Drug-maker Lupin’s next-generation have been appointed to the drivers seat. The board of directors has approved the appointment of Vinita Gupta as Chief Executive Officer and Nilesh Gupta as Managing Director from September.
Vinita and Nilesh are children of D.B. Gupta, Lupin’s Founder and Chairman. The company’s present Managing Director Kamal K. Sharma, moves up as Vice-Chairman.
The appointment of the promoter-family’s children to the top job, comes even as the company earlier faced speculation of being in talks with foreign companies, possibly for a sale. The company, though, had denied any such move.
Thankfully those talks have died, Nilesh Gupta told
The company’s task now was to take “an already high performing company to the next level,” said Nilesh.
“There are parts of the global puzzle that are missing, like Latin America, or China where we are not present, or Russia (where we have a small presence),” he said, besides a renewed look at the India market.
High performance
Lupin’s net profits grew by 162 percent to Rs 408 crore for the three months ended March 31, 2013, from Rs 155 crore in the corresponding period last year. The quarter saw the highest-growth ever because, the previous year was low and the product mix over the last 15 months has seen high performance products delivering, said Nilesh.
For the year ended March 2013, Lupin net profit grew about 52 per cent to Rs 1,314 crore, up from Rs 867 crore in the corresponding period last year.
Net sales grew 34 per cent to Rs 2,537 crore during the fourth quarter ended March 2013, compared with Rs 1,883 crore in the corresponding period last year. The year saw net sales up 36 per cent to Rs 9,461 crore, from Rs 6,959 crore.
The company’s US and Europe medicine sales (including intellectual property) grew 47 per cent to Rs 4,005 crore during FY 2012-13 against Rs 2,727 crore in FY 2011-12, contributing 42 per cent to overall sales.
The India business segment contributed 22 per cent to the overall revenues for the quarter. The segment grew 43 per cent recording net revenues of Rs 565 crore during the quarter under review, compared with Rs 396 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.
The company spent Rs 199 crore, or 7.9 per cent of net sales on research and development against Rs 136 crore, 7.2 per cent of net sales in Q4 FY 2011-12. The annual research spending was at 7.5 per cent of net sales.