No quantifiable impact seen in Japan operations: Lupin

In an interview with CNBC-TV18,Vinod Dhawan, president- business development of Lupin said, "All our personnel are fine and the facilities are working normally so there isn't much impact in this area."

The company is facing some minor impact but it is not quantifiable at the moment, he added. Below is the verbatim transcript of Dhawan's interview with CNBC-TV18's Reema Tendulkar and Ekta Batra. Also watch the accompanying video. Q: You have operations in Japan via Kyowa, can you tell us about any sort of initial impact that you all have possibly dealt with at this point in time? A: We are located in Osaka, our office is based in Osaka and the plant and the research and development (R&D) function are located nearby in Sanda, these 2 locations are far away from Tokyo and from Sendai which was the epicenter of the earthquake. We are relatively okay. All our personnel are fine and the facilities are working normally so there isn't much impact in this area. Q:  Is there any kind of possibility that you all could be facing any operational issues because of the power problem that are currently underway? Are there any operational difficulties that you are currently facing? A: There has been nuthin so far. Even Osaka city does not have any power cuts while we believe in Tokyo there has been some difficulty but in Osaka and Sanda where our facilities are located there is no impact so far. Q:  Just focusing on the current situation then and getting through possibly on what is happening on the personnel side and the logistical difficulties which you all might be facing? Could you all sort of give us broad idea of any sort of fallout you all have had currently with the operations or is everything absolutely normal? A: Obviously they are not 100% as they were. The manufacturing is working quite normally. The sales and marketing operations would obviously be somewhat affected in the areas where there has been an impact of the earthquake and the tsunami. We didn't have too much businesses those areas, in any case there is maybe 5% deception in the field operations. But, largely they seem to be managing well overall. Q: Can you quantify just a ballpark figure, just the percentage of exposure that you have had to these reasons because you did speak about a very small amount of fallout. Any examples you could give us in terms of the difficulties you might be facing at this point of time? A: Not really but like some of the medical representatives who are operating in the field, obviously in all locations, transportation and things are not totally normal. There are some disruptions, like we told you in certain cities there is curtailment of the rails, frequency of the rails operating. That has some minor impact but it's not any quantifiable impact at the moment.