India's Dr Reddy's posts unexpected 3rd-qtr loss, revises forecasts

India's second largest drugmaker Dr Reddy's Laboratories surprised investors yesterday, by announced that it had incurred a loss in its fiscal 2010 year third quarter ending December 31, 2009, and the firm's chief executive, GV Prasad warned that the company expected to post a "low single digit" revenue growth in the fiscal year that ends in March, down from its previous forecast of 10% growth over the previous year.

Consolidated revenues for the reporting period came in at 17.3 billion rupees ($373 million) against 18.4 billion rupees in third-quarter FY2009, representing a decline of 6%. Excluding revenues from sumatriptan in the previous year, the 17% growth was largely driven by the key markets of India and Russia in Global Generics and PSAI. Consolidated revenues for nine months to end December were up 9% at 53.9 billion rupees.

EBITDA was 3.7 billion rupees in the three month period and for nine months it reached 11.8 billion rupees, representing year on year growth of 31%.