Basel - Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, said it was confident it would meet full year targets after reporting an 8 per cent growth in sales in the first-quarter.

Last month Roche bought for 46.8 billion dollars the remaining 44 per cent stake in the US biotech firm Genentech that it did not already own.

The Swiss company said in July it would set out its plan for the rest of the year to include Genentech, including bringing a head of the US company to the Roche board.

As per estimations by one of its lenders in February 2009, Ranbaxy Laboratories may be sitting on mark-to-market (MTM) losses of more than Rs 25 billion on foreign currency derivatives transactions signed up with a range of banking institutions.

With this lender alone, Ranbaxy is suffering an MTM loss of Rs 6 billion on the derivatives contracts that it signed during April-May 2008.

But, Ranbaxy is not the only company that has been hit by forex derivatives losses. The losses have seen across the segments.

Nirmal Bang has maintained its ‘Buy’ rating on Ranbaxy Laboratories to achieve a target between Rs 225-240 within 1-5 days.

Interested traders can buy the stock on dips with a stop loss of Rs 210.

Shares of the company, on Wednesday (April 15), closed at Rs 199.85 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The share price has seen a 52-week high of Rs 613.70 and a low of Rs 133.15 on BSE.

The Hyderabad based, Natco Pharma, on Wednesday, announced that it has signed up a deal with pharmaceutical major Dr Reddy's Laboratories.

Under the deal, both the firms will develop, manufacture and sell generic cancer products jointly.

However, the financial details of the deal are not yet known.

Pfizer Inc., the world's leading research-based pharmaceutical company, announced that it has decided to buy additional 33.77% equity stake in its Indian division in order to increase its holding stake to 75%.  

The New York based pharmaceutical major said that it will spend around Rs 6.8 billion on the deal.

The acquirement will be done through Pfizer’s wholly-owned arm, Pfizer Investments Netherlands B.V.

The company seeks to purchase additional stake at Rs 675 per share.

Pharmaceutical company Jubilant Organosys on Thursday said it has joined hands with a Finland-based firm Orion for the discovery of drugs.

The company stated in a release, that its two subsidiaries Jubilant Biosys Ltd (Bangalore based) and Jubilant Chemsys Ltd (Noida based), has entered into a pact with a Finland-based firm Orion.

Under this "Hybrid & Integrated" arrangement, Orion will have the option of utilizing resources flexibly from both Jubilant Biosys Ltd and Jubilant Chemsys Ltd based on the requirements of its drug discovery projects.