(Reuters) – India’s GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals reported a higher adjusted third-quarter profit on Friday, led by sustained demand for its respiratory drugs and antibiotic Augmentin.
The Indian unit of British drugmaker GSK said its profit before exceptional items and tax jumped 35% to 3.08 billion rupees ($35.5 million) in the October-December quarter.
The company had an exceptional charge of 1.63 billion rupees in the year-ago period due to costs related to a one-time voluntary retirement scheme.
Its revenue from operations climbed 18% to 9.49 billion rupees in the third quarter.
For further results highlights, click.
KEY CONTEXT
GlaxoSmithKline Pharma has been benefitting from rising market share for its antibiotic Augmentin and respiratory drugs Nucala and Trelegy. Strong demand for its vaccine for shingles, Shingrix, has also boosted earnings, the company said.
These have also helped it mitigate the impact of pricing curbs on some of its drugs that have been added to the Indian government’s essential medicines list since September 2022.
Antibiotics and respiratory drugs are the company’s biggest segments.
PEER COMPARISON
Estimates (next 12 Analysts’ sentiment
months)
RIC PE EV/EBI Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div
TDA growth growth rating* analysts price yield
(%) (%) target** (%)
GlaxoSmithKline 35.20 25.68 9.65 19.80 Buy 4 0.71 1.60
Pharmaceuticals Ltd
Abbott India Ltd 39.95 31.54 10.44 13.75 Strong 4 0.87 1.45
Buy
Pfizer Ltd 26.84 20.52 8.38 12.98 Buy 3 0.70 0.84
Aurobindo Pharma 15.75 9.14 10.26 21.23 Buy 25 0.79 0.38
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
OCTOBER TO DECEMBER STOCK PERFORMANCE
— All data from LSEG
— $1 = 86.7920 Indian rupees
(Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru)
