ScinoPharm Taiwan Ltd (台灣神隆), which makes active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), said it expects adverse market conditions to continue to affect its business this year.
The company’s core business of exporting generic drugs has been hit by falling prices as a series of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) raised the bargaining power of US-based drug distributors through joint procurements, it said.
The company also said it expects continued headwinds from a stronger New Taiwan dollar, after sales last year declined 6 percent due to exchange-rate fluctuations.
ScinoPharm on Friday reported that net income last year fell 36 percent annually to NT$422 million (US$14.4 million), with sales dipping 13 percent to NT$3.52 billion.
Earnings per share were NT$0.53, it said.
The company’s clients have trimmed their orders for Paclitaxel, a chemotherapy for ovarian and breast cancer, amid an inventory correction, while shipments of other major generic drugs were delayed due to the replacement and integration of product lines and factories in the wake of M&As among clients, ScinoPharm said.
However, the company said that manufacturing contracts for newly approved antibiotics Baxdela and Vibativ helped offset some of the lost sales in generic drugs.
ScinoPharm said that its partnership with Baxter International Inc has begun to bear fruit as it expands into the generic oncology injectibles market.
The partnership with the US-based Baxter enables the companies to jointly develop formulations while sharing the risks and profits, ScinoPharm said.
Royalties from its anticoagulant Fondaparinux last year increased significantly from a year earlier, it added.
As for the operations of its Changshu plant in China’s Jiangsu Province, ScinoPharm said that the increase in the plant’s revenue contribution has not been as fast as expected due to the rapidly changing environmental safety and health-related laws in China.
The company will continue with its strategy of integrating niche APIs and venturing into formulation, chief executive officer Fred Chen (陳勇發) said in a statement.
In terms of product selection, the company aims to prioritize the distribution of vertically integrated injectables, including small molecule injections and peptide APIs, Chen said.
Regarding the contract research and manufacturing business, the company is seeking new projects in targeted therapy and orphan drugs that have shorter development cycles, he said.
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more
Protectionism: US trade chief Katherine Tai said the hikes would help to counter unfair trade practices from China, while boosting domestic clean energy investments US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) defended stiff tariff hikes against countries such as China, saying that paired with investment, they were a “legitimate and constructive” tool for reinvigorating domestic industries. Tai’s comments come a week after sharp tariff increases on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), EV batteries and solar cells took effect — with levies down the line on other products also recently finalized. The latest moves targeting US$18 billion in Chinese goods come weeks before next month’s US presidential election, with Democrats and Republicans pushing a hard line on China as competition between Washington and Beijing intensifies. In an interview on Thursday
RSS