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Metal & FMCG Trade in the Red
Fri, 30 Sep 01:30 pm

Indian equity markets are trading marginally lower during the post-noon trading session. Major sectoral indices are trading on mixed note with stocks from realty, oil & gas leading the pack of gainers. While, metal & FMCG are leading the losses.

The BSE Sensex is trading lower by 52 points (down 0.2%) while the NSE Nifty is trading lower by 10 points (down 0.1%). The BSE Mid Cap index is trading up by 1.1% and BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 1%. Gold prices, per 10 grams, are trading at Rs 31,146 levels. Silver price, per kilogram is trading at Rs 45,730 levels. Crude oil is trading at Rs 3,168 per barrel. The rupee is trading at 66.67 to the US$.

<>Pharma stocks are trading on mixed note with Elder Pharma and Aarti drugs leading the gains. As per an article in Business Standard, Lupin Ltd has received final approval from United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) for selling Memantine Hydrochloride extended-release capsules. It is a generic version of Allergan's Namenda XR capsules used for the treatment of moderate to severe dementia of the Alzheimer's disease.

Further, Lupin got approval for 7 milligram (mg), 14mg, 21mg and 28mg capsules. These are the AB rated generic equivalent of Allergan's Namenda XR Capsules, 7 mg, 14 mg, 21 mg, and 28 mg. One must note that, Actavis Inc. bought Namenda from Forest Laboratories in July 2014. Last year, Actavis acquired Allergan and it changed its name to Allergan Plc.

According to IMS data, Namenda XR capsules had US sales of US$ 1.22 billion. Our pharma sector analyst, Bhavita Nagrani, is of the opinion that Lupin was able to insulate its growth despite rising pressures in the sector. She has recently shared a detailed view on the company and valuations in the latest recommendation report of The India Letter. Click Here to know more.

In another news update, it was reported that, Zydus Cadila will tie-up with Medicines for Malaria Ventures (MMV) to develop the investigational antimalarial compound. The aim of the collaboration is to provide an effective alternative to the current front-line anti-malarial drugs for treatment of uncomplicated malaria and artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs).

As per the WHO estimate, 214 million malaria cases and 438,000 malaria deaths occurred worldwide in 2015. By collaborating with Medicines for Malaria Venture in this initiative, whether Zydus Cadila brings the change in the treatment of this deadly disease will be the key thing to watch out for going forward.

As the M&A activity has been heating up globally, the M&A activity in the Indian pharma space has been on the rise in recent times. At the end of the day, whether the company is able to derive value from the acquisitions and augment the overall performance will be the key thing to watch out for going forward.

Moving on to the news from IT sector. The Economic Times recently reported that, HCL Technologies Ltd and IBM have entered into a 15-year partnership to build Automation and Development & Operations (DevOps) solutions.

With automation, organizations will efficiently be able manage their workloads. DevOps is now an essential part of the software development process. It improves the speed, quality and predictability of development projects, the company stated.

Reportedly, HCL will build features and functions on top of existing IBM platforms and products including Tivoli Workload Scheduler, Rational Testing. In addition, the firms will also work on Rational Modeling & Construction and software for on-premises, hybrid and public cloud and software as a service (SaaS) platforms. According to the company, these tools will enable to interact better with today's dynamic environment of new cloud platform and cognitive solutions.

India is an information technology powerhouse. In an extremely challenging global economy, western corporations are now expecting Indian IT firms to deliver a more compelling value proposition in terms of growth prospects. Going forward, whether the Indian IT firms are up to the task will be the key thing to watch out for.

HCL Technologies was trading up by 0.6% at the time of writing.

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