Abbott India’s quarterly profit climbs 28% on strong demand

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(Reuters) -Drugmaker Abbott India reported a 28% rise in fourth-quarter profit on Thursday, helped by strong demand for its gastrointestinal and anti-infective medications.

The company, known for its PediaSure nutrition drink, reported a profit of 3.67 billion rupees ($43 million) for the quarter ended March 31, up from 2.87 billion rupees a year ago.

Revenue from operations climbed 11.5% to 16.05 billion rupees.

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KEY CONTEXT

Anti-diabetic, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal drugs, which form a major chunk of Abbott India’s drugs portfolio, saw the highest demand during the quarter, Elara Capital said.

Moreover, strong demand for Rybelsus, the oral version of Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster weight-loss drug semaglutide distributed by Abbott in India, also boosted sales, analysts said.

Peer JB Chem and Pharma also reported higher quarterly profit on strong demand for its gastrointestinal drugs.

PEER COMPARISON

Estimates (next 12 Analysts’ sentiment

months)

RIC PE EV/EBI Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div

TDA growth (%) growth rating* analyst price yield

(%) s target** (%)

Abbott India Ltd 40.87 32.03 7.38 12.64 Strong 5 0.91 1.35

Buy

GlaxoSmithKline 48.46 34.33 9.49 12.37 Buy 4 0.94 1.46

Pharmaceuticals

Ltd

Torrent 42.87 25.10 13.07 31.20 Hold 24 0.92 0.99

Pharmaceuticals

Ltd

J B Chemicals 31.47 19.86 12.65 20.58 Buy 11 0.77 0.76

and

Pharmaceuticals

Ltd

* Mean of analysts’ ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell ** Ratio of the stock’s last close to analysts’ mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT

JANUARY TO MARCH STOCK PERFORMANCE

— All data from LSEG

— $1 = 85.4620 Indian rupees

(Reporting by Kashish Tandon and Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)