India's Sun Pharma reports quarterly loss after one-off charge

[BENGALURU] India's largest drugmaker Sun Pharmaceutical Industries reported a surprise loss in the first quarter after it was hit by a one-off charge related to the settlement of an antitrust case in the United States.

The net loss was 4.25 billion rupees (S$90.3 million) in the three months ending on June 30, compared with a profit of 20.34 billion rupees a year earlier, the Mumbai-based company said on Friday.

The world's fifth-largest generic drugs maker company said it incurred a charge of 9.51 billion rupees related to settlements with certain plaintiffs in an antitrust case in the United States over Modafinil, a sleep disorder treatment.

Excluding one-off items, its adjusted net profit fell 74 per cent to 5.26 billion rupees. However, analysts on average had expected Sun Pharma to report profit of 11.80 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The results were announced after the market close. Sun's shares had earlier closed down 2.3 per cent at 450 rupees, their lowest since April 17, 2013.

The company said sales in the United States, its biggest market, fell 42 per cent to US$351 million, reflecting the impact of regulatory warnings and bans at plants over quality control issues the company has struggled to resolve.

"Our Q1 performance was not good ... due to the combined impact of increasing investments in our global specialty business, temporary disruption in our India business due to GST implementation, a challenging US generic pricing environment and the Modafinil settlement," managing director Dilip Shanghvi said.

The Indian government recently launched the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to replace dozens of federal and state levies in a bid to transform the country into a common market.

The company expects its performance to gradually improve in the second half of the year, Mr Shanghvi said.

REUTERS