India's Hester Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company manufacturing poultry vaccines, has reported a 16.2% increase in net profits to Rs51.5m ($1.3m) for the year ended March 31st 2007. This is despite facing growth "restrictions" which have already reached 100% of production capacity, it says. Sales increased to Rs218.3m compared with Rs201.4m in the previous year. Hester said that a thrust on "technical" aspects, offering disease monitoring services to clients, conducting technical seminars on vaccination and disease control methods, and an increased reach in the Indian market contributed to sales growth. The company's sales team has expanded from 15 to 20 personnel in 2006-07. However, the company believes that these factors would have led to higher growth had it not faced the "limitation" of having already reach 100% capacity. Rajiv Gandhi, Hester's chief executive and managing director, said that the company was not in a position to execute orders because of its inability to produce more quantities. "Our capacity was 1.2 billion doses. The expanded capacity which was to have gone on stream in December-January 2007, got delayed till March 2007, which resulted in a loss of orders," Mr Gandhi told Animal Pharm. The expanded capacity (an increase from 1.2 billion doses to 4.8 billion doses) which went on stream in March 2007 is expected to boost performance in the current financial year. Hester also plans to increase its thrust on exports starting from the second quarter, as production capacity "would not be an issue hereon", Mr Gandhi added. Licensing greements |
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