Call it too much of a good thing. India's Dr. Reddy's Laboratories hit the U.S. market last year with a copycat version of Eli Lilly's ($LLY) Zyprexa and 6 months of exclusivity. But now, it is feeling the hangover and had to report a miserable quarter by comparison.
India's second-largest generics maker says its third-quarter earnings were off more than 25%, The Associated Press reports. The company is one of the fastest-growing generics companies, and deals like the Zyprexa launch are one reason.
Dr. Reddy's and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries ($TEVA) were the first companies to market with Zyprexa in the U.S. That helped it pump up its profit picture last year by 87% for the third quarter. Sales of the antipsychotic doubled in that quarter to $242 million. And so the most recent report pales by comparison. Still, sales were up 3% to $522 million.
Because of its position at home in India, Dr. Reddy's has been able to attract marquee partners such as GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK). The two companies teamed up in 2009 in a deal that offered Glaxo access to Dr. Reddy's portfolio of approved and pipeline products--more than 100 branded generics in all. It has a partnership with Fuji in Japan, and last year it scored a deal to develop biosimilars with Merck Serono. But not everything has gone smoothly. It disclosed last year that in September the FDA made it recall a batch of its generic of AstraZeneca's ($AZN) schizophrenia blockbuster Seroquel over some stability questions.
- read the AP story
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