Drugmaker Abbott India's Q1 profit climbs on higher sales, price hikes

BENGALURU (Reuters) - Drugmaker Abbott India reported a rise in first-quarter profit on Wednesday, helped by higher sales and price hikes.

The company, which makes the popular antacid medicine Digene, said its profit rose to 3.28 billion rupees ($39.1 million) for the quarter ended June 30, a 13% rise from last year.

Its revenue from operations gained 5.3% to 15.58 billion rupees, the company said.

KEY CONTEXT

Drugmakers such as Abbott India and rival GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, which get most of their revenue from India, have hiked prices of certain drugs not included in the Indian government's price-capped 'essential medicines list' in order to drive up margins, according to analysts.

These drugmakers have been benefitting from strong demand, both in the Indian and overseas markets. New product launches have also boosted sales.

GlaxoSmithKline Pharma reported a higher June-quarter profit, driven by strong demand of its generic drugs and vaccines.

PEER COMPARISON

Estimates (next 12 Analysts' sentiment

months)

RIC PE EV/EBI Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div

TDA growth (%) growth rating* analyst price yield

(%) s target** (%)

Abbott India 42.66 33.03 10.68 12.84 Strong 4 0.96 1.46

Buy

GlaxoSmithKline 54.72 39.95 9.49 49.00 Buy 4 1.02 1.16

Pharmaceuticals

Pfizer 37.69 30.10 6.89 15.31 Buy 3 1.09 0.63

Aurobindo Pharma 20.36 11.58 9.20 15.70 Buy 25 1.07 0.32

* The mean of analyst ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell

** The ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT

APRIL-JUNE STOCK PERFORMANCE

-- All data from LSEG

-- $1 = 83.9200 Indian rupees

(Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman Mrigank Dhaniwala)