Net sales for the period rose 25.43 per cent to touch Rs 154.53 crore. Other income was higher at Rs 2.91 crore.

Company managing director D McDonald said, "The growth in sales was achieved by concentrating marketing and field force resources on key brands which achieved a 33 per cent growth in the period. The main growth contributors were Iodex and the hepatitis-B vaccine, Engerix B. Both products continued to face pressure but responded well to the promotional resources." The profit growth is not commensurate with sales growth due to investment in marketing and cost pressures which are expected to continue during the current year.

The growth in trading profit for for the first half was lower than sales growth due to investment costs in marketing and field forcerecruitment and training, cost increases due to inflationary factors, launch and pre-launch costs of new products, investment in IT upgrading of systems and processes. McDonald said the second half of 1998 will continue to reflect these cost factors. "The hepatitis A vaccine Havrix has just been launched and we anticipate the launch of Varilrix, the chicken-pox vaccine, in the next few months, " he added. Profit before interest, depreciation and taxation was Rs 22.89 crore, while interest was Rs 13.58 crore. Depreciation and provision for taxation stood at Rs 95 lakh and Rs 7.20 crore respectively.

SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals has undertaken plans to upgrade its business processes to world standards and is investing over Rs 15 crore in enterprise resourse planning (ERP) solutions to ensure a strong supply chain management. Its enterprise resourse planning solutions are comprehensive and include finance, manufacture, sales order processing, distribution and forecasting. All warehouses and branchsales offices will be linked through V-Sats to a central IBM AS 400 main-frame computer located at Bangalore.

"The company is in an advanced stage of ERP implementation and the entire job is scheduled to be completed before this year end. This will ensure better management of working capital and informed decision marking based on real time information," McDonald said.