The BSE Sensex moved down by 76.81 points on the opening day of the week on January 24. The pharmaceutical sector exhibited mixed trend and the BSE Healthcare index showed a fall of 19.18 points at the end of the trading. Major pharma shares like Matrix, Lupin, Ipca, Orchid, Torrent Pharma, Ranbaxy, etc declined, mainly on poor financial performance announcement for the quarter ended December 2004.

Matrix Laboratories, which was recently in limelight on account of split in share and bonus issue announcement, has weaken sharply by Rs 30 and reached at Rs 169.10 basically due to severe setback in profitability for the quarter ended December 2004.

However, shares like Cipla, Sun Pharma, Ind-Swift Lab, Nicholas, Shasun Chemical, Vimta Lab received investors support and these scrips improved market capitalization. Despite poor performance by Aurobindo the scrip gained Rs 16.50 and touched to Rs 293.55 at the end of day. Cadila also moved forward and improved by Rs 8.20 to Rs 513. Dr Reddy also received some investors' support and it moved up Rs 6.45 to Rs 727.50, but the scrip is still struggling as the company is announcing its financial working on January 31.

Few MNCs like AstraZeneca, GSK and Solvay received support at lower level but other Aventis, Fulford, Pfizer and Wyeth declined by Rs 13.65, Rs 6.20, Rs 6.15 and Rs 11.45 respectively.