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India’s largest drugmaker Sun Pharmaceutical's consolidated net profit rose 6.94 percent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 1,309 crore in the fourth quarter ended March, beating analysts' estimates.
The profit was boosted by a one-time tax benefit of Rs 259 crore in Q4 related to certain intangibles. Excluding the one-time tax benefit of Rs. 259 crore, the adjusted net profit for the quarter was Rs. 1,050 crores.
The company said they also had USD 20 million milestone payment in the fourth quarter from Spanish drug maker Almirall as part of the licensing agreement for the development and commercialization of Tildrakizumab for psoriasis in Europe.
Consolidated revenue for the quarter declined 1.11 percent YoY to Rs 7,279.9 crore in Q4 but was above analysts' estimate of Rs 6,778.8 crore.
Consolidated EBITDA margin stood at 24.1 percent in Q4FY18.
A Reuters poll had forecast a drop in net profit to Rs 947.4 crore. It estimated a revenue decline of 0.68 percent YoY to 6,778.8 crore.
“Over the last four quarters, we have been able to record a gradual improvement in performance despite a challenging US generic pricing environment," said Dilip Shanghvi, Managing Director of Sun Pharma.
The company said FY19 will see roll out of company's specialty pipeline.
"FY19 will mark the crossing of some important milestones in our specialty journey with the likely launch of 3 specialty products in the US – Ilumya, OTX-101 and Yonsa – which will entail upfront investments," Shanghvi added.
Shanghvi said his company will continue to evaluate opportunities for acquisitions in the specialty segment to further enhance this business.
With exception of US, all other geographies have reported sales growth for Sun Pharma.
While US generic sales declined 3 percent YoY to USD 368 million in Q4FY18, India sales grew 2 percent to Rs. 1,963 crores.
Emerging markets sales rose 10 percent to USD 199 million over previous year. Rest of World sales increased 6 percent to USD 116 million.
R&D investments stood at Rs. 743 crores or 11 percent of sales compared to Rs. 600 crores or 9% of sales for Q4FY17.
The company declared a dividend of Rs 2 per equity share of Re 1.
The results were announced after market hours.
Shares of Sun Pharma rose 0.97 percent to close at Rs 466.55 on BSE, the benchmark Sensex gained 0.78 percent to 34,924.87 points.
"Revenues remained flat YoY to Rs 69bn, largely affected by declining US revenues," said Amey Chalke, analyst tracking pharma at HDFC Securities.
"EBITDA grew 9%YoY to Rs 16.8bn, with 24% EBITDA margin. However, there was higher other operating income in this quarter. If you assume normalized other operating income, EBITDA would have been in line with our estimates with 21-22% EBITDA margin (flat QoQ)," Chalke said.
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