ScinoPharm Taiwan (台灣神隆), a leading active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) maker, yesterday announced that its profit rose 131 percent annually last quarter compared, driven by two new products.
ScinoPharm’s net profit was NT$406 million (US$13.5 million) in the April-to-June quarter, compared with NT$176 million in the same period last year, it said.
Last quarter’s figure was up 16 percent from NT$350 million the previous quarter, the firm said.
“Our new products — Qsymia and Viibryd — helped us increase our sales last quarter, while maintaining our gross margin and profit margin at 54 percent and 30 percent respectively,” ScinoPharm chief financial officer Patricia Chou (周珮芬) said at an investors’ conference yesterday.
Qsymia is a drug for chronic weight gain management, while Viibryd is an antidepressant, according to the company.
Revenue rose to NT$1.34 billion last quarter, up 13 percent from NT$1.19 billion a quarter ago and up 47 percent annually from NT$913 million, ScinoPharm said.
Daiwa Capital Markets analyst Christine Wang (王琦清) said in a statement yesterday that the pharmaceutical firm’s profit for last quater was 31 percent above analysts’ consensus estimate.
However, the company was still cautious about its outlook for the second half of the year.
“Our shipments this year were concentrated more in the first half, and it is unlikely that we will be able to repeat the strong performance of those first six months in the second half,” ScinoPharm president and chief executive Jo Shen (馬海怡) said.
Meanwhile, the company said it is planning to expand its sales in China and Japan this year, eyeing the growing API markets in both countries. The company expects its sales in Japan to increase to US$10 million this year from US$5.43 million last year.
That is because the company sees bigger growth potential there in view of the Japanese government’s decision to use more generic drugs and fewer new drugs developed by Japanese companies in a bid to save on national healthcare spending.
ScinoPharm also announced that it had formed a partnership with China-based Sundia MediTech Company Ltd (桑迪亞), a contract research organization, as part of the company’s efforts to offer a complete range of services from drug research to API manufacturing to its clients.
ScinoPharm shares declined 3.77 percent to NT$84.2 yesterday, underperforming the TAIEX, which was down 1.46 percent.
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