Cipla in talks to repurpose drugs for Monkeypox, Q1 profit falls 4% to ₹686 cr

Drugmaker on Friday said it is looking at the possibility of partnering with others to repurpose some existing antiviral drugs to treat Monkeypox patients. "We are speaking to a few people, and partners, and we will see what comes out of that," Umang Vohra, managing director of Cipla, said at the company's post earnings media call.

Cipla reported net profit of ₹686 crore during for the quarter ended June, down 4% from ₹715 crore for the first quarter of FY22, mainly due to sharp normalisation in Covid portfolio contribution. Its first quarter revenue dropped 2% year on year to ₹5,375 crore from ₹5,504 crore.

Vohra said a few antiretroviral (ARV) drugs used against HIV can potentially be used as boosters to some other drugs used against Monkeypox virus. "We are constantly screening those... As of now, we don't have anything that suggests that there could be a boost element for any of these drugs for Monkeypox or for some of the other indications," he said.

Ebitda dropped 15% on year to ₹1,143 crore while Ebitda margins dropped 388 basis points to 21.3%. Cipla's India revenue dropped 8.4% year on year to ₹2,483 crore.