The company made this announcement during trading hours today, 22 June 2011.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 47.22 points, or 0.27%, to 17,513.08.

On BSE, 12.77 lakh shares were traded in the counter as against an average daily volume of 4.32 lakh shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 249.15 and a low of Rs 235.20 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 344.40 on 26 October 2010 and a 52-week low of Rs 154.25 on 21 June 2010.

The stock had tumbled 10.93% to Rs 231.90 in a single trading session on Tuesday, 21 June 2011, on speculation that financiers who had lent money to the company's promoters with shares as collateral sold shares to save themselves from losses due erosion in their value. The stock had declined on high volume of 18.88 lakh shares on BSE on that day.

The mid-cap stock underperformed the market over the past one month till 21 June 2011, declining 18.16% compared with the Sensex's 4.18% fall. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 16.66% as against 1.56% decline in the Sensex.

The company has an equity capital of Rs 70.44 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

Orchid Chemicals said its Cephalosporin active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) manufacturing facility located in Alathur, Chennai has successfully cleared the recent US Food & Drug Administration (US FDA) inspection. The facility makes a range of oral and sterile cephalosporin APIs and caters to the developed markets like USA, Europe and Japan. The successful inspection would help the continuing supply of the niche APIs manufactured by the company to the developed markets.

Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals' consolidated net profit tumbled 85.2% to Rs 58.71 crore on 73% rise in net sales to Rs 527.86 crore in Q4 March 2011 over Q4 March 2010.