Panacea Biotec, the second largest vaccine producer in India, has achieved better performance during the third quarter ended December 2007 despite rupee appreciation and lower other income. The company\'s net profit improved by 6.8 per cent to Rs 28.93 crore from Rs 27.10 crore in the similar period of last year. Its net sales increased by 14.8 per cent to Rs 226.35 crore from Rs 197.12 crore. With small rise in equity capital, the earning per share worked out to Rs 4.39 as against Rs 4.50 in the last period.

The company\'s vaccines sales increased by 17.6 per cent during the quarter ended to Rs 177.42 crore from Rs 150.92 crore and that of formulation went up by 3.6 per cent to Rs 49.84 crore from Rs 48.12 crore.

Rajesh Jain, joint managing director, said, \"With a well defined three pronged strategy for currency hedging, volume and price growth, we have been able to successfully manage the challenge posed by the continuously appreciating Indian rupee, faced by all the companies\".

For the first nine months of the year 2007-08, Panacea\'s net sales increased by 5 per cent to Rs 634.92 crore as against Rs 604.78 crore in the previous period. However, its net profit declined by 12.3 per cent to Rs 108.25 crore from Rs 123.39 crore basically due to higher depreciation and other expenses, including R&D expenditure. The vaccines sales for the first nine months increased marginally by 2.4 per cent to Rs 486.23 crore from Rs 475.06 crore and its formulations sales increased by 13.9 per cent to Rs 150.65 crore from Rs 132.28 crore.

The company has entered into a MoU with Punjab University, Chandigarh for a Drug Discovery Project. Panacea and Punjab University will collaborate to identify a lead molecule with an aim o bring a drug superior to existing marketed products in the therapeutic area of psychiatric disorders. As per the agreement the university would transfer chemical and biological information on molecules to Panacea to develop as drugs.