Torrent pharmaceuticals, presently ranking among top five pharmaceutical companies in the country, recorded an impressive increase of 25.7 per cent in net profit during the second quarter ended September 2002. However, its turnover showed a fall of 3.9 per cent during the same period. The increase in profit was mainly attributed to the cost control measures adopted by the company during the period under review. There was a substantial reduction of 9.7 per cent in total expenditure incurred by the company during Q2. The operating margin improved to 23 per cent from 18 per cent. In absolute term, the company earned a net profit of Rs 16.31 crore on net sales of Rs 116.81 crore in Q2.

During the first half of the current fiscal, the net profit of company surged 22.2 per cent on a net sales growth of 0.6 per cent. During H1, the net profit jumped to Rs 28.49 crore while net sales edged up to 232.47 crore. The sales of domestic formulation increased by 4 per cent to Rs 167.13 crore while the export turnover improved by 37 per cent to Rs 20.77 crore during H1.The earning through contract manufacturing was down by 28 per cent to Rs 30.74 crore while others including inter-unit transfer for captive consumption moved up by 19 per cent to Rs 7.93 crore. The operating margin worked out higher at 20.4 per cent compared to 17.6 per cent during the corresponding first half of previous year. The net return on sales scaled up to 12.3 per cent from 10.1 per cent. The EPS is estimated at Rs 13.46 as against Rs 11.01 in the previous year.

The company, which was promoted by Rajnikant C. Patel and later taken over by Uttamlal Mehta, manufactures formulations in diverse product groups including cardio-vascular, psychotropic, anti-diabetic etc. It also manufactures bulk drugs like atenolol, ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin etc. It has alliances with Novo-Nordisk, Denmark for the manufacture of insulin, Elf Sanofi, France for the manufacture of cardio-vascular drugs, Sanofi Diagnostic, France for HIV kits, hepatitis test kits. During 2001-02, the company had introduced 31 new products. It has upgraded its bulk drug plant at a cost of Rs 13 crore and the commercial operation is expected in June 2003.