Cheap Drugs Pay for Aurobindo as U.S. FDA Approvals Surge
- Product approvals outnumber those of Sun, Lupin, Dr. Reddy’s
- Low-cost model buffers Aurobindo’s sales from price erosion
While India’s largest pharmaceutical companies have seen drug approvals in the U.S. slow overall, their research and development spending has been on a run. Not so for Aurobindo Pharma Ltd.
Quarter after quarter, Hyderabad-based Aurobindo has not only had more products approved for sale by the Food and Drug Administration than its largest Indian peers, but the number has often totaled more than that of its biggest three local rivals combined, according to FDA data analyzed by Bloomberg. Aurobindo, which started out three decades ago making penicillin, is achieving this with an R&D budget that’s half to a third the size of those same competitors, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Last quarter Aurobindo spent about $25 million on R&D and posted revenue of about $560 million, while Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd., which also exports to the U.S., spent about $79 million in research costs and logged $510 million in sales, according to company filings.