Par Pharmaceutical Companies, Inc. (PRX) received a brokerage firm upgrade today, which is helping it to gain during a rather muted morning session.

< ?DART(15);?> In addition, PRX has been enjoying rising earnings estimates that have pushed the 2009 and 2010 Zacks Consensus Estimates higher in just the past 7 days.

The company made the Zacks #1 Rank Top Performers List for Thursday with shares that are up approximately 4.4%. Volume is at 716,000 shares; above the daily average of 301,000.

Par Pharmaceutical develops, manufactures and markets generic drugs and innovative branded pharmaceuticals for specialty markets.

It is part of the Medical-Generic Drugs industry. There are 3 other names from this space on today's Zacks #1 Rank List: Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd. (RDY), Hi-Tech Pharmacal Company, Inc. (HITK) and Impax Laboratories, Inc. (IPXL).

Earnings Estimates

For this year,

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Here are the stocks added to the Zacks #1 Rank ("strong buy") List today:

Air Liquide SA (AIQUY) AMB Property Corp (AMB) American Capital Agency Corp (AGNC) American Public Education Inc (APEI) Artesian Resources Corp (ARTNA) Bayer AG (BAYRY) Brigham Exploration Co (BEXP) British American Tobacco (BTI) Cadbury Plc (CBY) Capitol Federal Financial (CFFN) Cardtronics Inc (CATM) Corrections Corporation of America (CXW) DBS Group Holdings Ltd (DBSDY) Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd (RDY) Flamel Technologies SA (FLML) Flanders Corp (FLDR) Franklin Resources Inc (BEN) Genesco Inc (GCO) GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK) HDFC Bank Ltd (HDB) Hellenic Telecom Organization SA (OTE) Henkel AG & Co KGAA (HENKY) HMS Holdings Corp (HMSY) Iconix Brand Group Inc (ICON) Ingram Micro Inc (IM) IntercontinentalExchange Inc (ICE) Longtop Financial Technologies ...

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India remains a …

Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Ltd. (RDY) is a global pharmaceutical company located in Hyderabad, India. RDY produces active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), finished dosage forms and branded and generic pharmaceutical products for the global market.While fiscal 2007 was a very strong year for the company, the lack of significant generic product launches, intense pricing pressure in the generics market, and declining revenues from the Mexico CPS and betapharm businesses took a toll on the company's performance in fiscal 2008. Though we expect RDY to swing back to growth in fiscal 2009, we believe it will take some time for the company to resolve the situation in Germany and Mexico.This, along with the lack of any significant near-term catalysts, is likely to keep the shares trading in a tight range over the next few months. We maintain our Hold rating with a price target of $10 (INR ...