Panacea Biotec sales from vaccines stood at Rs1050.4mn which is a growth of 15.5% YoY and a 13.1% QoQ decline. Despite delays due to programmatic changes in Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), supplies have begun and the inventory at the company’s end is being reduced. Expect contribution from vaccines segment to increase substantially by Q4, as Pbio shall begin servicing its new UNICEF order for its Pentavalent EasyFive vaccine worth $222.4mn for supplies over 2010-12 from January 2010.
The management re-iterates that a vaccine to combat Swine flu is the offing and could be ready by the end of the current fiscal. In India, only 2 other company besides Pbio, viz Serum Institute and Bharat Biotec have received the virus strain for H1N1 flu from the UK-based National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, for development of the vaccine.
The company has a huge debt of debt of about Rs7.4bn weighing on the stock price.