Drugmaker Abbott India's Q3 profit rises on strong demand

BENGALURU, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Pharmaceutical firm Abbott India reported a 26% rise in third-quarter profit on Thursday, as higher sales outpaced the impact of a pricing cap on certain medicines.

The company, which makes popular antacid medicine Digene, said its profit rose to 3.11 billion rupees ($37.5 million) from 2.47 billion rupees a year earlier.

Revenues of drugmakers such as Abbott India, which get most of their business from India, continued to be affected during the quarter as some of their key drugs were included in the government's essential medicines list in September 2022, making them susceptible to price caps.

This was also highlighted by GlaxoSmithKline Pharma in its previous earnings.

Abbott, which is a unit of U.S. healthcare firm Abbott Laboratories, has been trying to mitigate the impact of pricing curbs by driving up sales and cutting back on expenses.

The company, which makes drugs including hypothyroidism treatment tablets Thyronorm, said its revenue from operations rose nearly 9% to 14.37 billion rupees.

Peer GlaxoSmithKline Pharma is set to report its December-quarter results next week.

Shares of Abbott India settled flat ahead of results.

($1 = 82.9510 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema and Mrigank Dhaniwala)