MUMBAI - Dishman Pharmaceuticals expects revenue and net profit to rise 15-20 percent, as it expects orders to come in the later half of the year to March 2010, a company official said on Monday.
For 2008/09, Dishman Pharmaceuticals and Chemicals Ltd, posted a 22 percent rise in net profit to 1.46 billion rupees, while revenue rose 32 percent to 10.62 billion rupees, meeting its own forecast.
An inventory correction amongst customers over the past several months, brought on by the financial crunch, had pressured the earnings of contract manaufacturing service providers such as Dishman.
The situation was improving, Chairman and Managing Director J.R. Vyas told an analysts' call.
"I don't see any further inventory correction," he said. "Demand has not diminished. They will continue to buy."
Dishman, which manufactures drugs for other pharmaceutical firms on a contract basis, is negotiating with AstraZeneca and Novartis for helping manufacture some drugs undergoing clinical trials, Vyas said.
"There are a number of very robust products in the pipeline which will see the light of day in 2010/11 and thereafter, so obviously we are very bullish on 2010/11 and thereafter," .
"As far as the guidance for 2009/10 is concerned, I would like to take a conservative stand of 15-20 percent as of now," he said, adding this could be revisited in 2-3 months, depending on how some of the company's projects pan out.
The company is setting up a drug unit in China, expected to be ready by September, and three major customers have shown interest in getting products manufactured from this unit, Vyas said.
The company will spend about 1 billion rupees in all this year to beef up capacities, which include investments in the China unit and an onclogy bulk drugs making unit in Gujarat. Chief Financial Officer V.V.S. Murthy said on the call.
The company hopes to sustain operating margins of 25 percent in 2009/10, Murthy said.
Vyas said pharmaceuticals continued to be the company's primary focus and sought to allay investor apprehension that Dishman was moving toward real estate.
The company, which had planned to invest 5 billion rupees to set up two special economic zones (SEZ)--one for pharma and the other engineering -- has decided to sell its engineering SEZ, Vyas said.
"We have decided to do away with the engineering SEZ project. We intend to sell off our engineering SEZ as soon as possible."
Even in the pharma special economic zone, about 30-40 percent of the pharma SEZ was occupied by Dishman and this was only to protect the company's pharma interest, Vyas added.
No comments:
Post a Comment