Healing Lupin
It has been a subdued golden jubilee for Lupin Ltd, and not only because founder Deshbandhu Gupta did not live to see it, having passed away last year, but also because the company stumbled in 2017/18, posting a net loss of Rs 774 crore in the last quarter.
Over a dramatic 12 years starting 2005, it had raced ahead of peers to become India's second largest in pharma (after Sun Pharmaceuticals) in 2016/17, and the eighth biggest generic drug maker in the world. But in 2017/18, all its key financial indices took a hit net sales, which had risen 24.4 per cent in 2016/17 over the previous year to reach Rs 17,119 crore, fell to Rs 15,559 crore, while net profit, which had risen 13 per cent to touch Rs 2,557 crore in 2016/17 was down to just Rs 251 crore.
Sales in North America, the US in particular, contribute heavily to Lupin's revenue (as they do for all leading Indian pharma companies). In 2017/18, North American sales dropped 28.7 per cent to Rs 5,893.9 crore against Rs 8,262.7 crore the previous year, while the US's contribution to overall sales declined to 38 per cent from 45 per cent three years ago. It has since dropped further to
