Important drug makers pull on bigger profits
Bangladesh's leading listed pharmaceutical corporations have bagged higher earnings in the first fifty percent of the existing financial year which started out in July 2020, a result of people starting to see doctors again.
Despite the November to January period being truly a slow season from the usual business perspective, there is a year-on-year jump in earnings growth in the half a year.
Gains rose for all six drug makers who have published their financial studies.
For Square Pharmaceuticals, it had been 12.79 % to Tk 776 crore. It had as well witnessed higher gains in the preceding half a year amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The drug maker's profit was 31 per cent of its turnover previously six months till December. It had been 28 % in fiscal 2019-20 and 27 % in the entire year before.
With doctor's practices beginning and patients needs to come over, pharmaceutical companies are doing well, said M Mohibuz Zaman, chief operating officer of ACI Pharmaceuticals.
ACI Pharmaceuticals does its organization at a standard growth rate and within the last half season it was 9 %, he said.
Despite business cycle tending to be slow in the October to January period, the pharmaceutical companies did well this year, he said.
Simply because many patients refrained from exceeding to the doctors' chambers through the first couple of months of the pandemic, Zaman said, adding that the December to January period undergoes a massive business slowdown for the drug makers.
Due to it being the frigid period and harvesting period, persons cut back on likely to the doctors, he clarified.
Md Jubayer Alam, enterprise secretary of Renata, echoed the same, saying that doctors hadn't promptly started working their practices soon after the general leave was lifted towards the end of May.
Their medical facilities started running full-fledged in the second half of the year and demand for medicine jumped up, he said.
"That is natural," he added.
Pharmaceutical business goes slightly gradual in the October-December period which is a trend, Alam said. On the other hand, the earnings rose this season for a higher occurrence of folks in doctors' methods, he added.
Renata's profit grew by 15 % to Tk 241 crore within the last half of 2020 when compared to same period the prior year.
Beximco Pharmaceuticals' revenue rose 29 % to Tk 222 crore while for Acme Laboratories it had been 2.59 % higher to Tk 79 crore.
Earnings of Ibn Sina grew 9.6 % to Tk 25 crore.
The ACI has various subsidiaries including ACI Pharmaceuticals. It witnessed profits in the first fifty percent of the existing financial season after incurring losses in the last half year because of a fall in net finance costs.
The conglomerate booked profits of Tk 16 crore within the last July to December period although it incurred a loss of Tk 81.87 crore in the same period the prior year.
"Our pharmaceuticals segment was rewarding though the group witnessed some losses in the latest quarter," said Pradip Kar Chowdhury, chief financial officer of ACI.
The pharmaceutical company witnessed normal growth within the last half a year, he said adding the group booked profits for mainly three reasons.
One of them is leaner financing costs, which resulted from a good decrease in interest in the banking sector, he said.
Its net financing costs dropped 19.5 per cent to Tk 179.36 crore.
"Cost control and bigger sales also influenced our revenue," he said.
The company's earnings rose 11.71 per cent to Tk 3,737 crore in the first 50 % of the financial year.
"The higher sales is because motivational steps simply because we didn't lower salaries but instead increased them," Chowdhury added.
