The head of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd said he is planning to expand sales in the crucial US market, despite extra oversight from American regulators over quality questions that have blocked imports of 31 of its medicines.

Ranbaxy, which almost exclusively makes generic pills, is aiming to be first on the US market with just-approved generic drugs, the CEO, Mr Arun Sawhney, told The Associated Press in an interview on Monday.

His goal is to nab the six-month “windfall” period when there’s usually only one generic version on sale, for roughly 25 per cent less than the price of the brand-name drug whose patent just ended.

Companies can make millions of dollars in such a case, as Ranbaxy just did in selling the first generic pill-rival to cholesterol blockbuster Lipitor, whose US patent expired on November 30.

After that half-year stretch, five or more generic versions of the brand-name drug hit the market and prices plunge 90 per cent or more. That leaves razor-thin profit margins for all the competing generic companies, Mr Sawhney said, joking about the difference between brand-name and generic drug companies.

“They make profits. We make drugs,” said Mr Sawhney, who became CEO in August 2011.

Discussing his plans during a visit to Ranbaxy’s US headquarters in central New Jersey, Mr Sawhney noted his company has just launched a malaria treatment called Synriam.

Mr Sawhney is hoping to sell some brand-name drugs in the US eventually and plans in about six months to start selling a recently approved generic version of acne drug Accutane. “The US, as a total business, will remain the most important to us,” he said.

Ranbaxy, the top-selling pharmaceutical company in India, is just the 12{+t}{+h} largest generic drugmaker in the US by number of prescriptions filled. But in just a few years, its US sales have risen from about a quarter to a third of its total revenue, which was about $ 2.1 billion last year.

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