Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Limited Q2 earnings analyst conference call. 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 this conference, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Bhushan Akshikar. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you very much for setting this up. Very, very good afternoon to everybody on the call. In the next 20 minutes or so, I and Juby, our CFO, will take us through the results for Q2 of 2024. Before we dive deep into the financials, I want to begin by wishing everyone a very happy Dhanteras. We're just at the cusp of celebrating Diwali, so wish you the very best and a very prosperous Diwali to all of us. Can we move to the next slide? We just concluded our board meeting this afternoon, and before we go and look at the specifics on the financials, just want to contextualize our performance, our competitive performance, as we see it reflected in the external data sources.
As each one of you is aware, we continue to be a broadly diversified healthcare pharmaceutical company, operating in broadly three areas: a General Medicines portfolio, a Vaccines portfolio, and the inroads that we are making with Specialty, beginning with Nucala and Trelegy. Within these three businesses, the way we have delivered our competitive performance is reflected on this slide. Just to give you a quick sense, for Q2, the external reflections didn't really capture the growth momentum that is typically expected in a peak season, especially for some of the acute segments, and that's the reason why you would see a slightly lower than expectation performance on some of our key assets.
On the unit side, we are very close to our Evolution Index parameters, which was set at almost 100 or more than 100 across our brands. So if you see, broadly speaking, all the brands which were hitherto impacted last year have all come back in the green territory, especially the ones that were impacted the most last year on the Indian side. I think the big highlight for us is apart from the key brands or the iconic brands that we have in our portfolio in GenMed, the bets that we are making in the form of Trelegy are turning out in line with our expectations, as borne with the numbers that you see on that slide.
The other story that we have is, for the third quarter in a row now, our Vaccines business continues to not just be stable, but also grow, and grow well, and that's something that we'll give you the specifics, in a couple of minutes. But if you look at some of the key brands, even in our vaccines portfolio, paediatric segment, we've had good traction. I've talked to you about the digital acceleration, so apart from delivering competitive performance, one of the big business drivers, not just enablers for us, is our digital acceleration. And with that intent, we've put up a whole new digital, Omni-channel team, three quarters back.
Just to give you a snapshot in terms of how that is playing out in the marketplace, we've had almost INR 400,000, four lakh doctors, unique HCPs being reached out, both not just through face-to-face interactions, but also really opening up the base of the pyramid in terms of the digital touchpoints. So just to give you a quick sense, we are up by almost 17% on our digital touchpoints. So including the doctors that we have stopped covering, but who have consented to us to reach out through digital touchpoints, we have almost 9.2 million touchpoints there. So if you look at the distinct HCP touchpoints, that's a clear upswing of 26% in terms of what we were doing over the same period last year. Can we move on the next slide?
That earlier slide was the Q2 performance for us as reflected in IQVIA. This is on a MAT basis, just to give you a sense of how we are tracking even for the last four quarters in a row, as reflected externally. The three key assets that were impacted early last year are all back in the positive territory. Just to call out a few examples, we've grown volumes on some of our key assets, like Ceftum, by one point four times. If you just look at the unit evolution index, we are in excess of 122 and 100% respectively for Ceftum, T-Bact and Augmentin.
For the last IQVIA report, which came out at the end of the quarter, which came out in early October, Augmentin continues to be the number one brand in the pharma industry. So on the GenMed side, we clearly, in spite of a slightly sluggish external market scenario, our brands have still held on, both in terms of market share as well as growth, broadly speaking. We've had some lower traction on our liquids portfolio in the GenMed portfolio. On the specialty side, both Nucala and Trelegy continue to grow from strength to strength.
For the last quarter that we've had, Trelegy has continued to gain share, so we have almost a 5.5% share now in the single inhalation triple therapy class, which is the fastest growing class within the respiratory portfolio, and that's where we are putting all our energy. Evolution Index, as I said, on a value basis, continues to be over 100, but even on units is higher than 120%.
Nucala continues to grow and create new momentum for all those patients who require treatment for severe eosinophilic asthma. So between the respective places, indications of asthma and COPD, Nucala and Trelegy continue to create new science by way of our medical teams as well as our commercial teams to bring both these innovative assets to more number of patients.
Can you move to the next slide? The big, growth platform that we've identified and we remain committed to, is really building the adult vaccination segment in India, and for this quarter, the last quarter that has just ended, Q2, we have recreated our campaign, especially, to make shingles more relatable. So I'm sure you must have seen the ads playing in the background or what's running on, social, digital, as well as, TVCs. The new campaign featuring Amitabh Bachchan, talking about the 50+ cohort, making it more relatable, in terms of, what shingles prevention can actually do.
The good news is, on a target addressable market of almost 10 million-12 million Indians who are above 50 in the top 10-12 cities, who can definitely be eligible to get shingles prevention, we have almost 30 million. Our reach has been almost 30 million with the kind of exposure that we've had. The two broad buckets that we have in terms of really ensuring that our healthcare practitioners continue to invest in preventive medicine and not just treatment options, so that's really one of the key deliverables that we are focused on.
The other one is putting a lot of energy around educating consumers and patients, not only to make shingles more relatable, but also to seek treatment for vaccination, with vaccination, and therefore prevent the dreadfully painful disease that shingles is. We also had some innovation in the form of new things that we've done in Q2, including content integration into some of the popular soaps that we have, in terms of really ensuring that the awareness for adult vaccination in general and shingles awareness in specific goes up. Those were some of the innovation that we've delivered by way of our activities on the Shingrix front. The next slide, Ranjan. Those are broadly our strategic pillars, which have helped us in Q2. I'll ask Juby to quickly summarize the financials before we open it up for your questions.
So, thank you, Bhushan, and good evening to all of you. As you would have seen the results we just shared with the stock exchange, first time ever, we are crossing our revenue from operations INR 1,000+ crore with a growth of 5%. As you see, the drivers of growth, our General Medicines business, which is the pharma business, driving a volume growth of 6%, and most of our brands are tracking above market growth in their respective therapy areas. Specialty portfolio, which we are building, and we started investing last two years, it's grown close to 81%. Pediatrics vaccines, the portfolio delivers 18% growth. Of that 18% growth, 7% is coming out of Shingrix business, which we just, Bhushan has been sharing.
Eleven percent growth from the base business and seven percent from Shingrix, clocking total eighteen percent growth. Shingrix continues to be a focus area for us, and we have continued to invest in Shingrix to build adult category. In terms of EBITDA margins, you'll be noticing eleven percent growth. We are reaching 32% EBITDA margins. And also this is mainly coming from stable gross margin, as well as reducing our cost base by 4% and improving by efficiencies across all the levels of our P&L. We are tracking EBITDA close to 32%, and the same trend you could see on profit after tax. Profit after tax with a growth of 15%, a margin of 25%, which is an improvement of 230 basis points.
We also have seen, we declared a special interim dividend of INR 12 per share to start our 100 years of celebration journey in India. Next slide, please. So in the next slide, we have seen half year growth. First half, we are delivering 7% growth. And similar to the quarter trend, the growth is coming from across all our business segments, which is general medicines, vaccines, and Shingrix. The EBITDA margin improved 100 basis points with a growth of 28%. So we are touching 30.3% for the first half of the year. And the same trend we are seeing for the PAT, which is 24% growth with a margin of 24%, and then margin improvement of 340 basis points.
In addition to EBITDA and PAT growth, we'll also see in the half year results, the cash position has improved to the highest level. So we have converted 100% of the profit into cash, which means our working capital efficiency has improved, and that's supporting the dividend payment also. Let me pause there, and we can perhaps open floor.
I think there's a last slide, which I just want to, so the Q2 results are what they are, but I think, what's incredibly important for us as an organization is, come 12th of November, next month, hardly two weeks away from now, we celebrate, hundred years of commercial operations in India. We set up shop on 13th of November 19 24 so it's indeed, an incredibly important milestone in our continued evolution as a company. We still, remain committed, in making a difference in the lives of 1.4 billion Indians, in India, not just with our manufacturing operations, but I think the innovation that we've continued to bring over the last 10 decades of our operations here.
So aligned with our global mission of bringing science, technology, and talent, to get ahead together of disease, we are incredibly proud of what this organization achieved. Couldn't have been possible without the support of all the healthcare practitioners, and all the associates who worked in the past and who continue to work with us, across the value chain. A special mention to all the investor community, to each one of you who's remained invested in this organization, over the last 50, 60 years. So that's where I'm going to take a pause, and open it up for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question. Participants on the webcast may post their text questions under Ask a Question.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the questions come in. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question on the audio bridge, you may press star and one. Participants may press star and one if they wish to ask questions. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now hand the conference over to Ms. Anuja Kakaria for web questions. Over to you, ma'am.
Good evening, everyone. We have our first question from Mr. Deepak Sahn i. Mr. Deepak Sahni asks, "How is the demand environment and pricing scenario, as we hear from a lot of FMCG companies and auto companies, that consumer demand is slowing and people are downgrading as well?
Thank you very much for that question, Mr. Deepak. So if you saw the Q2 performance for the external market, the Indian pharmaceutical market, as reflected in IQVIA, which is a syndicated research agency, delivered a growth of about 7.8% for Q2. So that's pretty much in line with what we have over the last few quarters. Within that, if you see the split of the acute and the chronic segments, we've seen a slightly suppressed growth for the acute segments compared to chronic. So but again, all growth numbers remain above 6%-7%. If you were to slice that further and think about urban and rurban, so the metros Tier 1 and then Tier 1 to Tier 6, the growth have been anywhere in the range of 6%-9%.
The fastest growth has been in Tier 1 geographies, compared to the metros or even Tier 2 to Tier 6. So that's where we are seeing. Again, as I said, the seasonal impact given, you know, some of the therapy areas like infectives, pain, they typically follow seasonality. You know, we've seen this year, the monsoon patterns have been not just erratic, but they've also been delayed. So we've continued to see, things getting pushed into Q3 now. So including the first month of Q3, which is October, we've seen a renewed, you know, growth momentum. So it's been a mixed bag, but unlike other sectors that Mr. Deepak you mentioned, I think we've been not... Definitely there's been a, you know, delta, which is impacted, but unlike some of the other sectors, we've not seen a significant drop here, and that's why you see what we delivered for the quarter.
Thank you, Bhushan. We have our second question from Ms. Sangeeta Purushottam . Ms. Sangeeta asks, "As you mentioned that in the quarter two, external market conditions were sluggish. Could you share how you see the market now? Additionally, was there any price erosion in Q2? If so, how much?
So I'll answer that question again. Thanks, Ms. Sangeeta for asking that question. I'll answer the second part first. In terms of how we're seeing that growth panning out, I think I've just answered part of your question there in terms of why we said it was slightly sluggish, because typically, Q2 of the financial year is supposed to be the peak pharma season, especially for some of the categories within the top 10, top 12 therapy areas, and that's where we've seen a slightly sluggish growth, and that's why I qualified that by saying that compared to the double-digit growth that we've typically seen in this season, we've seen them in the range of 7%-8%, including for infectives, which tracked at about 7%, for the quarter.
I think I already answered the question around geographies and how that growth split has come out. On the pricing part front, if you see for the industry at the external level, there's almost a 4.5% price factor, which has led to that 7.5-8% growth overall for the industry. Internally, for us at GSK, we've actually seen everything led by volume, so if you see our gen med as well as our Vaccines business, all our promoted brands, if you were to lump them as a group, our promoted brands have grown volumes by about 7%.
In fact, we've had an unfavorable component on the pricing front, because exactly like to like, we were still coming out of our NLEM for some of the sales and some of the brands. So for us, as a company, it's predominantly volume led and not price led for Q2. I don't know, Juby, if you want to add something there, would be summarized well.
Sure. Thank you. Our next question is from Mr. Nikhil Upadhyay. His question is: If we look at the volume growth for the quarter and the first half, it seems to be on the lower side. Can you talk about what led to this lower volume growth? Also, for the first quarter, what will be volume, price, and new introduction breakup?
Sorry, Anuja, I didn't understand. For the first quarter or second year?
For the first half, what will be the volume, price, and new introduction break up?
So I think I just gave the numbers.
Yeah.
It'll be a repetition of the same answer. But externally, as I said, almost 4%, 4.5% of that 8%, is led by price. Whereas for GSK, we didn't have that factored in. So as I said, a large part of our... In fact, we are adverse on the pricing. We clearly see, so that's why if you saw what Juby presented on the financials, as we close out the first half, we have value growth of about 7%.
As we get into the second half, the objective is definitely to continue the momentum and not just grow on the volumes, which is really the health of the business, but also have kick in some of those pricing variables which have not worked in our favor, at least in the first few months of this year. That's where we see our growth only improving as we move into Q3 and Q4. Do you want to qualify something there or?
No, I think on the first half, half yearly basis, we have reported a 7% growth. Of that 7% growth, 5.5% is coming from volume, and close to 1.5% is coming from price. So basically, first half, it's predominantly volume-driven growth. Quarter, like, this quarter, the reported quarter, it's 6% volume growth. So basically, it's a fully volume-led growth.
Thank you, Juby. Handing it over back to you, Darwin.
Thank you very much, ma'am. Ladies and gentlemen, participants on the audio bridge, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one. Ladies and gentlemen-
People are all celebrating out there.
Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one if you wish to ask a question.
I don't know, so...
No.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have-
While we wait for the people on the audio line to ask questions, we have a few more on the webcast. Miss Sangeeta asks, "By which quarter will the price impact of NLEM be behind us? And can you outline the likely future category of the shingles vaccine?
So, I think NLEM impact has been completely phased out starting with this quarter. Okay, so that's why half year basis, we are seeing a price growth of 1.5%-ish and a volume growth of 5.5%. This quarter, the reported quarter, it is 6% volume and -1% price, so it's completely out with this quarter.
On the second question, Miss Sangeeta, as I said, we remain committed because, for an extremely innovative asset like Shingrix, and that too with an efficacy in the range of 92%, that too over a 12-year period, you know, to prevent a painful disease like herpes, we continue to invest. And what do I mean by that? We are really putting energy in terms of really creating the vaccination ecosystem for adults, both in the private healthcare setting, in clinics, as well as signing up with hospitals, with specialized specialty clinics, wherein we can offer this Shingrix prevention option to more and more patients who want to, you know, take charge of their well-being and health.
With every passing month, we are improving, and as I said, over an 18-month period since launch, exactly we launched it in May last year. Over an 18-month period, we have sold more than 100 and almost 110,000 doses of shingles, of Shingrix prevention. As I said, every month, we are holding and creating innovation by way of getting more patients empowered to have that conversation with healthcare practitioners and seek, you know, a potential in the form of vaccination. So that's where we're investing our energies across all three elements: clinics, hospitals, as well as the specialty clinics. We continue to see 2025 calendar year as well as the financial year and beyond as some of the most important years in terms of creating significant contribution from Shingrix to our business.
Thank you, Bhushan. Our next question is from Mr. Jayesh Poladia. Mr. Poladia asks: Are you looking for any acquisition or inorganic growth opportunity in the near future?
Mr. Poladia, that's always a very important question that we keep asking, including in our board, and we're always sniffing, scouting, and looking for the right opportunities. As you know, for a company like GSK that's celebrating 100 years of the past, but also remaining completely focused on the next 100 years of our evolution in India, the fit has to be right. We made some strategic choices in terms of the therapy areas that we will want and continue to play, including the launch, as I talked a couple of quarters back, in new areas like oncology. So there are strategic bets that we're playing out. If there are the right candidates, with, of course, at the right cost, at the right price, we're more than happy to look.
But that's why these decisions have to have the right mutual fit, both for a company like us, as well as a company that's wanting to offer assets. I think that's where we stand. The answer is never a no. It's about finding the right asset at the right price.
Thank you, Bhushan. Our next question is from Mr. Viraj Mithani. Mr. Mithani asks: Can you give us some color on Nucala, Trelegy, and Shingrix in terms of growth rate and revenue? Additionally, what would be your guidance for the current year?
Yeah. So Mr. Mithani, thank you very much for that. As we always say, we don't really give a guidance, but we've put out a clear objective and a mission for ourselves that, you know, what will it take for a country where we continue to serve the healthcare needs of, you know, one point four billion Indians, what will it take for us to continue to accelerate the growth momentum? And that's why I just answered in terms of the new growth platforms. Specifically, your question around how Nucala, Trelegy, and Shingrix have panned out, and I think in the last investor meeting, I gave a demonstrated example of how this growth platform of new assets didn't exist for us.
So if you were to go back and check our financials three years ago, these assets didn't exist. And when I, when I look at the financial year, this financial year, ending up to March 2025 , I clearly see these three assets contributing in the range of 5-6% to our top line. So that's a portfolio that didn't exist, and that's exactly what we want to continue to do. How can we build this richness index from innovative assets, and, and create at least a 10% contribution to the top line in the, in the coming times, and keep reinventing ourselves and, and creating that growth momentum? Apart from, of course, holding, you know, the momentum on our base business of both General Medicines as well as Vaccines. So that's where we are.
Our objective, as you heard from Juby, we've delivered a 7% growth, which is completely led by volume. So for the next two quarters of this financial year, we, our objective is to not only continue this volume momentum, but also to get some benefit of the price, variables, which will kick in and only improve the performance, as we close out the financial year.
Thank you, Bhushan. Our next question is from Ms. Julie Mehta. Ms. Mehta asks: Vaccines saw a drop in unit and value growth as per IPM data in the last two to three months. Do we face any impact due to the same?
So thanks a lot, Ms. Mehta, for asking that question. Again, if you remember the last five or six quarters, I've been sharing with you the progress that we are making on, one, stabilizing the pediatric vaccines portfolio, both, you know, the width and the depth that we have is significant. So if you see what we have now for the last three quarters, is consistent growth. You saw on the financials, excluding Shingrix also, our pediatric Vaccines business has grown for the quarter about 11.5%. And that's led across the board by all the antigens that we have. So we've been able to hold our market share in the private self-pay market in the range of 23%-24%.
But more importantly, serve the increasing, the important cohorts in the private segment with our antigens. So the impact of the National Immunization Program, which really plays out in different healthcare delivery systems, has probably, you know, has leveled out, and we only see moving forward, a continued momentum across many of our assets. Leading the pack is, you know, assets which protect infants from chickenpox or to prevent chickenpox, which is Varilrix. We've had Boostrix, which is a Tdap vaccine to prevent. So many of these assets have grown in double digits and also high double-digit numbers. So for the next two quarters, we see continued momentum for the pediatrics business. So that's where we are confident of delivering what we have set out.
Sure. Thank you, Bhushan. Back to you, Darwin. Can you please take it?
Sure. Thank you, ma'am. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, participants on the audio bridge, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question.
Absolutely. Thank you.
If there is nobody on the audio link, we have a few more on the webcast. The next question is from Mr. Gokul Maheshwari. Mr. Maheshwari asks: "What is the outlook for input prices, and can you improve your gross margins as NLEM price impact is now behind us?
Do you want to take that?
So I think we have taken several steps to improve the gross margin mix. As you, as you would have noticed, the impact of the NQR and NLEM has been recovered over the last four to five quarters, you know. So as we speak, our gross margin stands at 62 percentage points, okay? Now, the raw material prices in the broader pharma market, we're seeing softening, and we are getting some benefit out of that, but all those things have already dialed up. So now, this quarter, the raw material prices have been fairly stable. Our margin profile also has been fairly stable. So, we have taken several steps to improve the entire margin profile, including EBITDA. That's what you would have been seeing. We are better than pre-NLEM stage on EBITDA as well as gross margin.
So all those things we've been sharing in the last couple of investor calls, and, as we speak, I'm pleased to say that we've been at the one of the highest EBITDA margin in the past many quarters we have reported this quarter.
Thank you, Juby. So our next question is from Ms. Julie Mehta. Ms. Mehta asks: "We have two key product launches ahead of us in the second half. Are we moving in the right direction for the same?
Yes. So thanks again, Ms. Mehta, for that. Yes, we have. I shared it in the last investor meeting also that we're getting back into oncology with the launch of two assets currently indicated for endometrial and ovarian cancer. So yes, we are. We are having some delay in terms of aligning the functional silos across the value chain in the organization. But in terms of our intent and the direction, we are pretty much there. So yes, the answer is yes, Ms. Mehta.
Thank you, Bhushan. Currently, we do not have any more questions, in queue on the webcast.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings the conference call to an end. On behalf of GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Limited, we conclude this conference. We thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you very much, everyone. Have a very happy Diwali ahead. Thank you. Bye.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.