DRL’s Q1 profit dips 80 per cent

Drug major Dr Reddy’s Laboratories on Tuesday said its consolidated net profit declined by 80 per cent to Rs 126.3 crore for the June quarter due to price erosion and dip in US sales, besides stoppage of dispatches to Venezuela due to a currency crisis.

The company had reported a net profit of Rs 625.7 crore for the same quarter last fiscal, said Saumen Chakraborty, President, CFO and Global Head of HR and Abhijit Mukherjee, Chief Operating Officer of Dr Reddy’s Labratories.

According to them, the decline in net profit is 75 per cent to Rs 153.5 crore as per Indian accounting standards.

DRL’s consolidated net income from sales and services declined 14 per cent to Rs 3,234.5 crore for the quarter under review as against Rs 3,757.8 crore in the year-ago period.

“The four headwinds – lack of new product launches and erosion of pricing of some of the key molecules in US, the remediation cost (for an US FDA warning letter), (currency crisis in) the Venezuelan market and crash of ruble against world currencies – impacted the quarter,” Mr Mukherjee said at a press conference.