Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q1 FY 2027 earnings conference call of Torrent Pharma Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sudhir Menon, Executive Director of Finance and CFO. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good evening, welcome to quarter one FY 2027 earnings call of Torrent Pharma. Consolidated revenues were INR 4,921 crore, up by 55%, while operating EBITDA at INR 1,664 crore was up by 61%. Operating EBITDA for the quarter stood at 33.8%. The merger of JB with Torrent Pharma has been completed with effect from July 8th, appointed date being January 21st, 2026.
During the quarter, the underlying JB business reported revenues of INR 1,201 crore, up by 10% YoY, with operating EBITDA of INR 424 crore and EBITDA margin of 35.3%, registering an improvement of more than 6%. JB India branded business grew at 13% for the quarter. International business grew by 12%. Torrent-based business revenues grew by 17% for the quarter. Operating EBITDA for the quarter was INR 1,240 crore, up 20%, with margins now at 33.3%. India business reported strong growth of 19%, while Brazil revenues grew up by 27%.
On the generic business side, U.S. business grew by 36%, which includes certain one-time opportunities, while Germany revenues were up by 3%. Leverage, that is net debt to EBITDA, stands at 2.07x, considering underlying EBITDA of the combined company. I will now hand over the call to Aman for update on India business.
Thanks, Sudhir. I'll actually first start with JB. Following the operational reset executed in Q4, we have seen a healthy recovery in business performance during Q1 FY 2027, with the India Rx business growing at 13% and the International business, including CDMO, growing at 12%. The overall business integration is progressing well, with policies and practices now largely aligned with that of the base business in all territories. With the completion of the merger process in July, we have now already initiated the next set of integration activities.
While this will not have an impact anything close to what was seen in Q4, there could be a minor and transient impact in revenues in some territories until the integration is completed over the next two to three quarters. For instance, we have started merging certain brands and divisions in the India business from JB to Torrent post the merger. Usually, this process takes a few months to complete, after which the sales trajectory returns back to normal if executed well.
In the international business, we are evaluating portfolio rationalization in certain territories of lower margin and lower priority products, similar conceptually to what we did with the India trade generics business, in order to help and enable further network optimization. We believe for the full year FY 2027, double-digit revenue growth for JB's India Rx business should still be possible given the robust underlying trend seen in Q1 of an uninterrupted quarter, and the International business should also recover post the changes implemented. The JB CDMO business continues to do well, and there is no further integration involved here.
Consequently, we believe that high single digit to low double-digit constant currency growth for the full year should be possible. Overall, cost synergy realizations are tracking ahead of plan. The realization should further increase quarter- on- quarter from here, which should help offset any potential revenue weakness that we may see due to the explained reasons. Hence, there should not be any impact at the EBITDA level for the JB business for this year. Most importantly, I would like to highlight that we have not cut any essential costs whatsoever that can hinder business growth.
Moving on to the base business. Torrent's India-based business revenues for Q1 were INR 2,157 crore, registering a growth of 19% versus the IPM growth of 12% as per the AIOCD Pharma Trac data set. The high growth was delivered as a result of an overall increase in IPM growth, new launch performance, and volume growth acceleration from field force expansion. The Curatio business continued its strong growth trajectory, growing at 34% in Q1, driven by OTC ad spends and field force expansion. We are undertaking further field force expansion in the Curatio business in this financial year, given the positive outcome.
We are hopeful that the business should continue with a similar high growth trajectory for the rest of the year. On the chronic front, Torrent continues its market outperformance and has achieved a significant milestone in the cardiac segment, as Torrent with JB now ranks first in the cardiac market. The cardiac market is the largest and amongst the fastest-growing markets in the IPM. Our combined field force strength at the end of Q1 was 9,400, with base business strength at 7,200 and JB strength at 2,200. The combined PCPM stands at just over INR 10 lakhs, with scope of further improvement from here on as well.
JB's field force attrition is now down to 16% in the month of June, compared to nearly 30% pre-acquisition. On semaglutide. Following the strong start, our semaglutide franchise in India recorded Q1 market share of 36% for the oral and injectable combined, as per the PharmaTrac data set. Even with one more competitor entering the oral market, we were able to hold on to 94% market share in the month of June. The recent unforeseen supply-related issue with our manufacturing partner for the injectable product is an unfortunate temporary setback. We have already secured an alternate supply source for the product and are hopeful that all Semalix SKUs should be back in the market by the end of August.
While there will be loss of sales from these [inaudible] in July and most of August, we remain hopeful that we should be able to recover our market share quickly due to the early established brand equity. Further, this has no impact on our oral brands or the reusable SKU. With INR 50 crore of combined sales registered in Q1, we were well on track to achieve our INR 250 crore target for the year in absence of the supply issues. While this setback will affect our near-term sales, we believe it should not materially derail the overall leadership trajectory of the brand for the rest of the year. We would, however, like to wait for one more quarter to provide a revised objective for the franchise after observing the recovery trajectory.
Going forward, we expect our overall India-based business to continue outperforming the market growth. Our focus during FY 2027 will be to continue improving our market share in focused therapies, improving field force productivity in the expanded divisions, and continue scaling up of the Curatio business. I will now hand over to Mr. Sanjay Gupta for an update on the International business.
Thank you, Aman. We will start with our branded generics market of Brazil. Based on internal sales, Q4 constant currency revenues were at BRL 147 million, registering a 3% year-on-year growth. IQVIA data show Q1 market growth at 4%, with Torrent growing at 19%. This was aided by the strong performance of top brands and recent launches, primarily rosuvastatin and azithromycin. The generics division of Torrent Brazil are also contributing to strong growth and represent about 22% of sales in this quarter.
During the quarter, we undertook a one-time channel inventory reduction in response to channel requests for extended credit periods amid rising interest rate costs, which led to a primary sale, which is inferior to our growth of our secondary sales. Secondary sales continue to reflect underlying demand momentum as reflected in the IQVIA data. In the U.S., we registered constant currency revenues of $44 million, up by 23%.
Growth is coming from our new launches, where we have achieved our target market share as well as certain one-time opportunities. In Germany, our business registered a constant currency revenue of EUR 29 million, down by 9%. The growth continued to be impacted by supply disruption at third-party supplier and lower tender uptake during the quarter. I would like to conclude the opening comments and open the call up for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from Kunal Dhamesha from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on good set of numbers. First one on the profitability of JB Pharma business, which is coming out to be exceptionally strong. Is it largely the function of the cost synergies that we were envisaging, or there are some, let's say, because the CDMO business is up meaningfully, there is some operating leverage also kicking in? From a full year perspective, how should this 35%+ number look like for JB Pharma?
I would say the margin improvement is largely because of the cost synergies being implemented sooner than expected. Maybe a minor part of it could be because of the operating leverage, but it is largely because of the cost synergies. I'm sorry, for the rest of the year, I think margins from here, because the steps that we took for the cost synergy realization, they were started in Q4, continued in Q1. This is just the beginning of the realization that is happening. I think every quarter there should be some incremental improvement. I cannot comment on how much because we are also reinvesting some part of it into the business in each territory. Certainly the margin trajectory should improve from here.
Sure. Sir, then, our first-year synergy target of INR 90 crore, it seems that we are well tracking ahead of this target, right? Would you like to update that target for us?
We can't share what the exact number may look like, certainly, yes, it's going to be above INR 90. It's definitely going to be above INR 100. Because as we mentioned, there are going to be some changes further in some territories. We don't know what the top-line impact is going to be. It's not going to be significant, but as a result, we'd rather refrain from giving that exact synergy number for the year. Certainly, yes, it's much higher than the INR 90 crore.
Sure. Second question on Brazil. We mentioned that there's some channel inventory correction, I might have missed it. Have we shared what's the exact impact in this quarter, do we expect that to come back in quarter two? Should we be back to the normalized growth rate in terms of constant currency in quarter two?
Correct. We expect the normalized growth rate to come back to, again, mid-teens level growth as reflected in the IQVIA data. This impact, without the internal inventory correction, our constant currency sales would have grown by between 15%-18%.
15%-18%, okay, there is a meaningful impact. Lastly, any update on our semaglutide filing in Brazil?
It is still with the regulator. The regulator has taken upon itself to expedite all semaglutide approvals, and we recently saw five approvals come day before yesterday. We are optimistic that the regulator will also consider our application favorably, but I don't have any precise guidance to give you.
There's nothing pending from regulator for us to kind of answer or anything?
It's an ongoing dialogue. The regulator has all the options in front of us. I don't want to tell you how many months it'll take, but I would guess that it'll take months and not years. That's my perception rather than any definite comment from the regulator.
Sure. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from Neha Manpuria from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Aman, I think you mentioned that as you integrate the portfolios of JB and Torrent, we could see some impact in, I think, the second and third quarter before they normalize. Could you give us some color in terms of what you're exactly mentioning here? I think you mentioned cardiac as being one of the areas. If you could just give us some color as to why we should see this impact during the integration process, please.
Yeah. If, say, a mid to large size brand in JB has been built by JB field force and launched by JB and grown over the years, if you move that to a Torrent division with Torrent reps, the reps would not know all the territories and prescribers and so on immediately. There's a very robust process that we follow of the brand transfer, which minimizes any such loss of knowledge transfer. We've seen in all the past acquisitions that there is usually some kind of transition impact that comes across because of this reason, but it usually comes back to the normal growth trajectory very fast.
Okay. Our assumption is that by the end of this year, by fourth quarter, we should see normalization of any transition impact.
That's right. Since we got the merger approval in July, we implemented this immediately in July. We were expecting the merger to probably happen a bit later, so it could happen a bit later. Since it's a positive that it's happened right now, we'd rather get this completed within this year itself.
Understood. An extension of that, as you think about revenue synergies, once this integration is done, et c, given that we're already guiding to low double-digit growth, could you throw some light on the likely revenue synergies that we can see as an integrated business in India, and what could be the areas that you could think about from the revenue synergy perspective?
Yeah. We'd still like to mention that revenue synergies, we are only comfortable starting from next year because there's going to be all these changes happening this year. We still continue to believe that there is a good potential for revenue synergies because of the cross-sell potential, the knowledge transfer and the combination of the field force together, all of that put together. It's certainly possible in the cardiac and gastro brands and segments, but we'd rather wait for the full integration to complete and then give a better sense on that.
Understood. My last question is on the margins. Given that we have completed the merger nearly six months ahead of plan, Sudhir, is it fair to assume that the three-year timeline that we had, and we are going ahead of plan from the cost synergies, the year three target can actually be achieved in year two itself? I think manufacturing synergies were not included in this number, so could we quantify that if you have a handle on that?
No, I think manufacturing is being taken in the second phase, Neha.
Okay.
Yes, the three-year picture which we had given you earlier, the synergy realization could be much faster than that, given that we are six months ahead of the initially perceived merger. Things should speed up faster, Neha.
Okay. It's fair to assume that the margin we were expecting for JB in year three is now possible in year two itself. Would that be a fair assumption?
I don't know. You'll have to wait for one or two quarters more for me to give you a better guidance. The way things are moving on, it's looking positive for us, Neha.
All right. Okay. Got it. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from Damayanti Kerai from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is on semaglutide for India and Brazil markets. Starting with Brazil, while you are waiting for ANVISA to come back on your filing, we are seeing some players coming ahead of you. We understand there are more filers for this product. How do you see this opportunity, whether this will be still meaningful or it will be more competitive than what you initially anticipated?
We are used to competitive launches in Brazil. This is kind of a normal phenomenon. We saw five approvals recently, out of which four come out of a single company, right? It's not very unusual. What I would say is that as long as we are not very far behind, we are confident we'll be able to capture, let's say, a double-digit market share, as we have done and demonstrated many times in the past. I can only rely on my track record and my strength with the physician community, for which I'm confident. Again, I don't know how many more approvals are coming, right? I'm just pushing for my approval so that I can launch ASAP.
I'd just like to add that, yes, given our historical strength in Brazil and our position, especially in the chronic and cardiac diabetes segment, we would have been keen to have the first-mover advantage, but unfortunately that's lost. We admit that's a bit of a miss from our side.
Sure. In India business, while your supplier has run into some supply issues, you mentioned this is all transient and everything should be back on track by August. Nonetheless, when we look at the broader markets which are available through secondary data provider, it seems like the semaglutide market has plateaued now after initial ramp-up. How do you see the overall market moving from here on after the initial big jump? I think there has been some signs of plateauing there.
It's not surprising actually that this has happened. The first month there was, because of all the intensity of promotion and the general awareness about semaglutide, probably there was a lot more trials that were happening at the prescription level, which probably would have led to some drop-offs, which is not unexpected in such a category being an injectable. The product also does come with its side effects. Unless you're really the right patient for the product, you're likely to discontinue the product as well.
Of course, there could have been some element of overstocking that may have happened out of anticipation of the channel for higher demand. Honestly, it's not a concern from here going ahead. I think gradually it should improve month- on- month from here, is what we believe. We're already seeing that traction in the month of July as well in the market. Especially in our case, I think the oral has continued to do well, which probably means that the oral drop-offs are not as high as what we expected. As long as we get the injectable back on time, I think we should be in a reasonably strong position as earlier.
You mentioned INR 250 crore kind of number for yourself. At the market level, how big that can be if we look at the current scenario?
I would say probably INR 700 crore, INR 800 crore type of market, maybe slightly bigger, is what it looks like for the first year.
Sure. My last question is on India business. 19% growth, and that has been very strong trend. First, if you can split across the growth drivers, volume, price, and new launches, and specifically, how do you see the momentum continuing on the volume and new launches part, given we are seeing higher than historical numbers there for the market in general?
Yeah. The PharmaTrac data shows 19% for the base Torrent business as well for the quarter. The breakup of that is 5.1% volume, 7.7% price, and around 6% new products. This is versus 2% volume of the market, 5.8% price of the market, and 3.8% new product growth of the market. The IPM growth has picked up this quarter and it's likely to continue for the rest of the year, but we can't say exactly what the market growth is going to be. As long as this market growth continues, I think our trajectory should be similar, assuming the semaglutide situation is back to the normal trajectory, then it could be similar.
Just a clarification. We understand the contribution on new product side has largely come from semaglutide, the volume has also, I guess, grown very meaningfully, for Torrent as well as for the IPM in general. What could be leading to that?
It's difficult to pinpoint because it's just a one-quarter phenomenon. If we wait a couple of more months or quarters, we can get a better sense. Certainly there is a higher than expected uptick in the market volumes.
Okay. Thank you. I was good talking with you.
Thank you. The next question is from Abdulkader Puranwala, from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is with regards to the semaglutide opportunity. Based on our experience in India and in Brazil, if you could help us understand that in your opinion, how much time would generic players will take to settle down on their market share whether in the next three to four months, what is the kind of competition intensity you see in India as well as in Brazil?
Just to clarify, we've not launched in Brazil. Obviously, we are tracking what's happening in Brazil, but we have not launched, so it's hard to comment. In India, again, we ourselves ended up facing an unforeseen situation, it's still when the market forms, things are fairly unpredictable. As long as the supply situation remains the same for us and the competition, there's no additional bottlenecks that come up, my sense is that the market share should not change materially from here.
Okay. Understood. Sir, for the base business, would it be possible to share what would be your constant currency growth this quarter?
For which country?
For Torrent Pharma on a consolidated level, that is excluding maybe, what would be your constant currency growth?
No, Abdul, we don't look at it from that perspective. Any specific geography you want, we can call that out.
Okay. No, I can see that in the presentation.
Yeah. Sanjay has already called out, because if you look at Brazil, Germany, U.S. put together and add India as well, that contributes almost 85% of our business. That's the three geographies which Sanjay has indicated, I think pretty should give you the color.
Sir, anything on the margins, we would like to call out in terms of your guidance for the full year. Are we reiterating or any color on margins for the full year?
Abdul, as you know, July 8th, the merger happened for us. Now there is a system integration, business integration, which has already been triggered. I would like to wait for one more quarter till the combined entity settles before I can try and give you some guidance for the full year.
Sure, sir. All right. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Shyam Srinivasan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity, and good evening. Just one again on the semaglutide opportunity in India. I'm not sure whether our earlier guidance was for annualizing INR 250 crore. Maybe I thought it was INR 200. Is there an upgrade? That is one. When I look at the split of oral versus injectable, has that changed from there? If I recollect, that number was 30% oral. Given how well you're doing on oral, has there been an upgrade there in terms of how you look at the relative between the two segments? Yeah.
No, we had shared INR 200-INR 250 last quarter. What we had mentioned in the opening remarks was that given the trajectory in Q1 before the supply issues of INR 50 crore, and the expectation is that every quarter it would gradually increase, and hence it would've been very close to that INR 250 crore number. Given now that we're faced with the situation, that's definitely not going to be possible. We would rather wait for another quarter to see how our relaunch of the lost SKUs, how quickly they can regain share, then we can get back with what the annual number could be.
That's helpful. When we now use these other alternate API source from an injectable perspective, I presume, what is our current share? I think the combined share of 36% includes oral plus injectable. Just want to understand how we are just fairing on the injectable part on the presentation and what gives us the confidence that with an alternate API, we'll be still able to maintain our share, let's assume.
The brand that is affected, specifically the SKUs that are affected was about 20% of the total monthly contribution. API is not really the reason why, whether a brand can regain share or not. I think as long as the API is approved and kind of has gone through the whole trial with the company that's registered the product, it shouldn't really make a difference.
Got it. That's helpful. Just the last question on JB Pharma. We've guided to getting full on a console basis, I think double-digit growth for that, versus where we are today. What are the steps that we need to kind of keep monitoring, from a perspective you talked about attrition coming lower on JB. Just want to understand, what are the kind of leading or the milestones that we are looking forward to in the next six, nine, 12 months that will help us put on that specific path of higher growth at JB?
I would say for the next six months, the focus will be largely on ensuring that the merging of the divisions and transfer of brands from JB to Torrent goes smoothly. We would want to spend most intensive effort on ensuring that each territory, each rep, and each kind of chain of the field force is fully in grip of what's being handed over. If that's fairly smooth for the rest of the year, by the end of the year, after that is when we would start looking at further growth initiatives. You can't really execute both at the same time because that would lead to a bit of over-ambition.
Got it. Yeah. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from Pankaj Tibrewal from Ikigai Asset Manager. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening. Congratulations, Aman, Sudhir, for a great execution once again. My question just is on the International business. When we look at, for example, the U.S. piece, please correct me if I'm wrong, the absolute revenue levels are virtually the same as it was in FY 2014, in USD terms. How should we see the trajectory going forward for U.S. as we move ahead? On Germany also, we have seen market share loss over the last four, five years, from about 7%-5%.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, Pankaj, but your voice is very low. If you're on a hands-free, we request you to use the handset.
No, I am on the normal phone.
All right. Could you please speak a little louder?
Yeah.
Yes, better.
The second question is on the Germany side, where the market share has declined over the last four, five years. Various challenges have been there. Can you throw some light on how do we see Germany picking up this year and next year? Last question is, you have executed extremely well when we look at acquisitions, Indian markets. What's the vision for the next three years? Where do you think Torrent will focus on incrementally going forward? These are my three questions. Thank you.
I will start with the International business. Essentially, the battle that we fight is by country, right? Each country has its specific dynamics and specific issues. On the branded side, which are markets like, for us, it's Russia, Philippines, Mexico, Brazil, we are doing very well and much ahead of the underlying market growth. On the generic side, the two big markets we have are U.S. and Germany. U.S. has been stable, and this year we would be a profitable entity in the U.S., which was unlike what it has been in the last five years.
Considerable progress has been made on the bottom line through cost savings and through efforts to bring in more launches, which are still modest, but I would say we've launched 17 products in the last 30 months, which contribute roughly about $20 million-$ 25 million to sales, which compensates largely the price erosion that has taken place.
U.S. is, I would say, on a stable trajectory, and it will only get better from here, both in terms of top line and in terms of bottom-line contribution to Torrent, and at least it will not subtract from the bottom-line contribution. The real challenge we face are in Germany. Germany, the challenge is twofold. One is, I would say, linked to the fact that our prominent supplier, which contributes, let's say, about 10%-15% of our revenue, that supplies, has been out of business.
That is hurting us a lot. Secondly, despite making a lot of efforts in saving costs and reducing our costs and making ourselves more competitive, we still find ourselves sometimes outbid by our peers in the tender process. I would say that journey is not finished. We have to kind of tighten our belts and work better on cost optimization in order to win more tenders. I can't say we are out of the woods in Germany. I would say right now we are still in the middle of the woods. Other than Germany, I would think the rest of the places, we have a clear line of sight, and I would say if we look in over an extended period of time, we've been making progress.
Thank you, Sanjay. On the last question.
Question of capital allocation from here. I would say it's still very early days in JB. We're hardly six months into the acquisition. We'd rather wait for at least another 12 months, maybe 18 months for getting our own comfort that things have gone as per plan and smoothly. After that, yes, definitely there'll be opportunities which we'll start looking at again. As we grow in scale, the opportunities also change in nature, and we'll keep evaluating whatever comes our way. Regardless, I think we would not want to be above, say, 3x or 3.5x net debt to EBITDA for whatever opportunity we consider. We'll wait for JB to happen, and then we'll see how to look at the next strategic options.
Is it fair to say that the next big capital allocation could be international rather than domestic?
Our preference is that if we have the same size opportunity in front of us in India versus international, regardless of how big or small, it will always be India first. Which right now there's no major kind of opportunity that's on the horizon on the India market side. So in absence of that, yes, we may look at some mid-size international acquisitions as well.
Great. Thank you, Aman. Thank you, Sudhir. Thank you, Sanjay. And wish you guys all the best. Extremely happy with the execution you guys have done over the last few years.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Vivek Agrawal from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. If I look at the gross margins in the base business, it looks like you have done close to 78% gross margin, which is significantly higher than, I think, your previous trajectory. Just want to understand what has driven the improvement in gross margin at a time when there is some kind of cost inflation as well because of the geopolitics, et c. How sustainable, basically, is this margin trajectory? If you can help us understand. Thank you.
Vivek, I think last year we were doing around 76%-76.5%, is what I recall as the gross margin for the base business. Every year, two factors definitely play out on the improvement of gross margin, which is the price increases which we take every year, and that starts from typically April. That's point number one. Point number two, India business has exceedingly done well, and overall the branded business contribution has been higher compared to the previous year at 76% versus 74% historically which we've had. Plus some amount of Forex, which is playing positive. I think all three put together, we've improved our margins.
Is it sustainable in the base business, 77%-78% kind of gross margin level?
I can say definitely if last year was 76%-76.5%, anything up to 77% is looking definitely sustainable. Beyond that, as I said, there are other factors which have played out, which is contributing to the incremental gross margin.
Understood. Now, a related question here is that the overall EBITDA margin again in the base business is around 33.3%, right? There's a significant increase in OpEx, around 22% if you put together employee and other expenses. Where, for example, these sharp increase in these expenses going towards, if you can tell me.
Vivek, again, the Forex factor plays out on the expenses side also, right? I mean, the expenses also looks little inflated because of the Forex. That's one. Secondly, yes, quarter one, typically in the branded businesses, the spend is higher compared to rest of the quarters. That's the reason why you see quarter spend little higher.
Understood. How once you look at your EBITDA margin trajectory, in the base business from here on, let's say, over the next four quarters?
Base business, our guidance since the last two years has been at least a 0.5% improvement, right? If you look at the improvement which has happened in quarter one, it's 0.5%- 32.8%, which we had registered last year.
Understood. Thank you. Sir, just one more question on revenue synergies. Although you talk about cost synergies, and good to see that cost synergies are tracking ahead of guidance. Any possibility that if you can talk about revenue synergies?
No, I just mentioned in one of the earlier questions that we'd rather wait for the integration to complete, and then we can get a better sense of the revenue synergies.
Thank you, sir. That's from my side.
Thank you. The next question is from Rahul Jeewani, from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question. Sir, on this organic India growth of 19%, if we ex out the Sema contribution as well, ex of Sema, our organic business would have grown roughly 16% for the quarter, which is a significant acceleration from our previous trajectory of around, let's say, 12.5%, 13% growth. So ex Sema, what is helping us to-- Lets says drive better growth and being there are there any specific Torrent-related factors, or it is just an acceleration in the overall IPM growth as well?
Certainly, the IPM growth acceleration has played a big role here, but there are certain Torrent-specific factors as well. One being the Curatio portfolio, which is now a pretty sizable part of the portfolio, and that's growing at 34%. I don't know the exact numbers, but I'm sure that's adding incrementally in a quite a meaningful way to the overall group profile. Second, it's a culmination of all the expansion done over the last two, three years, which we are continuing to pursue as well. That has led to some of the larger brands grow much faster. When that happens, the overall growth profile improves. Those two, three factors have led to this performance.
Okay. I was looking at my numbers, ex of Curatio as well. Curatio obviously did 34% growth for the quarter. ex Curatio, our base organic business, excluding Sema again is showing a 15%, 16% trajectory. Maybe while Curatio is helping, it's the base brands also which would have helped to some extent.
Yeah, you're right. We now have actually, I believe, 28 brands above INR 100 crore. Apart from three, four of them which are mature products and growing single digits, all have grown quite well. Some of the top 10 brands have grown 20%+. These are all in the expanded divisions and regions. When the top 10 brands are growing at such a pace, that changes the overall growth profile. Now, I don't know how sustainable this is. It's probably expansion-led. It could be for the rest of the year it may continue. Will it continue for next year? I don't know yet. Certainly that's helped us.
Sure, sir. These 10 brands growing north of 20%, this you are talking about your own base portfolio, ex of JB?
That's right, yeah.
Okay. Sure, sir. How would, let's say, JB's brands could have grown particularly on the cardiac side for the quarter?
As per their usual trajectory. Some may have been slightly slower, some slightly faster. Average net growth trajectory has been around the same as earlier, of the cardiac, gastro, all of the brands.
Okay. We talked about rep expansion for the Curatio business. At an overall India level, let's say, what kind of rep additions we are targeting this year versus this combined rep number of 9,400 reps?
We will add in the base business strength, but it's not going to be fresh expansion, it's going to be restructuring from the JB divisions. In fact, even with additions in the base business MR strength, the total number of MRs is going to reduce, which already since the integration has started in July, we expect that Q2, the MR strength should be closer to 9,000.
Okay. What do you think this number could be by the end of the year?
End of the year, we haven't charted out yet, but it probably will be around the same, maybe slightly less.
Okay, sure, sir. Sir, last question from my end. Obviously, you are not commenting in terms of how the cost synergy target would do as in terms of the cost synergy guidance, which we had given earlier. If you can just quantify what was the benefit of, let's say, the cost synergy number sitting in JB's EBITDA margins this quarter. Out of this 35% margins for JB, what would have been the contribution from the cost synergy number?
Rahul, I think a better way for you to calculate yourself is take the base EBITDA number of JB, which was there last year, and then historically see organically what kind of improvement happens for JB margin. Anything above that is an indication of cost synergy.
Okay, sure, sir. Yeah. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to participants that you may press star and one to join the question queue. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask questions, please press star and one. The next question is from Tushar Manudhane from Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. First, on the industry level, India prescription side growth, last few months, the growth has been encouraging, even in the chronic therapies as well as acute therapy. What's changed we have witnessed to drive the industry-level growth, how sustainable that is?
It's again, just been a quarter of this kind of increased growth. Let's see how long it sustains, then we can get a better sense on what's really driving it. Right now, there's multiple factors. We can't tell which one is driving the biggest incremental impact. Maybe next two, three quarters, we can get a better sense.
Okay, because it is also driven by volumes and not just, let's say, price and new launches. Existing base-
Yeah.
...portfolio also growing by volume. Is it like shift from trade generics to again, Rx? Population has not changed much over last five months. Just trying to understand what is driving the IPM growth.
We'll get a better sense using our own numbers and understanding after we see maybe one more quarter, two more quarters of data. What you mentioned could be one potential reason, I personally don't think so. Let's see. We'll give more feedback on this in the coming quarters.
Got it. Just while a lot of discussions have happened with respect to semaglutide for Brazil market, but just the way it happens, let's say in India also one can use the marketing authorization of the other company. Is that the way possible for Torrent in the Brazil market? While we might have wait for our own approval, but you could use market authorization and start marketing the product.
Yeah, in theory, it is possible, but so far we've not been successful in finding a suitable partner. This is called distributor-type arrangements where you become a distributor of another company. As of today, we don't have a concrete proposal.
Got it. Again, just one more on this. Is it because of Dr. Reddy's issue where the approval for us is stuck?
No. We have never commented upon our partner. I can tell you that it is not Dr. Reddy.
Got it, sir. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We'll take that as the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management team for closing comments.
Thank you very much for joining the call today, and for following Torrent. IR team stands by to answer any further questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much. On behalf of Torrent Pharmaceuticals Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect your lines.