Biotechnology company Biocon on Thursday posted a year-on-year increase of 14% in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended December on the back of growing contract research services and India-focussed branded formulations businesses.
The company reported a net profit of R105 crore for the October-December period, against R92 crore a year ago. The total revenues grew 9% to R719 crore, from R660 crore a year ago. Sequentially, profit grew 2.94% while revenue declined 4.51%. Its biggest business segment ? biopharmaceuticals ? grew 4% year-on-year, however, it declined sequentially.
?Our biopharmaceutical business has grown modestly, which I know is disappointing for the Street. This was largely because Q2 had a spike of revenue largely attributable to certain global tenders that we won and delivered last quarter,? CMD Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said. ?The next quarter is likely to again see a resurgence of tenders and, therefore, we believe this aberration we are seeing this quarter will be corrected next quarter and going ahead.?
The Ebitda was at R187 crore. Revenue from Biocon?s branded formulations business grew 15% year-on-year to R99 crore while the contract research services grew 31% to R183 crore.
?This quarter?s profitability is also buoyed by the fact that our R&D spend has been considerably lower. This again is an aberration because many trials that should have happened this quarter will be shifted because of the very difficult clinical trial environment in the country,? she said, adding they shifted some trials overseas.
Biocon?s R&D expenditure was R20 crore for the quarter, against R43 crore in the year-ago period.
