From correspondents in Maharashtra, India, 08:52 PM IST

Hikal Ltd, the preferred long-term outsourcing partner for leading global life sciences companies, today declared impressive results for the first quarter ended 30th June, 2008. The company posted net sales of Rs. 91.9 crore witnessing a growth of 63% as compared to the first quarter of 2007.

· The net sales are up by 63% to Rs. 91.9 crore compared to net sales of Rs. 56.2 crore in the corresponding quarter of the last year.

· PAT has risen by 23% to Rs 10.7 crore from Rs.8.7 crore the same quarter last year even after providing for Rs. 5.03 crore for foreign currency fluctuations.

· Registering an impressive growth of 145%, the pharma sales have risen to Rs. 60.1 crore in the first quarter of 2008 as against Rs. 24.5 crore in the previous year.

· The EBIDTA for this quarter stood at Rs. 24.8 crore, an increase of 36.2% as compared to Rs 18.2 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Commenting on the results, Mr. Jai Hiremath, Vice Chairman & Managing Director of Hikal Ltd., said, “The long-term contracts signed earlier with leading global life sciences companies is now resulting in increased pharma sales. We expect this trend to continue as a number of our projects will go on stream in the coming quarters.”

Earlier this month, IFC, a member of the World Bank group, agreed to invest US$ 15 million in Hikal by way of equity. Hikal also announced the inauguration of a new multi-purpose agrochemical plant at Taloja for supply of Active Ingredients for Crop Protection Products to Bayer CropScience AG.

Source: Press Release Distribution via India PRwire