34.05 crore from Rs 47.25 crore in the corresponding period of last year. The company stated that the net profit has been adversely affected due to exchange fluctuation loss of Rs 21.82 crore as against exchange fluctuation gain of s 6.28 crore in the last period. The company's net sales also declined by 3.8 per cent basically on account of lower sales of vaccines. The net sales declined to Rs 224.48 crore from Rs 233.43 crore.

The company's sales of vaccines declined by 13.4 per cent to s 159.67 crore during the quarter under review from Rs 184.30 crore. However, its net sales of formulations moved up by 33.1 per cent to Rs 66.70 crore from Rs 50.11 crore.

Panacea has been successfully pre-qualified by WHO for its innovative pentavalent combination vaccine for paediatric immunization - Easyfive (DTP-HepB-Hib). The company has commissioned its Vaccine formulations plant at Baddi and launched a new injectable vaccine, Polprotec (inactivated polio virus) in pre-filled syringe device from this facility.

During the quarter, Panacea has entered into collaboration with Umkal Group to set up a 220 bed super speciality hospital with the most modern equipment in Gurgaon by way of subscribing for 37.66 lakh equity shares, representing 75.2 per cent stake in Umkal Medical Institute Pvt Ltd.