Indian share markets continued their momentum and ended on a strong note today.

Investors looked past the surging coronavirus cases which took benchmark indices higher for a third consecutive day today.

After erasing morning gains and hitting a low of 59,084 in early deals, bulls lifted the Sensex over 853 points from the day's low to hit a high of 59,937.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 673 points (up 1.1%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 180 points (up 1%).

NTPC and ONGC were among the top gainers today.

Coal India and Tata Motors, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 17,866, up by 169 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index ended up by 0.1% and 0.4%, respectively.

Sectoral indices ended on a positive note with stocks in the power sector, energy sector and banking sector witnessing most of the buying interest.

Healthcare and metal stocks, on the other hand, witnessed selling pressure.

Shares of L&T Technology and Pidilite Industries hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Asian stock markets ended on a positive note today.

The Hang Seng ended up by 0.1%, while the Shanghai Composite ended down by 0.2%. The Nikkei ended up by 1.8% in today's session.

US stock futures are trading on a positive note today with the Dow Futures trading up by 76 points.

The rupee is trading at 74.55 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 0.2% at Rs 47,830 per 10 grams.

In news from the telecom sector, Tata Communication was among the top buzzing stocks today.

Mumbai-based Tata Communications and Saudi Arabian telecom services provider Zain KSA have entered into a strategic engagement to bring smart city solutions to Saudi Arabia, the companies said in a joint statement.

With this collaboration, the combined ecosystems will deliver solutions and platforms to remodel cities with smart street lighting, smart waste management, connected workplace, healthcare and connected cars.

In the flagship project where both companies are working together to bring smart street lighting solutions for one of the key cities, Tata Communications' IoT ecosystem will serve as a one-stop-shop to provide the hardware, platform, application and insights, while Zain KSA will expand the footprint with its business-to-business (B2B) offerings through joint projects related to software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and global contact centres, as well as the application of smart transport and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions enabling smart waste handling, smart metering and other smart city use cases.

Vaneet Mehta, region head, Middle East, Central Asia & Africa, Tata Communications said:

The strength of the reach of Zain KSA and cutting-edge infrastructure combined with our ecosystem of advanced technologies will strengthen the country's shift to becoming a sustainable economy.

This is a milestone project for Tata Communications for transforming the city into an intelligent and energy-efficient metropolis, reducing its carbon footprint and charting the path for other cities to replicate.

Tata Communications and Zain KSA strategic engagement will serve Saudi's enterprises and government institutions with advanced technologies such as IoT, 5G, low range wide area network, managed security services and many others.

It will also support environmental sustainability measures and the digital transformation of the region.

Tata Communication's share price ended the day down by 2.2% on the BSE.

Moving on to news from the pharma sector...

Alembic Pharma Gets USFDA Nod for Antibiotic Drug

Alembic Pharma's share price rose nearly 4% to Rs 848 today after the company received final approval from the US Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) for its abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) for Doxycycline Hyclate Delayed-Release Tablets.

The approved ANDA is therapeutically equivalent to the reference listed drug product (RLD) Doryx Tablets of Mayne Pharma International.

Doxycycline Hyclate Delayed-Release Tablets are indicated to reduce the development of drug-resistant bacteria.

Doxycycline Hyclate Delayed-Release Tablets have an estimated market size of US$10 m for twelve months ending September 2021.

Alembic Pharmaceuticals is a vertically integrated research and development pharmaceutical company. It manufactures and markets generic pharmaceutical products all over the world.

So far, the company has received 16 approvals, 12 final and four tentative and a total of 155 ANDA approvals, 135 final and 20 tentative from USFDA.

The drug maker's consolidated net profit dropped 49.2% to Rs 1.7 bn on an 11.3% fall in sales to Rs 12.9 bn in September 2022 quarter over the same period last year.

Alembic Pharma's share price ended the day up by 3.8% on the BSE.

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