Revenue during the quarter grew 6.85 percent to $91.45 million from $85.59 million in the previous year period. Gross margin for the quarter expanded 455 basis points over the previous year period to 64.77 percent. Total expenses were 57.56 percent of quarterly revenues, up from 55.73 percent for the same period last year. That has resulted in a contraction of 183 basis points in operating margin to 42.44 percent.

Operating income for the quarter was $38.82 million, compared with $37.89 million in the previous year period.

Mr. David (Xiaoying) Gao, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of China Biologic, commented, “We are pleased to report another quarter of revenue and profit growth. This growth comes at a time when we experienced a negative impact of approximately six percentage point from foreign currency conversion in the first quarter as well as the buildup of our plasma inventory in anticipation of a planned temporary shutdown of our current Shandong facility for several weeks in the second quarter to reallocate personnel to our new location to conduct plant validation procedures. During the reporting quarter, our Shandong facility experienced a low single digit sales growth due to this inventory control, while our Guizhou facility maintained strong sales growth momentum. We continued to concentrate our sales on large hospital customers and large distributors, resulting in accelerated growth among our important regional hospital customers and tier-1 city distributors. We also experienced year-over-year improvement in gross margin and non-GAAP net margin in the first quarter of 2017, attributable to higher sales concentration in products made from company-collected plasma, strong sales volume growth from our higher margin placenta polypeptide products, greater financial contribution from our increased equity interest in Guizhou Taibang and from enhanced non-controlling interest contribution from our Xi’an Huitian facility.”

The company has spent $9.08 million cash to meet investing activities during the quarter as against cash outgo of $19.91 million in the last year period.

Cash flow from financing activities was $8.81 million for the quarter, down 70.46 percent or $21.02 million, when compared with the last year period.

Cash and cash equivalents stood at $197.36 million as on Mar. 31, 2017, up 9.57 percent or $17.24 million from $180.12 million on Mar. 31, 2016.

Working capital increases
China Biologic Products, Inc has recorded an increase in the working capital over the last year. It stood at $348.81 million as at Mar. 31, 2017, up 10.14 percent or $32.10 million from $316.71 million on Mar. 31, 2016. Current ratio was at 5.14 as on Mar. 31, 2017, down from 6.57 on Mar. 31, 2016.

Cash conversion cycle (CCC) has decreased to 247 days for the quarter from 353 days for the last year period. Days sales outstanding went up to 38 days for the quarter compared with 30 days for the same period last year.

Days inventory outstanding has decreased to 232 days for the quarter compared with 344 days for the previous year period. At the same time, days payable outstanding went up to 23 days for the quarter from 21 for the same period last year.