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Stocks of major pharmaceutical companies are seen gaining next week after making losses this week due to disappointing Jan-Mar earnings, cautious investor sentiment, and a number of them hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Post results, stocks of Cipla are seen rebounding next week after they fell this quarter. Cipla disappointed the Street on Wednesday, as a lower-than-expected growth in revenues from both domestic and overseas markets and an unexpected fall in operating margins dragged its Jan-Mar net profit down. The Mumbai-based drug maker reported a net profit of 2.67 bln rupees for the quarter ended March, 8.3% lower than a year ago. The company's operating margins shrunk to 20.7% from 21.1%. Stocks of companies such as Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries and Lupin, which fell this week, are also seen gaining next week. Talking about Ranbaxy Laboratories, the stock is seen under pressure next week. The company has become a topic of discussion since it pleaded guilty in the US and agreed to pay $500-mln penalty to the US government to settle criminal and civil lawsuits that had leveled charges of falsifying data from its drug facilities. Following this, the company's Japanese parent, Daiichi Sankyo, claimed that certain former shareholders of Ranbaxy concealed and misrepresented critical information concerning the US DOJ (Department of Justice) and FDA (Food and Drug Administration). Refuting this charge, Malvinder Singh, the former CEO of Ranbaxy said nothing was kept away from Daiichi Sankyo. It was they who approached us to buy the company; there were proper due diligence, long dialogue, all papers relating to US DOJ and FDA was shown to them.
