Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Neuland Laboratories Limited Q2 and H1FY25 Earnings 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 the conference 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. Ravi Udeshi from Ernst & Young. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
To the Q2 and H1FY25 earnings conference call of Neuland Laboratories Limited. To take us through the results and to answer your questions, we have with us the management from Neuland Laboratories, represented by Mr. Sucheth Davuluri, Vice Chairman and CEO, Mr. Saharsh Davuluri, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. Abhijit Majumdar, CFO, and Mr. Sajeev Emmanuel Medikonda, Head of Corporate Planning and Strategy. We will start the call with a brief overview of the financials by Mr. Abhijit Majumdar, and then Saharsh will give you the broad highlights of the business trends and what he is seeing in the market. And post this, we will open up the call for the Q&A session. As usual, the standard Safe Harbor clause applies as we start the call. With that said, I now hand over the floor to Abhijit. Over to you, Abhijit.
Yeah, thank you very much, Ravi, and a good evening and a warm welcome to each of you for joining our call. The financials are as follows for Q2 FY25. We did a total income of INR 315.2 crores in Q2 as compared to INR 422.8 crores in the same period last year. I'd like to point out that the inherent nature of our business is uneven on a quarter-to-quarter basis. We expect the full year FY25 to be flat as compared to FY24. Our EBITDA stood at INR 65.7 crores with a margin of 20.8%. The decrease in contribution has led to a decrease in EBITDA in Q2 FY25 as compared to Q2 FY24, EBITDA of INR 140.3 crores for FY24. We continue to focus on productivity in order to ensure the financial resilience of our company.
Now, coming to the specifics, the gross margin for the quarter was 56.3% as compared to 59.8% in Q2 of FY24. This gross margin, has always pertaining to manufacturing as attributed to the product. The profit after tax was 32 crores as compared to 89.1 crores in Q2 FY24. The quarter EPS stands at 24.9 rupees per share. For the half-year, 30th September, our revenues stood at 759.6 crores versus 785.8 crores for the same period of last year, a marginal de-growth of 3.3%. EBITDA was 194.3 crores in H1 FY25 compared to 239.6 crores in H1 FY24 due to slightly lower revenues and higher operating expenses.
We continue to focus on cash to optimize our working capital, which stands at 112 basis days of sale. We have generated a free cash flow in H1 of FY25 of INR 45.8 crores.
We also repaid some part of our debt of around INR 17.1 crores for the 6 months ended September 2024. Consequently, our net debt position stands at a negative of INR 94.3 crores. As part of our investments in facility upgradation, we have invested INR 103.5 crores in capital spend during H1 FY25. We are committed to balancing growth with profitability by constantly optimizing costs and processes to ensure long-term sustainability. While we expect FY25 to be flat, we remain confident that our business will regain momentum from FY26 based on significant order pipeline and strong customer demand. Overall, we continue to be cautiously optimistic about the future potential that our business holds. With that, I would like to hand over the call to Saharsh for his remarks. One second. Thank you very much. The call.
Over many years, we have been consistently positioning Neuland as a dedicated API solution with extensive complex chemistry capabilities, partnering both with innovators as well as generic pharmaceutical companies. Before elaborating more on this quarter, I would like to reiterate a few comments which Abhijit has already made. Our business is uneven due to the inherent characteristics of the CDMO business as well as the specialty GDS business, which is focused on small volume products. Therefore, annual progression is always a better indicator of the company's prospects than a quarter-on-quarter performance. This quarter's performance has been poor, especially when compared with what we've been doing over the last several quarters. But as I mentioned earlier, it does reflect the lumpy, volatile nature of our business.
Completion of additional manufacturing facilities this year, coupled with anticipated commercial launch of molecules on CMS side, gives us the confidence of achieving high growth in FY26 and beyond. We continue to see increasing interest in customers looking at Neuland as their CDMO partner. In terms of the macro picture, we are yet to see significant impact of the Biosecure Act by way of active RFPs or orders, but we believe that the environment remains highly favorable for us in the medium to long term.
In terms of our biotech clients being acquired by Big Pharma, we see the continuity of customer engagement and are quite excited about the future opportunities and possibilities. Our business development team continues to identify the right opportunities in line with our long-term strategy. The CMS revenues of INR 132 crores were driven by molecules in the commercial segment.
We're seeing a positive momentum and expect it to continue going forward. You may have noticed from the table of CMS projects that the number of commercial APIs has increased by one. This is the result of a recent commercial approval for an NCE API supplied by Neuland by the FDA. On the GDS side of the business, we remain focused on developing new specialty products while optimizing processes and expanding market share for key commercial APIs.
The specialty GDS business was primarily driven by salicylic acid. Although there was some volatility in our specialty business this quarter, we remain optimistic about the full year prospects for this segment, considering our customers' expected growth. In the prime segment, strong products for this quarter included metoclopramide, levetiracetam, and escitalopram. We believe we are on course to meet our overall targets for the GDS segment.
I would like to emphasize the inherently variable nature of our business, which makes it challenging to provide any form of guidance. Having said that, the manner in which the orders are currently taking shape, we now anticipate closing FY25 relatively flat compared to the previous comments we had made about expecting a moderate growth for FY25. Another reminder from our previous interactions, we continue to maintain that there are a variety of factors that could influence our projections.
These include performance of individual products, foreign exchange fluctuations, raw material cost volatility, and other dynamic business elements. We are aware of these challenges and continue to closely monitor these variables. Time and again, there is new information about products made by Neuland in the public domain. While the information may be accurate, I would urge you not to correlate such news with short-term business performance.
Regarding future capacity building, we are on track to complete the new production block in Unit 3 by FY25 and expect to commence commercial production in FY26. Neuland's flexibility and agility are essential for effectively responding to the changing business landscape. We continue to seek growth through high-value molecules of innovator companies. We are committed to enhancing customer experience, which we believe sets us apart as a unique API provider. Our investments in expanding our capacity and capabilities are also to be seen as a testament to our commitment to the future.
By staying true to our core principles of customer focus, agility, and operational excellence, Neuland is strategically positioned to seize opportunities even as we continue to navigate any short-term challenges which come our way. We continue to make progress on our long-term goals, which gives us confidence in delivering healthy growth starting in FY26.
So I guess having said that, Ravi, I request you to open it up for Q&A.
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 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 a question. In order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your questions to two per participant. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Shyam Srinivasan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good evening, and thank you for taking my question. Just the first one on some of the qualitative comments you have mentioned. I think I forgot asking about the annual report comment. One was on we're starting to see more interest from companies with larger pipelines. I think that was there in the annual report. So just want to understand what does that mean. Also, the second, the part B of that question is on increasing interest from biotech leading to increase in early stage projects. If you could elaborate on these two points, please.
Okay. So okay, maybe I'll try to answer the questions. The first one is, I think the reference to gaining back companies with larger pipelines. I think just refers to the M&A environment that Neuland has been exposed to in the last couple of years.
What has been happening is some of the programs that we've been associated with traditionally start by working with biotech companies are resulting in these companies getting acquired by larger companies. This has happened in more than one case, and that has been one opportunity where we are now engaged with companies with larger pipelines. Typically, Neuland's growth has been with biotech companies which have had only one or two drugs in the pipeline, and during that period, the growth opportunity with a particular account was limited. But now, as we are engaged with larger companies which have started working with Neuland through M&A, we are just seeing an increasing possibility of new business through the same account because of these larger pipelines.
Other than that, organically, also Neuland has been now, because we've been in the CDMO space for over 15 years, we've also started seeing traction with larger companies organically, where there is no biotech acquisition happening, but large companies have started to show interest with Neuland. With regards to the second question, it's about biotechs. Yeah, so I think the interest with biotechs is continuing. I think we just came back from one of the large trade fairs that we have for the pharma industry, the CPHI. I think although there is no evidence of Biosecure Act driving new business to us, there is clear evidence of a lot of new biotechs coming and talking to us because the funding environment also has improved in the U.S., and that has also resulted in more traction.
Somewhere we also get a sense that perhaps in the China versus India narrative, there is a little bit more tailwinds towards India, which is also leading for more biotech companies to come have conversations with us.
Got it. Helpful, sir. My second question is just on your slide 12 and just the number of the active CMS projects, right? We have seen about five or six additions. I just want to understand from a commercial or a phase three standpoint, are there any large enough molecules for us to be excited about in the pipeline that you think? I know you may not call out the names, but just for us to understand qualitatively, because we have talked about four molecules so far, but just want to understand what happens after that.
Yeah, Shyam. So I think the number of projects have increased, but the associated companies are, I think, two or three. And these companies are, again, U.S. biotechs. And in one case, the projects are moved out from a Chinese CDMO, and Neuland is kind of taking over these projects. In the other case, we are organically setting ourselves up as a partner for the clinical suppliers. I think both are exciting programs, but it's very important to remember that the probability of success is very low at this stage. So I think there's no point really trying to quantify the opportunity value or etc. But I think incidentally, both of these are in the CMS space. So I think there is generally a lot of work happening in CMS, and these molecules also seem to be in that space.
But one of them, which you may be interested to know, is moved from China to Neuland. So those are the inputs I can share with you.
Yes, sorry, my question was not just on the incremental flow. It was also on the backbook as well. In terms of most of our current revenues are coming from, say, top five products in CMS at 90%. I'm just looking at if there's product six, seven, eight somewhere in your pipeline, which we should start getting excited about in the next 12 to 24 months.
Okay. Sorry. So I think with regards to that, Shyam, see, I think there are about two or three molecules which are kind of one step away from commercialization for Neuland. And I think as we start seeing some milestones on that front, we'll definitely update the table and also make that evident in our commentary. But yeah, I think the molecules that you had pointed to in the table, I think are still several steps away from becoming big revenue contributors. But we do have programs. I think there's one in COPD, and then there's one in CNS, which are programs which are maybe about a step away. I think these programs could potentially be large contributors for our CMS business, maybe starting from 2027. But yeah, how big they will be, etc., I think remains to be seen.
I think we are also pursuing some new projects where we are trying to get into some phase two or phase three programs. There's also a pursuit of already recently commercially approved drugs where we want to enter as a second source. Those could be also probably more short-term opportunities for strengthening the commercial side of the CMS business.
Got it. Thank you. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you very much. Before we move on to the next participant, may we request participants to please limit your questions to two per participant so that the management is able to address questions from all the participants in the conference? The next question is from the line of Amlan Das from Nomura India. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi sir. Hello.
Please proceed with your question.
Yeah, hi sir. My question is regarding the CMS business. So since the last six to eight quarters, it has been contributing around 49%-55% of total revenues. Now, since you are saying that the order book has been going strong and you are expecting a high growth in FY26, can we expect this share to go up beyond the 55% mark? And how do you see the CMS business going forward? So the peak quarterly revenues have been around 230 crores. So what is the outlook regarding this business in FY26?
Yeah, thanks for the question. I think the CMS business is going to grow. I think if you look at the commentary we've made, I think in proportion to the GDS business, yes, I think it's kind of around the 50% mark. It's likely to go up beyond the 50% mark, but we are not really commenting on what the mix should be because both businesses are very independent of each other. And therefore, I think depending on how they perform, those numbers could move up and down. I think it also really depends on what kind of new launches we have on the generic side in the next couple of years. So I think where we are currently, I think, is a fairly reasonable balance between GDS and CMS.
I think we see strong growth in CMS in the next couple of years, so we think that it should be above 50%. But beyond that, it's difficult for us to give too much color.
I was actually trying to understand the margin profile since the CMS business is a high-margin business for you. What do you see as the stable EBITDA margin going forward? Would it be stable at around current levels of 27%-28% that you are making, or will it be expected to go up?
See, I think you'll see the margin profile, actually, the GDS specialty business margins and the CMS business margins are not too far away from each other. They're very similar margins. So I think trying to figure out the business mix to determine the margins may not necessarily be a helpful exercise. I think if you look at how we did in FY24, I think those margins were real margins. We thought that, of course, the factors were all there. There were a lot of tailwinds, so therefore the EBITDA margins were really optimal. I think going forward, we think if the factors are very favorable, then the margins should be like that, or they should come down a little bit. But I think the business mix, I think split is something that I've already answered that.
I think on the margins, what we've seen in FY24, maybe a slight drop on that is what we think is reasonable. But again, I think it really depends on how specific products pan out, and therefore maybe let's see how FY25 goes, and that gives you a good indicator. But we, again, don't want to give any kind of a number or some sort of a guidance on the overall margins.
Okay. Got it. Thank you. That was helpful.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Sajal Kapoor, who is an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Good afternoon, team. I have two questions. Maybe I can club them together or ask them separately. What do you prefer?
Together, Sajal. We'll note it down.
Okay. So I'll ask them together because they are related anyway. So the questions are, I mean, today, almost every other pharma company is enthusiastic about things like GLP-1, peptide chemistry in general, as well as India emerging as a key manufacturing destination outside China and how all that can propel their own CDMO plans. So every company is very vocal on CDMO plans and aspirations. So the question really is that given the scarcity of high-quality talent and the escalating demand for it, how is Neuland balancing the retention of top talent alongside hiring the fresh energy and capability from the available capability pool? That's part one of my question. And then related to that, I mean, it's obvious that as the number of projects in the CDMO pipeline increases, we need more people to handle the larger funnel of possibilities.
I've seen we have added more projects in the early stage pipeline, which obviously requires more people. So the question is the number of scientists. When I look at them, they have not materially changed for Neuland over the last two years. And we are still tracking close to that number of 360 where we were a couple of years back. So how do you see this number of scientists moving over the foreseeable future, given that every company is gunning for the talent? And in India especially, there is a very limited and finite pool of scientists available. I can give you another number, Saj. WuXi AppTec alone has or had close to 28,000 scientists. And that number, if I add the unlisted and listed Indian CDMO ecosystem together, I don't think we'll reach that 28,000.
So when you talk about China plus one and Biosecure possibility, etc., I mean, has India got what it takes to even come closer to China?
So I mean, there's a lot of questions built into it, Sajal, and that's fine. Good questions, I think. One is when we're talking about the whole momentum for business, the Biosecure Act, India versus China, what we are doing in Neuland is making sure that we are really keeping a close tab on what's actually happening in the market rather than getting carried away by all the press that's coming on the Biosecure Act and what is expected to happen in the future. So we're in touch with our customers.
We're engaging with them, finding out their preferences, how many projects are being outsourced, how many are going to China, how many are coming to India, so that we keep our expectations, our projections, and the related capital expenditure much closer to reality rather than get carried away by all the rhetoric that's happening in the market.
That's one thing that we're doing at the strategic level. As far as manpower and R&D is concerned, I think your observations are absolutely right. We've tried to maintain the headcount very close to what we expect the demand and the growth of the business to be. Notwithstanding that, over the last several years, we've focused more on the quality of manpower and specific skills of manpower that we are recruiting rather than just numbers of manpower. The way we see at least Neuland's strategy play out in the future is that we want to focus more and more on technologies which are challenging that will continue to differentiate Neuland that will help us continue to focus on the quality of business rather than the quantity of business. That's been our single-minded focus over the last couple of decades.
And that's where we've seen the margins of the business also grow. The last part of this is, I think really, Sajal, there's not one thing any company can do to retain manpower. It's always a combination of several initiatives from making sure that we are recruiting the right people, people whose purpose is also aligned with the purpose of the organization. We see that today, the manpower, they actually want to work for good companies, companies that have a vision, where there's a lot of stability, they have a purpose, they're passionate about what they're doing. And those are the kind of people that we're also recruiting. We have a scientific as well as a manufacturing advisory board with very qualified, accomplished scientists, engineers on there.
We use that network, including the network of our customers, to identify the right kind of people for the organization and recruit them. We use a combination of tools such as exit interviews, retention bonuses, employee engagement surveys to identify what are the top three or four things that are keeping our teams completely engaged. What are the top three or four things which are actually creating any kind of demotivation? We're constantly working to overcome those so that we have a workforce that is passionate and engaged into the business. Notwithstanding that we also focus a lot on doing our annual customer surveys, and we always make sure that our teams are completely connected to how we are impacting the customer on an ongoing basis. That keeps us motivated as well.
So there's multiple ways we could go on, but these are the top three or four things, Saj.
Yeah, I think maybe just also another perspective I'll add, Sajal, is I think, see, if you look at Neuland's business, and it's interesting how you brought up the WuXi comparison, which I think is great. Even I didn't know they had 28,000 scientists. But the fact is that our focus is very narrow, right? We are an API company. We do API CDMO work. And therefore, for us, the kind of scientific staff we need per molecule or the scientific staff we need is also comparatively lesser.
When we are engaged in doing a lot of work that involves maybe medicinal chemistry or early-stage drug discovery work, the need for scientists is a lot more. I think since Neuland's not in that space, I think we are able to, with a team of seven scientists, we are able to develop a molecule which can be a multi-million dollar product.
And so I think there is a little bit of a comparison issue over there. You mentioned GLP in your opening remarks. Now, a GLP-1 kind of a molecule which Neuland is making one for generics for the GDS business takes a team of maybe eight scientists, two to three years, to develop a GLP-1. What's important is the quality of the scientists, which is what Sajeev was emphasizing on. So therefore, I think we are more driven by purpose, and I think we are not compromising on the headcount. But definitely, I think China as an industry is far, far ahead. I think we are still more in the chemistry and the small molecule space, and China is definitely way ahead of us, so it's difficult to make that comparison also.
You're absolutely right. I mean, China has invested a lot in technology. The way they get support from the government also is incomparable. And in certain areas, they're way ahead of actually not India, but any other country for that matter. However, I think in areas where Neuland has positioned itself and wants to continue positioning itself in the future, as Saj was saying, our goal is to build that depth of expertise and that specialization, which we believe that has brought Neuland to where it is, and that's what we look forward to.
That's a great response, guys. Thank you so much. All the best.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Harsh Bhatia from Bandhan AMC. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. And the audience?
Yes, Mr. Harsh.
Yes.
Please proceed with your question.
Thank you. Just one question. Again, very directionally, more qualitative in nature, when you made this comment of there are rather opportunities shifting out of China and the customer is approaching Neuland to proceed with the molecule. How do you think about the pricing dynamics and the overall cost structure for the business as such? Because at the end of the day, when you are trying to pursue that molecule, you are going to compete with other players also, and you are going to, to a certain extent, going to compete with the Chinese pricing as well because that's the benchmark.
So how should you think about pricing from Neuland's perspective and industry in general? Because I think that's going to be something that we'll have to keep in mind, right, for a lot of businesses that are shifting out of China. So just your thoughts.
Harsh, I think a couple of things is when we look at our list of molecules, both on the generic side as well as the CDMO side, we don't find too many competitors from China. What China has done is that it's invested a lot of money as well as technology for large-scale manufacturing to tip the economy with scale. That is, we've invested, as Saj was saying earlier, on a lot of capability development, skill development, specific technology, specific IP, and that's how we've developed our molecules. Going forward, unless it is a very large volume API, we do expect competition from China, but we don't expect competition on each and every molecule. I think it'll be limited to a few molecules.
Notwithstanding that, within the organization, we do have a process of life cycle management where we benchmark our costs globally across competitors, whether it's Europe or China, and we're constantly looking at ways to invest in technology so that we can also continue to stay competitive, so long story short, I think we're always looking at China, at Europe. We're constantly benchmarking our costs. We are benchmarking what our prices could be five years down the line, and we're actually initiating projects within Neuland now that will keep us competitive even three or five years down the line as well.
Saj, that's really helpful. Just one clarification, if I may. Which of our business, in terms of the number of molecules?
Your voice is a little muffled.
Okay. Sorry. Is this better?
Yeah, yeah. Go ahead.
Yeah. Just to follow up. Just a little follow-up on that. Am I audible?
Yes.
Yeah. Again, when you talk about this particular molecule, as an example, shifting out of China, again, from a benchmark perspective, let's say if you had the biotech company coming to you in the initial stages and you being the primary supplier, as compared to the same molecule shifting out of China, would there be a material difference, or is this something that we should not lose our sleep on? I understand that over a three- to five-year period, whatever you're projecting with the particular level of volume, it might not make a very large difference. But let's say for the initial period of time, is there something we should keep in mind in terms of a large gap for the pricing perspective?
Yeah. I think when usually for the CMS molecules for biotech companies shifting out of China coming to India, one, we don't have such a large data set to tell you exactly how it works. But the way typically biotech companies work is if pricing is a concern, I think we typically understand what the target price is, and we try to work towards it. And in many cases, whatever business we have seen shifting out of China or even shifting out of Europe coming to Neuland, price has not necessarily been or a price target has not necessarily been the key consideration for us. It's always been driven by either technology or a capacity need or a batch size requirement. And price obviously plays an important role, but we are not so much driven by the customer on pricing.
I think Neuland, as Sucheth said, because of our generics business expertise, we tend to work towards cost leadership. But it doesn't so happen that a biotech company sets us a cost target, compares us with a Chinese source, and drives us towards that. Again, your voice was not 100% clear, so I'm not sure if that was your question. Maybe you could type it out in the chat box, but that's what I could. I think that's how I would probably respond to it.
Sure, sure. No, no. That's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your questions to one per participant. The next question is from the line of Akul Broachwala from Avendus Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just wanted your insights on the recently sort of commercialized molecule by the large customer, and as it was getting discussed, there are some further increasing possibilities of new molecules as well from the same set of customers, so just wanted some qualitative thoughts around this entire collaboration. I mean, how are you looking this move forward? Some thoughts around this.
Any comments? I think the business in general, I think, is looking good. I think as consolidation is happening and larger companies are becoming customers, I think there is a lot of prospects of increasing business with these customers. But at this point, I think CMS molecules, we can't really comment on them at an individual level, even if it's a cryptic conversation. So I would refrain from answering anything further on that.
Sure. Understood. And with regard to the revenue guidance that you've given for this year, so what's pushing you to under room your guidance? Is it specifically coming from the development side of the CMS business where the biotech funding has just recently kind of started to improve? So are you kind of witnessing some sort of slowdown in that part of the business, which will take some time to pick up?
No. I think also maybe just be cautious. I would not call it guidance. It's more of an outlook, I think, on how the business is stacking up. I think it's not got anything to do with the biotech funding environment, etc. I think the new business component is intact. I think whatever we wanted to do as new business for the CDMO business, I think has been coming on track. I think if some things have led to us to change our outlook from moderate growth to flattishness, I think it's more because some things have right-shifted, either because of some execution delays or because our customers want us to kind of move things out. But nothing to do with a dampening of new business or business prospects. It's just how things are falling into place.
Fair enough. Got it. And just last thing from my side, the kind of inventory that has.
May we request you to.
Sure, sure. I'll come back to the queue.
For the follow-up questions, since there are several participants waiting for their turn. The next question is from the line of Sagar Tanna from Alchemy Ventures. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. From the existing projects or molecules and the forthcoming ones, how many of them will be primary suppliers, and how many of them will be secondary suppliers?
I think for most of our projects that we are working on, since we are working with innovators who are looking at commercializing our products, there are at least from a risk perspective two suppliers, and in many cases, we are part of the NDA filing, so I think we should just look at it from that perspective because what we are seeing that over time as we are on the file, we are a key supplier that is getting a significant part of the share, and that's the way that we look at.
Yeah. The first supplier doesn't necessarily mean that you are the key supplier. So I think our goal in all our CMS commercial molecules is to be the key supplier or the primary supplier. It may or may not be that we are the first supplier.
But what percentage mark, what percentage wallet share would we have?
I think it really varies. There are. On an average, sir. On an average. That part.
We have 100% wallet share. There are some molecules where we have 50%. But yeah, I think in almost all the molecules, we have a majority share wherever there is a share.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Vivek Patel from Ficom Family Office. Please go ahead.
I'm very good at things, sir. I'm hoping I'm audible. Just wanted to have a quick update on a few products that were launched a couple of years ago, if I'm not wrong, Nexletol and Nexlizet. I just wanted to understand where they're at and also just some questions in terms of how are you planning to launch this product? Do you plan to have any partners? And also, what will be the size of the opportunity? Just wanted to confirm if it's $7 billion -$8 billion, if you could correct me. And also, what are the other competitors on this particular product? Thank you.
Yeah. Vivek, I think as we keep mentioning, our CMS business, the CDMO side of our business, the molecules that are part of that portfolio are governed by confidentiality agreements we have with our customers. So we are not at liberty to discuss them individually. So any questions about molecules on our CMS portfolio at an individual level, we will not be able to comment. So all your questions that you've asked, unfortunately, we cannot answer them because they pertain to our CMS business. If there's any other question that you have, please let us know.
No, sir. That was all from my side. Thank you. Thanks a lot.
Thank you very much. A reminder to the participants to limit your questions to one per participant so that the management is able to address all the questions. The next question is from the line of Atirek Roy, who is an individual investor. Please go ahead.
So the question is, as a CMO company, what should I do to attract big pharma companies to partner with me?
Trying to find an answer to that question. Right. But yeah, I think it's a continuous process, Atirek. The challenge that companies like us, which are more emerging on the CDMO space, is that big pharma already have a lot of qualified suppliers in their network. And it takes a lot of effort to displace an existing supplier network. Moreover, the big pharma also continuously try to consolidate their supplier network because it is also administratively difficult for them. So one strategy which we have talked about in the past is when any of our existing CMS customers, like biotech companies, get acquired by big pharma, we use that opportunity to build trust and goodwill with the big pharma and then try to not only continue the current business but expand into new business. So that is one way to do it.
Another way to do it is to actually acquire technical capabilities which are unique and not available with the big pharma's existing network. So for example, one area we've been working on like that is the area of peptides. Now, Neuland has been one of the few companies who's been working on peptides both for the CMS side as well as on the GDS side. Now, peptides are not being offered by a lot of other CDMOs. So it could be a vehicle to attract big pharma, and that's one way to pursue it. There could be other technologies which we might invest in and build on. Those could be ways in which we could try to attract big pharma as well. It is a longer process, so therefore we have to kind of be continuously at it.
Hopefully, we will be able to have a strong big pharma portfolio in Neuland as well. Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Rahul Bharadwaj, who is an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. So in the last five years, I guess Neuland has tried to shift their portfolio from generic to specialty.
Cloud. We can't hear you.
Yes, of course. So in the last five years, I guess the guidance from Neuland has been that they've made an effort to shift from generic molecules to specialty molecules. Do you think this is a color on how do you foresee the landscape for the next five years? And what's the strategy going ahead? I think if we look at the mix now, it's heavily geared towards CMS. And we've kind of made a footprint and made a reputation, and we have access to a lot more clients. How do you foresee things going ahead in the next five years? And from a revenue and sales and profit growth perspective, do you anticipate the coming five years to be that we can maintain or better the progress we've seen in the last five years?
Yeah. Thanks for your question. It was not very clear, but what we could gather is you want to understand what we think will drive the growth of the business over the next five years. That's what we just tried to answer. I think the emphasis will be on the specialty business as well as on the CMS business. Right now, I think a lot of the growth has been driven on the specialty side by a few molecules like Apixaban, Paliperidone, and a few others. We've also had some prime products which have been very strong in growth.
So although we've had a few products like Levetiracetam and Cipro, which have not really grown so much, these molecules on the specialty side have driven our business. Going forward on the specialty side, we are becoming more selective in terms of the kind of products we are filing.
We are looking at peptides as part of the product portfolio. So our team's working on a peptide called Difelikefalin, for which we expect to file the DMF next year. There's tirzepatide, which is a GLP-1, which we are working on, for which we hope to file a DMF maybe the year after next, and then there are a lot of other small molecules as well. We expect that these molecules should drive growth maybe from three years and beyond.
I think the growth in the next one to two years should be driven by the DMFs filed already. On the CMS side, we want to continue expanding our current relationships with innovator companies. We have a portfolio of maybe almost 80-plus projects, out of which there are at least 25-30 customers on which we have deep relationships. Our idea would be to expand on those relationships.
Other than that, also, our priority is to focus on technology. I think as Sucheth and I had elaborated previously in the call, we want to invest in newer technologies like peptides and maybe even beyond that and use those technologies to try to acquire newer projects. The goal would be to stay within the active ingredient space, not really venture into any other areas, and the goal would also be to stay in human health areas.
That way, we are able to stay focused. I think we have a plan for the next seven years charted out, and it's fairly exciting. It involves us to stay focused in this active ingredient space, but it will require us to venture into some newer technologies, which we will make investments in a timely manner, so I think that's how the picture is looking at, and it's quite exciting for us.
So it's just a high-level view of what the next five years is looking at for us. Thanks.
Thank you so much for sharing. In the interest of time, if your management can look into the stock, the question that was discussed in the last call, and I'll let other people ask their questions.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Sanjay Kohli from Goldstone Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening. So just please indulge with me because I'm a layperson in this industry. Post-COVID, we had about three years now. And if we take the second wave also in 2021, there would have been a significant addition to API capacity in India. So I just wanted to get a bit of the macro landscape over here. And I mean, it's been great for the Americans to throw this Biosecure Act and get a large number of additional capacity globally for APIs. So when does this sort of begin to get commoditized? And how are the Chinese - what are the Chinese doing to protect their turf?
Yeah. I think with regards to the capacity being created post-COVID in India, I think as a result of the PLI schemes that were launched around that time. There is also the India-China geopolitical tensions that led to creating more capacity for cephalosporins and antibiotics, etc., within India. But I think when you look at the market conditions today, and if you compare it with China, which is one of your questions, I think the kind of capacities that exist in India today versus the capacity needed for Indian companies to cater to the Biosecure Act, there is a degree of mismatch.
If you look at what exists today in India, it's a lot of small molecule API capacity. That's what really exists in India. If you look at what capacities exist for companies like WuXi or many of the Chinese CDMOs, it's a mix of small molecule biologics, even other new modality-related capacities. So I think for Indian companies to be able to capitalize on the Biosecure Act, I think what capacities that have been created in the last three, four years are not necessarily going to be sufficient to take away business from China. I think there will have to be some new capabilities that have to be created. And those capabilities will require us to either invest in technologies, recruit scientific talent. And that is how that capturing the opportunities from the Biosecure Act happens.
So I think that's kind of the question which you had asked about how does Indian capacities help in taking on some of the Biosecure Act? Do you want to say something to that?
Yes. So just a couple of additional comments. I think it's important to put everything in context. One is, during COVID, there was no significant capacity that was created in India for the sake of COVID or otherwise. For us, what we've seen is it's been business as usual. I think, as I was commenting earlier, it's very important to keep the Biosecure Act in context. So right now, within Neuland, we still believe, and Neuland has never competed as a low-cost producer, as we were clarifying earlier. We've always competed based on our technology, our ability to meet the price targets set by the customer, the supply requirement, the capacity requirement, so on and so forth. So we've never really positioned Neuland as the lowest-cost producer in order to get business. And that's not part of our strategy going forward as well.
Now, as part of the Biosecure Act, I think what the world economies or the United States has realized is that there cannot be a significant dependence on one economy for supply or the needs of that economy. Therefore, we do see that over a period of time, I think the world's largest economies will have multiple options in place so that they can secure supplies into their country, and that's the way we are looking at it, so I think it'll be interesting to see how things play out, but we honestly believe that ultimately, the business is going to follow the economics of it. I think any kind of policies that will constrict basic economics are not going to be sustainable.
So we continue to focus on where Neuland can add value, what are the molecules that we need to invest in, where do we need to create those capacities. Those are the areas that we continue to focus on.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will take that as the last question. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Yeah. We'd like to thank everyone for your questions and interest in Neuland. Even as we attempt to answer all questions possible on the call, we need to understand the time on the call is limited. So please reach out to Ravi Udeshi if you have further questions. Good evening, everyone.
Thank you very much. On behalf of Neuland Laboratories, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.