Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to VIMTA Labs Limited Quarter Three Investor Conference Call, hosted by Systematix Institutional Equities. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vishal Manchanda from Systematix Institutional Equities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Riya. Good morning, everyone. On behalf of Systematix Institutional Equities, I welcome you to the third quarter FY 2024 earnings call of Vimta Labs. We thank the Vimta Labs's management for giving us an opportunity to host the call. Today, we have with us the senior management of Vimta, represented by Ms. Harita Vasireddi, Managing Director, Mr. Satya Sreenivas Neerukonda, Executive Director, Mr. Narahari Naidu, Chief Financial Officer, and Ms. Sujani Vasireddi, Company Secretary. I now hand over the call to the CFO, Mr. Narahari Naidu, for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Vishal. Good evening and Good morning, and a very warm welcome to our Quarter Three FY 2024 earnings call. Our investor presentation and the financial results are available on the company website and on the stock exchanges. Please note that anything said on this call, which reflects our outlook for the future, or which could be constituted as a forward looking statement, must be reviewed in conjunction with the risk of the company, which the company faces.
The conference call is being recorded, and the transcript, along with the audio of the same, will be made available on the website of the company as well as exchanges. Please also note that the audio of the conference call is the corporate material of Vimta Labs Limited and cannot be copied, re-broadcasted, or attributed in the press or media without specific or written consent of the company. Now, I would request our Managing Director, Ms. Harita Vasireddi, to provide you with the updates for the quarter. Over to you.
Thank you, Narahari. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our third quarter and nine-month FY 2024 earnings call. I hope you all had a great start to the year, and hoping 2024 brings prosperity to all of us. Before I discuss Vimta's results in detail, I will briefly touch upon the economic and industrial landscape.
With the start of 2024, the global economy was shrouded with uncertainty, influenced by a multitude of factors such as geopolitical issues, continuous impact of tight monetary policies, restrictive financial conditions, and a rather tepid environment for global trade and investment, and also persistent inflation. Following a sharp jump in demand post-COVID, there was a noticeable shift in the latter half of 2023, leading to a subdued demand environment affecting various industries.
In a more detailed look at the TIC and CRO industry, focusing on two of our major service areas. Import testing, persistent inflation, and dampened consumer demand continue to impact the import/export volume as well as domestic demand. However, there seems to be an indication of gradual recovery. After a lackluster second quarter in terms of volume, there has been improvement slightly in the food segment.
Coming to the life sciences industry, the overall demand environment remains quite steady, especially we experience good demand in the preclinical services, we see strong traction in India. The electronics and electrical product testing market also seems to be gaining momentum, but it is still in the early stages and are comparatively smaller in size. Moving on to Vimta's results for the quarter.
As we guided in the previous call, we have witnessed good recovery in the business. Our total income for the quarter stood at INR 826 million, with 9.4% sequential growth. The recovery was driven by our food business, where we witnessed better volumes, coupled with good upside in life sciences businesses, especially in preclinical studies. Other segments such as diagnostics and environment have remained flat, actually a little bit constrained.
And E&E services or Electronics and Electrical Product Testing services have seen a very strong traction. With regards to operations, I would like to just share with you that our pharma analytical division has undergone a good European regulatory audit by EMA.
Our expansion project, our new facility that we are building is delayed by about six to seven weeks, and we expect to start moving into the new facilities mid-March onwards. As such, financial year 2024 has not really panned out to our expectations, especially in second quarter. And we observed a slowdown in discussions with prospective clients and a decrease in volume of the business.
However, our discussions have resumed again with vigor, particularly on the life sciences side, and we are eyeing bigger opportunities. Although the process of converting these prospects into tangible outcomes might take a little time in this highly competitive market, I'm very confident that we will have some good success story.
Lastly, I want to reassure you that we are working on various strategies, which I believe will help us grow sustainably in the coming years. With these few introductory remarks, I would like to now hand over the call to our CFO, Mr. Narahari, to discuss the financial highlights for the quarter.
Thank you, Ms. Harita. Once again, I thank you all for joining us on our third quarter and 9 months FY24 earnings conference call. I would like to walk you through the consolidated financial performance for the quarter ended thirty-first December, 2023, after which we can open the floor for questions and answers. Let us begin with the consolidated financial highlights for the quarter.
Total income for third quarter FY24 stood at INR 8.6 million, as compared to INR 785 million in third quarter FY23, up 5.3% on a YOY basis. EBITDA stood at INR 227 million in third quarter FY24, as compared to INR 226 million in third quarter FY23, a growth of 0.7% on YOY basis. EBITDA margins for the quarter stood at 27.5%.
Profit after tax in third quarter FY24 stood at INR 101 million, as compared to INR 102 million in third quarter FY23, which is a flat performance on a YOY basis. Tax margins for the quarter stood at 12.3%. Moving on to nine months performance. Revenue from operations for nine months FY24 stood at INR 2,421 million, as compared to INR 2,391 million in nine months FY23. This is a growth of 1.2% on a YOY basis. EBITDA stood at INR 659 million in nine months FY24, as compared to INR 735 million in nine months FY23, which is a degrowth of 10.4% on YOY basis, translating to, into a EBITDA margins of 27.2%.
Profit after tax in nine months FY2024 stood at INR 287 million, as compared to INR 265 million in nine months FY2023, with a de-growth of 19.2% on a YOY basis. Tax margins stood at 11.8%. On the balance sheet side, we continue to generate strong cash from operations, driven by my focus on working capital efficiency, which led to generation of strong cash flows from our operations of INR 575 million. As you all know, we are currently engaged in CapEx to expand our capacity, for which we have spent close to INR 628 million.
Even after, the ongoing CapEx expenditure, we continue to have net debt-free balance sheet with cash and cash equivalents, including other bank deposits of INR 825 million as on thirty-first December 2023. With this, we can now open the floor for Q&A. Thank you.
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 remove yourself from question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Ankit Gupta from Bamboo Capital. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Ma'am, I just wanted to, you know, get your sense on the guidance that we had given for reaching 500 crore. Let's assume, you know, if that is not achieved in FY 2025, but even to... for us to get to 500 crore in FY 2026, you know, we might have to grow by, you know, 25% to 27% CAGR for FY 2025 and FY 2026. This year, most probably we'll end up with somewhere around INR 325 crore, INR 330 crore, INR 335 crore kind of revenue on an annual basis.
So from there, you know, the getting to INR 300-INR 500 crore will require significant growth. So, you know, what is- are you on the outlook, which was given, guidance which was given earlier? How confident are we of achieving those numbers, if not in FY25? Now, you know, FY26 also seems to be a bit difficult.
With regards to the target that we have taken for FY 2026, which is INR 500 crore, yes, it's not going to be as easy as we thought maybe a year ago. This year has practically been flat, but we have not given up on hope. We remain very committed to that number. We will be putting extra effort. We are planning those efforts. So we have not, we are not shaken from that target.
Right, right. But how is the pipeline looking for us, especially on the pharma side? Because, you know, that is our major segment. So, you know, so, you know, how does it, how is the pipeline on the pharma side? Because that has to shoulder the major burden of, you know, reaching INR 500 crore. Apart, you know, other segments will also contribute, but given their base, pharma has to take the lead and second would be the food segment. So, if you can, you know, share your views on pharma pipeline.
One thing is pipeline, the other, the various knowledge assets that we have built during the last year or so. I might have mentioned this in my previous interactions as well, that we are now building the capabilities for large molecules. So that is something that we are confident about. The opportunities look very strong for large molecules, and we have the capability to support large molecules right from the preclinical stage to the clinical stage, and of course, the entire analytical spectrum. So that's one capability that we have built.
Agricultural preclinical activities, we don't call them preclinical, we call them non animal studies. So there also we have been building capabilities. There were capacity constraints which we will now not be having as we move into the new facility.
So that, gives us, more actually infrastructure to, drive that business, with, you know, greater, focus. Similarly, we had constraints, even, for adding equipment for our analytical division. So those constraints will not be there, once we inaugurate this new facility. So I reiterate that we, we are still very committed to that number. It is achievable. It's not going to be easy, but it is achievable, and we are going to work very strongly towards that number.
One thing was on the capacity part, you know, capacity will be building up with the assets coming in, let's say, maximum by March. So, but the other thing is on the demand side. Demand and order pipeline, especially on the pharma side, if you can talk about it a bit. Although the recovery we have seen, but, is it a, you know, long-driven grind that we will see in our recovery, because, you know, globally, the sector itself is facing a bit of challenges on the funding side and also if you can talk about this.
The demand is good, and I think pharma companies are also changing their development pipelines. There is more and more trust on specialty smaller molecules than the rather routine generics. So we don't see any different demand on the pharma side.
Okay. And my last question was on the food side. You know, food, how is the food business doing? Because, you know, previously you mentioned that food segment has been a bit of, you know, demand recovery after a subdued last two quarters. So if you can talk about the food segment as well as our, you know, JNPT labs, NFL labs that we have set up. How is it doing actually?
Yeah, food was low in second quarter. We saw recoveries in our routine business in third quarter. The NFL, JNPT revenues, actually, import volumes seem to be low because the samples are not really picking up. They are still at very low numbers. So yes, that is slightly impacting the plans that we have for food in this year. But then we have our other routine business, which we hope to work on and meet those numbers.
But the challenges that we had, with regards to getting more samples, through our laboratory and not, you know, FCI not giving those samples to the other smaller laboratories, that still continues to persist, so we are seeing some improvement in that. If the challenges continue to persist, what steps are we taking to, you know, mitigating that?
The challenges around low sample volumes at NFL, they continue, and there is not much we can do. It's the question of the regulator. So there, we don't influence those kinds of decisions .
Okay. Okay. Any changes you see in that, you know, or that will, that is expected to continue?
Sorry, can you repeat, please?
So, any changes that you see in FCI approach or in the near term or, you know, it will continue like this? Hello.
I won't be able to comment on that. We are definitely, you know, putting our case forward to them continuously. The outcome of that continuous effort is quite unknown to me also at this point of time.
Okay. Okay, okay. Okay, thank you, ma'am. I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press Star and one to ask questions. Next question is from the line of Ankeet Pandya from InCred Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good morning, and thank you for giving the opportunity. First off, congratulations on a great set of numbers. The first question is on the food business. Like, you know, given that, you know, currently due to there is a Red Sea challenge that is happening. So, are you seeing any slowdown in the imports of food business, or do you see any impact going forward, probably like for next one or two quarters, that the food segment might get impacted?
The import volumes are low. You know, even year-on-year, when we compare the numbers, the volumes seem to be lower than last year. Will they pick up in the next couple of quarters? I'm afraid I don't have that kind of information with me. But, with regards to how we are going to plan our business around this is we are, we are not going to take any increase here into account. We will work on our other streams of revenues for food.
But so probably, due to this, given one or two quarters might see further slowdown or muted kind of a growth in the food business. Any challenge do you see in the medium term?
I don't know if they will go down further. They are already quite low, so I'm not expecting them to go down even further.
Okay. And on the pharma segment, given, like, you know, you have already in a way question-answered that the funding challenge issue is there. But, like, you know, what are the steps or strategy that you'll be doing, like, you know, to target the big pharma or the big molecules going forward? So how is that going to pan out? What is the strategy for from the company perspective on this side? Because, currently, given that, you know, pharma is one of the biggest segment for us. So, how do you plan to target the big molecules and the big pharma companies going forward?
We have already started that journey of building capabilities for large molecules. You obviously have to develop the science, the knowledge within the organization before you give the confidence to your prospective customers that you are capable of delivering those, services with good science. So that, those POCs have already been begun. And we've had a good response from people who have been working with us for a long time. They, they know us, they trust us.
So the first few studies will come from such good partners, and once we are able to build a track record, I think then, we stand on a better ground in going and soliciting more business from, newer companies. And so that's on the, you know, operational side.
On the business development side, we have stepped up after COVID, our reach out into Europe and US, so that continues. Usually, these services have a little longer lead time, and we started this exercise almost a couple of years ago. So we see the conversions happening, we see good traction. The kind of projects that we are able to get, that's quite encouraging.
Okay. Ma'am, lastly, just directionally, if not any guidance or number-wise, directionally, like, you know, we have previously also done margins of around 30, 31%. But, given that, you know, we have one new facility coming on board, like you said, in the next six to eight weeks, that and plus a bit of a muted demand scenario currently, by when can we, like, you know, target to achieve 30, 31% plus EBITDA margin directionally? Not any particular year-wise, but directionally, when can we see that, and what will be the drivers for that?
The growth in top line will be the key driver for coming back to those 31% kind of bottom line. Yes, the new facility will have some impact, the depreciation will increase the cost of maintenance. You know, these are laboratories, and a good amount of expenditure is around the maintenance of these facilities. So the sooner we are able to you know consume the capacity that we have built, the faster we will be able to get back to those margins. And it's all a question of driving the top line.
Oh, fair enough. Okay. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask questions. Next question is from the line of Dhaval Dama from Turquoise Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello, ma'am. Ma'am, my only question is regarding NFL. The kind of CapEx and operating expenditure that we are doing on NFL, and the continuous disappointment as both a minority shareholder and majority shareholder you are seeing in that, how does it affect or, I mean, what kind of judgment do we take in terms of future capital allocation? Because in last few years, a few of our capital allocation decisions have not turned out to be correct.
So, whether it's the diagnostic space or NFL, whenever we have gone slightly different from our core businesses, at least in the near term, it does not seem to be reaping any benefits for the shareholders. Would you care to comment on that, please?
R espectfully disagree with your comment on not adding value to the shareholders. I think the past few years' growth would refute the statement. Now, coming to the investments that we have made in NFL, that's a very efficient lab that we have built. And we have reallocated the resources from our other labs to set up that lab. So it's a profitable lab. Even with such you know, unexpectedly low volume, that's a profitable lab.
So I wouldn't say that we failed there. On the diagnostics, yes, you know, but that is mostly on the operational expenditure side, not on the CapEx side. We were a bit, I think, unduly confident with our expansion into Delhi and Kolkata, which have not really worked out for us. So that we stand corrected. Now, that we realize is not our strength, therefore will not be our strategic focus also going forward.
Thank you so much, ma'am, and best of luck.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask questions. Next question is from the line of V.P. Rajesh from Banyan Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on a good quarter-over-quarter rebound. Hello?
Could you speak a little louder?
Yeah. Hi. Am I audible now?
Yes, sir.
Okay. What I was saying is, congratulations on a good rebound on a sequential basis. My question was more on the year-to-year side. If you look at your, you know, numbers, the revenue has gone up by 5.2%, but your EBITDA is almost flat year-over-year, and majority of that is because of your material and testing costs and the employee costs. So the point I'm trying to make is one doesn't see the operating leverage flowing through. So if you can comment on that, that would be helpful.
Thanks for the question. On the margins front, of course, as you rightly mentioned, so we had expected higher numbers in top line, which we didn't realize because of second quarter underperformance and the expectation. That has kind of impacted our overall margin achievement. So going forward, we are expecting this to improve definitely from the current levels.
Okay. So I think somebody else also said that.
Sorry, it's not clear.
Yeah, I was just saying that, you know, what I'm hearing from you is that this 27.5% EBITDA margin can get better in the next coming quarter. Is that the way I should think about your comment?
Yes, yes. It can become better than 27.5%, because we are expecting the growth levels to continue or rather improve from the current levels.
Understood. Understood. Okay, so on just on the cost of material, you are saying that there is nothing, you know, out of normal in that number in this current in the quarter that went?
No, there is no one-off item, included in cost of material.
Okay. Just very quickly, what was the cash number you mentioned? Sorry, I didn't catch that.
You mean cash, right?
Yeah, cash at the end of the quarter. You mentioned the number that you are positive in cash. It was, I think, INR 88 crore, or what was the exact number? I was trying to...
So we had generated positive operating cash flow of close to INR 57 to 58 crore for the period ending December 2023. And we were sitting on a cash close to INR 38 crore by the end of December 31. This is despite we incurring a significant amount of CapEx towards the project expansion. Despite that, we are in a very comfortable cash position.
That's INR 38 crore at the end of the December quarter, correct?
Correct.
Okay, great. Thank you. I'll get back in the queue if I have more questions. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask questions. Next question is from the line of Ankeet Pandya from InCred Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Just on the CapEx front, I just wanted to get some clarity. Now, given that, you know, food and pharma, that we have built our capacities and we just the demand will see the growth. Given that, you know, in the long term, you have also alluded that electronic and environment segment will be also a big driver for the top line growth. So going forward, by when do you see, like, you know, the next CapEx cycle will come for the company?
Because, given that environment and electronic is a relatively a smaller segment for us currently, but when such scaling up, by when do you see that, you know, we might go into a CapEx phase for that particular segment?
We have already created additional space to add one more EMI/EMC chamber in the new facility that will come in soon. So, we might get a new chamber in the next six to eight months.
For the electronic and environmental division?
Electronics and electrical product.
Electrical, okay. And, what will be the roughly, like, CapEx requirement that goes into that, into that?
That changes, but typically costs about INR 4.5 crore-INR 5.5 crore.
Okay. So not a major CapEx plan, at least for the next 1.5 year, except for this part.
We are just, you know, in the process of making our business plans for this upcoming new financial year. So if there are some exciting opportunities in terms of adding new capabilities to our existing services, then if such ideas demand that we increase CapEx to get those technologies, yeah, then we might spend more. But at this point of time, I'm not sure what could be the spending. We are yet to look at the budget proposals.
Fair. Okay. All right. Yeah. That's, that's it for me. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ankit Gupta from Bamboo Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the follow-up. So on the electronics, electric and electronics side, you know, you know, given the response for our service has been quite good. You know, how do you see the scale-up happening in the segment over the next two to three years? Can this segment become, you know, INR 50 crore kind of contributor to our overall revenue in FY 2026 or 2027?
26, 27 is about 3 years away. So, yeah, INR 50 crore could be a stretch, but definitely about INR 30 crore in the next two to three years.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay, okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask questions. Next question is from the line of Viraj Sahu, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Ma'am, there are basically two questions. One, in life sciences, you talked about our aspiration to become bigger and larger and longer projects. So can you give us some, you know, qualitative view on the proof of concepts we are doing? Has there been a material shift in the quality of POCs we do in life sciences? So whether it is in terms of geography, are we more into developed regulatory markets versus India?
And in terms of India, is the customer mix changing from our traditional small molecule customers to maybe a new age customers? That is one question. The second is, in terms of electronics and electrical, can you tell us some sectoral tailwinds? Particularly, we see defense, there's a lot of spending, et cetera. So, can you, can you give us what kind of, you know, trigger you are getting from the marketplace, from your sales team?
I just want to reconfirm my understanding of your question, the second half. You want to understand, which industries within the electronics and electrical products are giving us, good outcome? Is that your question?
Yeah. So my understanding is we are mostly into industrial electronics and electric, you know, electrical and electronics equipment, and not as much into consumer, electric, and electronics, for example. I could be wrong, just correct me. So I just want to see, you know, understand what kind of segments you are focusing more, and where you see, you know, opportunities in next three to five years.
As you said, you know, you return INR 30 to 35 crores, which is like, you know, 50% to 60% growth, although on a much, much smaller base. Just trying to understand what kind of industries will give you that kind of, you know, growth.
Okay. So I will answer the second portion of your question first. So, Hyderabad is a defense component manufacturer hub. So, we do get a lot of, you know, major portion of our business comes from these defense component manufacturers. The kind of products that we test, actually, the range is quite impressive. Right from these defense components, we do even communication systems used in railways, used in aircraft.
We, we test for drones. We test drones that are used in military. We test drones that are used for agricultural purposes. We have tested even industrial products like the HVAC systems, even domestic products like fans.
It's a huge variety because the specs that we have built in our lab, in terms of the technology capability, is quite impressive and can address a lot of product testing requirements. So, that is about EMI. Coming to the former question about how our customer mix is changing in India. We work with most of the customers, sorry, most of the manufacturers who have their businesses in Europe, progressive markets of Asia and America. So mix as such is not changing for us.
Some of the big players here in India are now expanding their pipelines into peptides and large molecules. So we work with them on the small molecule side, and we wish to build good partnerships on the large molecule side as well.
POCs, when it comes to large molecules, they are underway. We have our projects in hand. We are just waiting for the samples to come to kick-start those projects. Did I answer on the segment of the question?
Yeah. You know, yeah, what I was, yeah, on the second one, totally. But on the first one, I... What I was trying to understand more clearly is, if the quality and the quantity of POCs are materially shifting towards more complex projects and larger life cycle, we are basically analytics, we are known for that. So is there a material shift you are seeing? Because this will result into three years of business going forward. You know, it will indicate a direction for next to three years.
Yeah. Revenues come from during product development and also during the manufacturing of the product. So when we are supporting the product development, then the project sizes tend to be larger, longer also in duration. But once the product is tested, I mean, developed and then validated, then the recurring continuous samples, you know, start coming in. So they have a complementary and actually a compounding effect when we start supporting our customers in developing their products.
Sure, sure. So one last question. Last quarter, you talked about some regulatory headwind in pharmaceutical testing, particularly getting approvals, et cetera. Is that progress still, is it continuing or is there a delay in this part?
No, no, the licenses are flowing nicely again now. They have come back to the normal timelines. No issues now.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask questions. Next question is from the line of Manav from Quad Investment. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi, yes, ma'am. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm really sorry if I have missed the first portion. For 30 minutes, I wasn't there in the call, so not sure if it repeats, just let me know the remaining information. So my other question, ma'am, there are three parts to the question. Ma'am, as we had discussed the CapEx for the year of INR 90 crore, so are we in line with the quarter four, also looking in the same lines to complete the CapEx? And, how is the additional capacity, we are doubling our office space, how has it been done?
And also, have we seen the utilization properly used? Because you said that you'll be using the same people, the same machinery will be relocated, because we didn't have space. So how are we seeing that space being utilized now?
Okay. Yeah. CapEx, there were two components to our CapEx this year. One was for the project, where I think we are going as per our budget. And then the other one was for our routine, you know, investments that we have not spent as much as we were hoping to spend, because we didn't do that much of sale. We didn't need to spend that much. Coming to capacity utilization, yes, initially we will be moving, couple of, divisions into the new building. As and when, you know, we are able to, grab more opportunities, we will be adding capacities in terms of manpower and equipment.
Okay. Okay, ma'am. Now, in the last call, you had mentioned that the Europe and US economies are little bit cautious on their pharma R&D spend. Are we seeing the recovery happening this quarter? Or on the third quarter also, there are some, what do you say, green shoots or any such sorts of recovery signs or metrics you are tracking from those economies?
Hi, this is Sridhar. Europe, I mean, on the business front, when it comes to their manufacturing and all, I think that's where the challenges were, not in the pharma and biotech segment. Because Europe is at the forefront of biotech development, and that is not slowing down for them. So I think when you look at the pharma side of the business, I think that's been good.
Okay. So you are seeing some recovery happening over there?
Yes, this segment was always protected, and also Europe also leads in the agrochemical and specialty chemical business, so we don't see any slowdown there. And these are, the agrochemical and specialty chemical is a highly regulated subject in most of the European countries. So there is also stringency of the regulations, where they want to tighten the, I mean, tighten the limits for most of these agrochemical and specialty chemicals. So that's why, yeah, I think this is a positive outcome.
Okay, sir, then come upcoming year, FY 25, what are you seeing that the recovery is to be as they were in the 2021, 2022 cycles? Are we seeing those kind of spending coming in again? Because I think the two years there was a slowdown or some recessionary period. So do we think that coming back, just I wanted to make this as a conclusion.
It is coming back. Yes. The markets are...
It is reviving. Okay, sir. Sir, on the third part, on the JNPT, we see the volumes have increased, but the values have been the same thing. How have we been impacted from these volumes and the values are same, but have we increased our proportion of business?
And also, if you can just provide some certainty of revenues or any kind of, what do you say, profitability projection from JNPT side, because we are very, we are very, because it's a government regulated, so if any certainty or any assurance can be given on revenues, what can be expected going forward? Because we had predicted INR 100 crore will be coming in from 2025. So do we see—are we reaching those lines per year?
Yes, that wishful thinking, we hope we get INR 100 crore, but we never made that statement. And again, the volumes are directly proportional to the value. If the volumes are there, the value will also increase, so there's no decrease in value because of doing more work and getting less value, so that's not a right assumption again.
Okay.
We had already spoken in detail about this question earlier also. This is, the volumes are controlled highly by the regulator. We keep making our statements to the regulator, because capacity-wise, we have built a lab which can sustain the additional volume. Again, it's in the hands of the regulator, how they, what, what their, forward thinking is or how they're thinking moving forward and, allocate, more, volume into the product.
Okay. So, sir, I just wanted to understand your strategy on the large molecule. I mean, how is it developing? If you can just comment, any development, any substantial... Have you seen on the large molecule side, what is the progress going on on that side? If you can just comment on it.
If you look at the 2023 global filings and approvals of the new molecule segment, only 34% is from small molecules, sorry, 36% is from small molecules, the rest is from the large molecule space, right? And these large molecules eventually will come to generic market as well. India is today a major generic player for biologics. We are not an innovator except for one or two companies. And our pharma companies are still striving to get approvals in either Europe or the North American market. So as such, the investments are good.
Some companies are still very positive, and more and more products are being added to their product line. We as a company on the other side, we got into this almost a decade ago. We started doing the ancillary services at that time, but in the last five years, we have developed capabilities to service these markets in all the three aspects, on the preclinical testing, animal testing side, human testing, as well as analytics.
Okay. Sir, we have all... Just a follow-up on the large molecule. Do we have any plans or do we, do we foresee anything like contract manufacturing? CRM also being done except from, sorry, CDM also being done, except from just the research and, what do you say, preclinical and the clinical stage. Apart from that, into manufacturing, do we foresee any such subsidiaries or any venturing onto with other players, like associations or JV kind of structure?
As of now, nothing that we have looked at very seriously. But yeah, it's a logical expansion, and we will make the call and write a call.
That is open. But this point is open for discussion in the board.
Yes.
Okay. Sure. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to management for closing comments.
Thanks, everyone, for attending this call and for the nice question and answers that we had. I also want to thank Vishal and our partners in EY for joining us in this call. Have a good day. Bye.
Thank you. On behalf of Systematix Institutional Equities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.