Aug 26 (Reuters) – China’s Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group, a Roche partner, reported a near 36% rise in first-half profit on Wednesday, driven by strong growth in sales of innovative medicines and higher investment income.
The oncology and metabolic disease specialist posted net profit attributable of 4.26 billion yuan ($633.90 million) for the six months ended June 30, from 3.13 billion yuan in the year-ago period, beating an HSBC Qianhai Securities forecast of about 2.9 billion yuan net income.
Hansoh said growth in profit was mainly due to increased sales of innovative medicines and a rise in other income.
Drugmakers in China are expanding licensing deals and developing innovative medicines amid Beijing’s centralized bulk buying programmes, which have squeezed their revenues.
Hansoh has more than 70 clinical trials of innovative medicines underway as of last year, according to its annual report.
Other income more than doubled to 1.32 billion yuan, aided by gains from an unlisted equity investment held through life-science venture capital funds.
Hansoh declared an interim dividend of HK$0.285 ($0.0364) per share, up from HK$0.2316 a year earlier.
Revenue from innovative medicines rose 15.4% to 7.09 billion yuan. This accounted for 85.4% of total revenue, up from about 82.7% a year earlier, underscoring the company’s shift toward higher-value proprietary drugs.
($1 = 6.7203 Chinese yuan renminbi)
($1 = 7.8385 Hong Kong dollars)
(Reporting by Roshan Thomas, Jasmeen Ara Shaikh in Bengaluru and Andrew Silver in Shanghai; Editing by Ronojoy Mazumdar and Diti Pujara)
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