Our US sales is the second largest part of our business and the fastest growing part. This year, our US operations accounted for 41% turnover, a number expected to increase, as we continue to bring important products from our pipeline to the market.

This was a year of stellar US sales on account of exclusivities received on Trileptal, Protonix and at the end of the fiscal, Ethyol. Caraco reported sales of $350 mill up 200%, and other than these products, with much the same product basket as competition. When we receive approval for Effexor XR after patent expiry the sales numbers would reflect this growth. Our generic formulation is a tablet form of Wyeth's $2.6 billion antidepressant originally marketed as a capsule. We have a “will-not-sue” covenant on this product.

This year witnessed 2 approvals from the Cranbury site, the first of filings from this site to be thus approved.

Caraco received 11 approvals during the course of the year, Sun Pharma received 13 approvals.

Competition & pricing continue to be intense in the US even for products that are considered to be complex, limiting the pricing flexibility available.

Manufacturing flexibility is one of the advantages that have been built into our US business-across our sites we have the ability to handle all kinds of dosage forms, from simpler tablets and capsules to more complex injectables & sprays. A large part of our US generic production utilizes API that has been scaled up inhouse for speed to market and tighter cost controls.

At our Cranbury & Bryan sites, product development & filing continue to be the primary activity. We expect to have news flow about approvals and subsequent sales over the next 2 years.

As we have shared earlier, our Hungary API site is expected to feed the Cranbury site for controlled substances, allowing greater value addition. Alkaloida, Hungary, continues to manufacture and market API for customers in Europe. In view of both the stringent manufacturing controls required and the restrictions governing free movement of controlled substances that are abuse prone, we believe this will remain an interesting market going ahead.