Mumbai, Apr 29: Country’s top drug maker Ranbaxy Laboratories said on Tuesday its first-quarter net profit nearly tripled on booming exports of generic drugs to the United States. Ranbaxy reported its January-March global net profit rose to Rs 173 crore ($36.5 million) from Rs 97.7 crore a year earlier. It said global sales in its first quarter totalled $233 million, up from $151 million a year earlier.
The New Delhi-based firm, which earns more from exports than from domestic sales, started selling generic versions of Roche's anti-acne drug Accutane and GlaxoSmithKline's antibiotic Augmentin in the key US market during the quarter.
It has also registered strong sales of a generic version of the antibiotic Ceftin in the past 12 months in the US where it is the sole seller besides GlaxoSmithKline . But analysts expect competition from other copycats will come soon.

Ranbaxy and other Indian drug companies such as Dr. Reddy's Laboratories and Cipla Ltd have been riding high on copycat versions of drugs going off patent. Dr. Reddy's by contrast is expected to report lower quarterly results as it lacked new blockbuster drugs in the past quarters.
Bureau Report