Laurus Labs rose 5% to an intra day high today morning at Rs.550. Its 52-week high and low stands at Rs.634 and Rs.453 respectively.

The company announced yesterday after market hours that it has received its maiden Tentative Approval from United States Food and Drug Administration (U.S FDA) for Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate Tablets. This is used for treatment of HIV-1 infection in adults and paediatric patients 2 years of age and older.

This drug is s therapeutically equivalent to Viread Tablets 300mg of Gilead. The good news here is that Viread’s patent will expire at the end of this month while that of the pediatric version will expire before end of FY18. Thus for Laurus this is a good market as it will be able to launch its drug in the USA, even before patent expiry of Viread. But it will not really have a monoply as other drug companies - Teva, Aurobindo, Mylan and Strides Shasun too have received tentative approval for the same drug. Teva will be launching the generic version much ahead of the rest.