Asian share markets are lower today as Japanese and Hong Kong shares fall. The Nikkei 225 is off 0.1% while the Hang Seng is down 0.2%. The Shanghai Composite is trading down by 0.4%.

Back home, India share markets opened the day on a flat note. The BSE Sensex is trading higher by 15 points while the NSE Nifty is trading up by 3 points. The BSE Mid Cap index and BSE Small Cap index both opened the day up by 0.4 & 0.2% respectively.

Sectoral indices have opened the day on a mixed note with metal stocks and stocks in the power sector witnessing buying interest. While IT stocks & energy stocks have opened the day in the red. The rupee is trading at 65.46 to the US$.

In news from stocks in the pharma sector. Cipla share price is in focus today after the United States Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) completed its inspection of the company’s Indore facility with no integrity or repeat observations for the unit.

The US regulator which began inspections on 2 April 2018, cleared the facility with nothing adverse to report.

Further, in January 2018, the USFDA had conducted a product-specific pre-approval inspection at Goa plant and issued certain observations which were procedural in nature. Post that inspection, it had received two product approvals from the plant.Note that Cipla’s Indore facility had earlier received nine observations from the USFDA in 2015 and which were cleared in 2016.

Cipla share price opened the day down by 0.3%.

BSE Healthcare Index Down 26% in Three Years

Speaking of pharma stocks, Divis Laboratories share price has hit a 52-week high. Things seem to be looking up for the pharma sector.

Is this the right time to buy pharma stocks?

There was a time when almost every stock in the pharma sector was considered to be a safe stock. You could just pick the top 5-6 companies from this sector and expect to make decent returns over time.