Ranbaxy buy knocks Daiichi into loss

Daiichi Sankyo reported a loss for third quarter of its fiscal 2008 that was three times its profit in the same period of the year before, due to  the cost of the Japanese drug major's acquisition of a majority stake in  Indian generic firm Ranbaxy Laboratories (Marketletters passim).

The firm's net loss reached 297.83 billion yen ($3.3 billion), or 419.59  yen loss per share, versus a profit of 96.42 billion yen, or 133.47 yen  per share. Sales were also down, 10% to 627.62 billion yen.

Japanese revenue fell 12% to 417.0 billion yen, following National  Health Insurance drug price revisions, whereas North American sales were  up 1% to 141.8 billion yen, despite negative foreign exchange affects.  European turnover fell 14% to 51.6 billion yen, primarily due to the  change in the company's fiscal year end in the region. Sales in the rest  of the world fell 16% to 16.9 billion yen.