The stock dropped 4.80 per cent to settle at Rs 3,336.30 on BSE
The shares of Dr Reddy's Laboratories plunged close to 15 per cent on the domestic bourses after the company received warnings from the US Foods and Drug Administration (FDA).
Hyderabad: A US court has temporarily banned Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, India’s second-largest drugmaker by sales, from selling its heartburn drug Nexium after AstraZeneca, the patent holder, objected to the use of purple colour in the generic.
In a statement to BSE on Tuesday, the company said it “has been aware of an order passed by the District of Delaware, USA, granting a Temporary Restraining Order, with immediate effect on sales, delivery, transfer, or other deposition of its generic esomeprazole product in the US market.”
The order, the company said, came about as a result of a motion moved by AstraZeneca objecting to the usage of the colour purple in the said product. AstraZeneca argued that the purple pills (Prilosec and nexium) have been famous for many years through its extensive advertising both to doctors and patients, industry-leading commercial success, and extensive publicity, among other reasons.
DRl launched Nexium in September after weeks of delay, as it had to shift production to a different plant after the US Food and Drug Administration found quality control lapses at the original site.
Nexium raked in about $1.93 billion in sales for AstraZeneca in the nine months to September 2015. According to analyst note in September, the drug was expected to add about $25 to $35 million to Dr Reddy’s fiscal 2016 profit after tax.
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( Source : deccan chronicle/agencies )
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