Glaxo Pharmaceuticals reported 157 per cent increase in net profit for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2008 due to significant increase in its income during the reporting period.

The company posted net profit of Rs 208.4 crore against Rs 80.9 crore in the same period last year, despite recession like situation across the world. Its total income stood at Rs 1742.6 crore, posting increase of 5.31 per cent as compared to total income of Rs 1654.6 crore for the fourth quarter in 2007.

Glaxosmithkline Pharmaceuticals announced its quarterly results for the period ending December 31, 2008. It posted 157 per cent increase in net profit for the third quarter of current financial year.

The company has posted a net profit of Rs 208.4 crore for the fourth quarter, as against Rs 80.9 crore during the corresponding period last fiscal.

During the quarter, the company said that its income from operations rose to Rs 374.8 crore in December quarter, where as the same was at Rs 346.7 crore in the previous year.

Cairo  - Many privately owned pharmacies were engaged in a second day of strikes Tuesday in a row to protest efforts by authorities to enforce a new tax law.

Some pharmacies had signs on their closed doors saying: "The pharmacy is closed in protest against the bad treatment of the Income Tax Authority against the Egyptian people."

Prague  - An Austrian pharmaceutical firm sent a flu vaccine, which it had accidentally contaminated with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, for testing in the Czech Republic, a report said Tuesday.

The Austrian firm Baxter said it contaminated the vaccine with the dangerous virus by accident, likely during packaging in Austria, the Mlada Fronta Dnes daily reported, citing Baxter's representative.

Baxter shipped the infected vaccine to the Czech biomedical firm Biotest for testing on ferrets in late January.

India's sixth largest publicly traded drug maker by sales, Wockhardt Ltd, has informed that it will be launching Levetiracetam tablets in the United States.

Recently, Wockhardt Limited has secured nod from the United States Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) for marketing the tablets containing 250mg, 500mg, 750mg and
1gm.

Levetiracetam is an anticonvulsant drug used for the treatment of epilepsy. It is S- enantiomer of etiracetam, structurally similar to the prototypical nootropic drug piracetam.

The US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has approved the marketing of Ranbaxy Laboratories' migraine drug, Imitrex (Sumatriptan), a low cost version of migraine drug GlaxoSmithKine, in the US market.

A spokesman of Rabnbaxy said, "We have received the US Food and Drug Administration's (USFDA) approval for 100 mg Sumatriptan."

The regulator provides 180-day marketing exclusivity for its marketing in 100 mg dosage which was earlier rejected by it on December 2008.