Glenmark Pharma slips 6 per cent on profit-booking

The shares of Glenmark Pharma slipped over 6 per cent in Tuesday's trade on profit-booking post a steep recent rise earlier this week. Data from NSE bulk deals showed that HSBC Pooled Investment Fund offloaded 18,79,542 shares of the stock at Rs 527.77.

Earlier this week on Monday, the stock had surged 27.06 per cent in a single trading session on June 22, 2020, after it had launched antiviral drug Favipiravir, under the brand name FabiFlu for the treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 patients. Priced at Rs 103 per tablet, the prescription-based drug will be available as 200 mg tablet at an MRP of Rs 3,500 for a strip of 34 tablets.

However, many industry experts are of the opinion that the drug launch is unlikely to support the robust rally in shares given that it’s merely a flu medicine and may not necessarily be a game-changer for treating the disease completely.

Moreover, Glenmark may face competition risk as Cipla will launch another COVID-19 treatment drug, Remdesivir, while companies such as Hikal, Strides, SMS Pharma are also expected to launch similar drugs soon.

In this year, so far, Glenmark shares have increased over 40 per cent, beating benchmark Nifty Pharma, which gained around 28 per cent during the same period.

On Tuesday, the stock of the company closed at Rs 484.90, down by 6.71 per cent or Rs 34.90 per share. The 52-week high is recorded at Rs 572.70 and 52-week low is Rs 168 on BSE.