Ranbaxy's fourth quarter performance has got a booster shot from the launch of generic Lipitor in December. While the exact sales from the generic wasn't made available, the company seems to have done well despite competition. From low single-digit market share in the first week of December, the company now enjoys a share of about 42 per cent (ahead of Pfizer and Watson). With the company having demonstrated that it can retain significant market share in some of its earlier launches, it can be expected to remain a dominant player post loss of exclusivity in generic Lipitor too.

Sales from North America, pegged at about Rs 1,967 crore, accounted for over 60 per cent of its sales outside India during the quarter. It also capitalised on Caduet as an authorised generic during the quarter.

Mixed bag

Ranbaxy's performance across other geographies, however, was a mixed bag. While Africa saw 18 per cent growth in sales, Asia Pacific and Europe reported flat numbers. CIS, driven by Russia reported a 9 per cent de-growth, while India growth, at 8 per cent, came in lower due to the slowdown in anti-infectives. Latin America sales fell about 33 per cent.

During the quarter, ten regulatory agencies from various countries including the USFDA inspected its API and Dosage Form facilities and over the year, 42 inspections were conducted by 18 different regulatory inspection agencies.

Outlook

While the company's outlook to a great extent would depend on how quickly and effectively it manages to resolve its ongoing issues with the USFDA, it has guided towards a base case sales of $2.2 billion (growth of 10 per cent) for 2012. This is without taking any upside from FTF (first to file) exclusivity launched during the year into account; generic Lipitor is expected to contribute to base business even after the exclusivity period.

Also, while the consent decree had put Ranbaxy's FTF status on three products in jeopardy, the management doesn't expect a significant impact on its results because of that. This brings some reprieve as the company has several significant FTFs in its pipeline.

>srividhya.sivakumar@thehindu.co.in

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