INDIA – Due to the onset of the corona virus pandemic globally, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories expects its business growth to be volatile in the current fiscal year according to its financial report.

The drug company also noted that despite this setback caused by various challenges within the market, they are optimistic to have a satisfactory performance owing to the fact that they have sufficient growth levers to deliver on its business growth.

For the 2020-21 fiscal year, the company posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 1,952 crore (US$262.8M) against Rs 2,026 crore (US$272.7M) in 2019-20.

The drug maker noted that it remained focused on improving market share position and continued its journey towards creating a leaner business model, leveraging productivity improvement, cost control and increased efficiencies across several functions in FY2021.

“Simultaneously, we are committed to investing in business to make it even more competitive and future ready, especially through investments in digitalization, development of complex products and biosimilars and strengthening of sales and marketing activities in branded markets,” it said.

These initiatives will continue in the current fiscal as well, and thus provide necessary impetus to the company’s performance in future years, Dr Reddy’s stated.

“Within manufacturing, we are building ‘Digital Lighthouse’ plants to increase plant productivity. These initiatives have markedly reduced Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) and per pack costs,” it added.

By scaling up the robotic process automation (RPA) as well as having digitalized processes, higher productivity will be achieved with automated incident tracking and near zero manual errors.

Elaborating on its focus on the pandemic, the drug maker noted that it is working on various medications like Molnupiravir and Baricitinib for the treatment of COVID-19.

The company has already launched Sputnik V in May this year after having received emergency use approval from the government in April.

Dr Reddy’s focuses on several therapeutic areas such as gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, diabetology, oncology, pain management and dermatology and operates in major markets like – USA, India, Russia, and Europe.

Currently, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories expects to launch 25 products in the US market in the current financial year.

As of March 31, 2020, the company had 99 cumulative filings pending for approval with the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), including two new drug approvals.