India's Dr Reddy's fiscal 2010 returns to profitability

India's second largest drugmaker, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, reported consolidated net sales over Rs 70.3 billion rupees ($1.6 billion),for the year ended March 2010, a modest increase of 1% on the previous fiscal year, and posted pretax profit of 2.05 billion rupees, compared with a net loss of just under 4 billion rupees the year before.

The company reported a net profit of 1.7 billion rupees ($37 million) in the quarter to March, compared with a loss of 9.8 billion rupees in the year-ago period, but still below consensus expectations. Revenues for the fourth-quarter amounted to 16.4 billion rupees, also less than analysts' projections of 17.5 billion rupees.

Excluding revenues from authorized generic sales of sumatriptan, turnover growth was 9%, largely driven by the Branded Generics segment of Global Generics. Revenues from Global Generics for the year were 48.6 billion rupees, representing a marginal decline of 2% over previous year.