The company is demerging its new chemical entity research unit into a separate company to meet the demands of increased spend on research and development, and to insulate investors from the risks involved. According to the deal signed with Merck, NPIL will discover and develop new drugs for two selected targets provided by Merck in the area of cancer.
Generic drug sales in the US, that power the business of such leading Indian drug manufacturers as Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy's, Sun Pharma, Lupin and Zydus Cadila, will face competition soon, as big US wholesalers decide to outsource their requirements from upcoming Indian manufacturers.
In the first 10 months of CY07, Indian firms received orders worth Rs 128,147 crore.
NPIL had announced that it would team up with the French company to develop a drug for the epidemic about six months ago, following the spread of the disease, mainly in southern India and Maharashtra in the last two years. Currently, drugs are not available to effectively treat the disease and doctors in the country administer viral disease drugs such as paracetamol and other anti-biotics to check the infection.
India's largest biotechnology company Biocon is planning to tap the potential of biosimilars (generics or copycat versions of biotech drugs going off patent) in the regulated markets of the US and Europe, besides taking Insugen, its own version of insulin, to the global markets in a big way.
The incessant rise of the rupee, which has dented the bottom line of export-oriented companies, has another side to it. With the Indian currency's value against the dollar moving from 44 on March 30 this year to under 40 now, a bunch of companies have received a boost. The corporate results of the second quarter make a telling revelation. As the rupee rose 10 per cent against the dollar, net import-based companies reported nearly 36 per cent growth in net profit.
Second-quarter corporate results show a significant slowdown in sales and profit growth.
The lower sales growth rate is on account of single-digit growth in sales by Reliance Industries (6.3 per cent), Reliance Energy (9.53 per cent), Hero Honda (5.48 per cent) and Biocon (7.52 per cent). Companies that posted a decline in sales included two-wheeler giant Bajaj Auto (- 3.03 per cent), pharmaceutical major Ranbaxy (-4.79 per cent) and Madras Aluminium (-11.13 per cent).
The country's two ubiquitous financial powerhouses, HDFC and ICICI Bank, have been the darling of participatory notes, the instrument through which overseas investors invest indirectly - through foreign institutional investors - in India's stock market. Among the stocks comprising Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensitive Index and National Stock Exchange's S&P Nifty, HDFC has the highest P-Notes holding in value, 14.2 per cent, followed by ICICI Bank's 9.1 per cent.
Analysts expect that Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications (RCom) and Idea Cellular will post over 50 per cent annual growth in revenues (year-on-year) and more than 10 per cent sequential growth (over the previous quarter). Bharti continues to lead in the subscriber addition race (2.1 million in August).
Analysts at stock broking houses Motilal Oswal, Religare Securities, IL&FS Investsmart and Sharekhan say that while Maruti Udyog is doing well, the other biggies Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra would have weak single-digit performances that could lead to a decline in net profit.
India is the fourth largest manufacturer of pharmaceutical products in the world and the 12th largest in value terms. India could emerge as the second largest producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), next to China, within two to five years, overtaking Italy, according to various estimates.
Four L&T executives, 2 from RIL and 1 from Tech Mahindra own over Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) each in stock options.
ONGC Videsh (OVL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), is eyeing more gas fields in Libya.
Sectors that are insulated from the sub-prime mortgage crisis unfolding in the US are the heavyweights in Indian stock indices. In comparison, sectors like information technology and pharmaceuticals, which depend a lot on the US market, carry less we
However, the income profile shows a classical pyramid-shaped society with only 600,000 households earning above Rs 18 lakh per annum, according to the Mr and Mrs India survey by brokerage firm CLSA Asia Pacific Markets.
Rohm and Haas, one of the largest speciality material manufacturers in the world, plans to invest $100 million (about Rs 410 crore) in India to develop manufacturing and research and development facilities.
According to senior RIL executives, more than half the work has been completed on the pipeline, which will transport gas from the KG basin to the RIL refinery at Jamnagar.
The seven-day non-stop rally has recouped 75 per cent of the market capitalisation eroded during the preceding free fall as seven in every 10 stocks traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange staged a recovery (BSE).
A study by a Swedish University has accused India's Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) manufacturers of causing alarming levels of environmental pollution and threatening the region's flora and fauna.
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