Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Caplin Point Laboratories Limited Q3 FY 2026 earnings conference call hosted by Dolat Capital Markets Private Limited. As a reminder, all participants' line 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 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 Ms. Candice Ferreira from Dolat Capital Markets Private Limited . Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you, Ikra. Good evening, everyone. I'm Candice Ferreira on behalf of Dolat Capital. Welcome you all to the Q3 FY 2026 conference call for Caplin Point Laboratories. Today from the management team, we have with us Mr. C.C. Paarthipan, Chairman; Mr. Vivek Partheeban, Vice Chairman; Dr. Sridhar Ganesan, Managing Director; Mr. D. Muralidharan, CFO; and Mr. Sathya Narayanan M., Deputy CFO. I now hand over the call to the management for the opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Candice. Thanks, everyone, for taking time out to attend our earnings call for Q3 FY26 - actually, FY27, rather. Well, please note that a copy of all our disclosures is available on the investors' section of our website as well as on the stock exchanges. Note that anything said on this call, which reflects our outlook for the future, which should be construed as a forward-looking statement, must be reviewed in conjunction with the risks that the company faces. The conference call is being recorded, and the transcript along with the audio will be made available on the company's website as well as the exchanges. Also, do note that the audio on the conference call is copyright material of Caplin Point and cannot be copied, rebroadcast, or attributed in press media or social media without specific written consent of the company.
I would like to hand over the floor to our Chairman for his opening remarks, please.
Thank you. Good evening and welcome all to our investors' call. I think that most of you must have gone through our press release. Furthermore, my colleagues will also highlight the salient features of our company. Hence, I would like to convey two major steps that we have taken recently. This, I sincerely feel, will be a game-changer or blockbuster for our company in the future. Number one is our video SOP. It is also a visual SOP. It acts as a visual hammer to replace the verbal cues . Our video SOP will convert invisible execution into inspectable evidence for compliance, and also this will enhance productivity. In pharma manufacturing, non-compliance is not training failure. It is an execution visibility failure. Pharma factories run on SOPs, which is a traditional textbook one. Compliance is demonstrated in seconds, which leads to issues.
Hence, Caplin converts current SOPs into visual scripts that show best practice actions in step-by-step details. We also include regional languages for our factory workers. We further have plans to use videos to celebrate the best-performing operators as role models. The remote control online monitoring of our actions.
Sir, sorry to interrupt you, but your voice is sounding a bit muffled. Hello?
The line is breaking a little, Chairman.
Can I go ahead and repeat our?
Yeah, now it's better. Now it's better.
Hello?
Yes, now it's better, please. Yes.
Okay. Can you repeat the whole thing? I want to start exactly where you left off. Can you repeat the whole thing? Okay. Can you continue?
Yeah, continue, please.
Hello. I want to repeat the whole thing. Where exactly you were not in a position to hear?
No, no. Only in the last 20 seconds. Only in the last 20, 25 seconds. Yeah.
Let me repeat the whole thing. Which is a.
Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but your voice is a bit muffled. Shall I add you again?
Is it possible to add a landline from there, Candice? Is that possible, please?
No, I'll call. I'll call these guys, and I will check another phone.
In the meantime, I will complete my discussion, and then Chairman can come back for his remarks.
Yes.
Okay. Thank you, Chairman. So while we wait for the line to get cleared up, I'll provide a little color on the latest developments, especially when it comes to the regulatory markets, specifically Caplin Steriles and also Caplin Steriles USA. We've had another good quarter of growth in the US entity, US-focused entity, rather, and with the growth in both product revenue and also profit share and milestone revenues. And it is a good mix of 75/25 at the moment, with product revenue bringing in 75% and milestone and profit share bringing in about 25%. This trend has been very consistent in recent quarters. And there were a few questions that were raised by investors themselves when we decided to take the front-end route and then launch our own label over there. But this goes to show that this was a decision, and hindsight was a good one.
We have also been receiving consistently good number of approvals from the US. The latest one was a complex suspension injectable product named methylprednisolone that we got an approval within the first cycle. I'm quite glad to share that our approval timelines are between 14-15 months on average compared to industry timelines of above 20 months. We've also had first-cycle approvals for emulsion injections and emulsion ophthalmic products as well. This not only goes to show the products that we have in R&D and regulatory domains, but both these products that we have had recent approvals for have been launched in the market and have been consistently garnering higher market share quarter on quarter. Even from a productivity and execution standpoint, we've been delivering.
We also have another 10 products pending review with FDA, and we expect these products to come through within the next few months. So we will be close to—we'll be having close to around 65 ANDAs approved under Caplin's name within a short period. So with all the new approvals coming through, obviously, it looks like it's going to be hectic next few months, but in a good way. We have also acquired around 14 ANDAs from outside over the last few months, and we are actively working on bringing these to market sometime in the next year. So not only 2026, but 2027 also looks like it's going to be an exciting year for Caplin Steriles.
Because of all the activity that is happening with new products getting approved and launched and also some other acquired products being activated, we understood that our vial lines, which are line 1, 2, and 5, are going to be busy over the next few quarters. So strategically, from development pipeline, what we have done is we've started focusing more on line 3 and line 6 when it comes to scale-up and submission batch products. Line 3 is our ophthalmic line, and line 6 is the latest one that we have activated, which is a prefill syringe and cartridge product line. In the next 12 months, we expect to complete at least 12-13 products in this range, in the ophthalmic and also prefill syringe range.
That should come up for approval sometime by the end of next year, which gives us good hope that 2028 also is going to be quite full of activity when it comes to product launches and revenue. In addition to this, to ensure that we are investing consistently into unique capabilities in the sterile space, we are getting into the Blow-Fill-Seal range of products. So we've just placed an order with one of the best manufacturers in the world from Europe named Romelag for this machine. It's a state-of-the-art, completely integrated machine that is capable of manufacturing products at very high levels of compliance and speed in the Blow-Fill-Seal range. We have taken on around 14 products for development in this space, and we expect the first products from this line to get approved sometime in late 2027, 2028 as well.
So the last range that we are getting into is, again, in the sterile space, which is ophthalmic ointments, which is also sterile in nature. So once this is done, we will be catering to pretty much the complete gamut of all sterile products from Caplin. And to cater to this significant pipeline of products that are being developed, we are fast-tracking our completion of phase 3, which is internally what we call Caplin One Labs unit 2, which will be housing eventually eight product lines, of which we are going to start by early next year with at least five lines active. Out of the five lines, two are already completed. Three more will be completed by September to October of this year. Taking into account all of this growth and development, we knew that compliance is something that we need to consistently innovate on as well.
Of course, Chairman will cover that in his remarks. In the midst of this all, we've completed our EU GMP audit and also a Saudi FDA audit with no critical observations. We're happy to inform that our consistent compliance record stretches out even further, and it's going to get better. One word on the US label. As I said in the beginning, we are very pleasantly surprised with the progress that we are making with our U.S. label. We are nearly at $10 million in revenue since inception last year, and we have been able to do this without slashing costs. We've just been disciplined with the strategy of keeping the products closest to the customer. The general shortages and supply chain efficiency that we are able to demonstrate is bringing these revenues in.
This is how we have built our Latin American business, which is by keeping products closer to the customer. The same thing is continuing on in the U.S. as well. For Caplin Steriles and Caplin Steriles USA, we expect high double-digit revenue growth in the next years onwards as well. A couple of more updates from our side is that our Vizag API plant, which is going to be by and large used for backward integration of filing our own DMF for our ANDAs that are in the market, has already scaled up 3 critical APIs. And we are targeting at least two to three more APIs to be scaled up on a monthly basis from this site and expect our first DMF filing from the site by the end of this year.
Finally, our oncology injectable plant is also geared up for exhibit batches, which will be starting this month. Out of all the acquisitions of ANDAs that we had done, four of them are oncology injectable products as well. And we also have an organic pipeline of 12 more products that we are working on. All of that will be scaled up for submission within this year. We expect to have the first few products going for approval going for filing within the end of this year. So that's basically what covers the regulated market side of it. We can check if Chairman's line is better now.
Yes, it's fine now.
Yeah. Yes.
Please go ahead.
Yes, very clear. Please go ahead. Yes, yes, please.
Yeah. Good evening once again. Now, let me focus only on the two major steps that we have taken recently. Number one is our video SOP. It's also known as a visual SOP. It acts as a visual hammer to replace the verbal cues. Our video SOP will convert invisible execution into inspectable evidence for compliance. In pharma manufacturing, non-compliance is not a learning failure or a training failure. It's an execution visibility failure. Pharma factories run on SOPs, which is a traditional text-based one. Compliance is demonstrated in seconds, which leads to issues. Hence, Caplin converts current SOPs into visual scripts that show best practice actions in step-by-step details. We also included regional languages for our factory workers. We also have plans to use videos to celebrate the best-performing operators as role models.
Remote control online monitoring tracking of who has done what in the night shifts, which will not only be monitored by our own factories but also by our Latin American team where it is daytime. We make video viewing mandatory before operating the machine. The other advantages of visual SOPs are as follows. Number one, it will help networking with many companies of our size for outsourcing a product that we don't manufacture, especially from China. Number two, the CMOs will get the advantage to view the entire manufacturing of this production of our facility online through the video SOP, and it helps them to understand our practices and timelines for the delivery. It will also help the engineering department to replace the models of FAT, SAT, IQ, OQ, PQ, which is nothing but factory acceptance test, site acceptance test, installation qualification, operational qualification, performance qualification.
The video will help, actually, the new employees to do the requalification, preventive maintenance, and predictive maintenance. The guys who do this FAT, SAT, IQ, OQ, and PQ, even if they leave the company, the new guys who enter a factory will use the videos and do the requalification and predictive maintenance. We'll also add AI governance architecture to our video SOPs in the future, and we have already filed a patent for this. In the next two years, we also have 14-15 injectable lines, as you know well, that will be up and running. Our culture will not be in the words of our website but in our facilities. Our people will also follow four non-negotiables, which are integrity, quality, safety, and productivity. Now, the number two.
We recently recruited 2 erstwhile senior inspectors of Colombian INVIMA as our executives, mainly for audit readiness in all our factories. They are doing the mock audit in line with the US FDA guidelines as the guidelines of regulatory bodies are almost similar. Our onco facility and CP1 are expecting the INVIMA audit in April, and these professionals will play a vital role in ensuring integrity and quality there too. They have inspected many biosimilar facilities in China, South Korea, and Russia, and their contact with these companies will also help us, actually, to find an opportunity for outsourcing. We are known for asset-light models from China. Now, we'll go for an asset-light model for the specialties in places like Korea and also Turkey and Russia too. Biosimilars will definitely help us, actually, to improve our bottom line over a period of time.
Hence, the Video SOP will act as a tool for networking with the companies, mainly in China and Korea. We also understand that to achieve our goals, we must change the current version of ourselves. It's not about doing more activities. It's all about doing the right activities. Hence, the two right activities are the ones that I highlighted now. Thank you. Thank you very much. I hope.
Thank you, Chairman.
Sorry, but.
Yes, yes. Full audit.
Yes, very much.
Request our CFO to throw some light on the numbers before we open up the flow for questions.
Thank you. Thank you, Vive k. Good evening, everyone who has taken time off to take part in this call. Of Caplin Point Laboratories for the third quarter ending December 31st, 2025. Results for the nine months are very gratifying. The group has achieved good growth across all financial parameters. We are happy to say that we have compared ourselves to the peer group ones which have been announced till date, and we are in good step. We are comparatively higher than many of them have reported in terms of profitability and growth. Now, coming to the operating revenue, the revenue grew by 10.6% year-on-year, and total income grew by 11.2% year-on-year. Nine months revenue is close to the entire revenue of 2023-2024. Growth in other income of INR 15.47 crores has primarily come from deployment of incremental cash.
I have told in the last meeting also, we have a mandate of investing at least INR 300+ crores year-on-year, additionally more and above what we have invested in the past. This year, the mandate is even more strengthened to invest about INR 400+ crores into these financial instruments. COGS has grown only by 9% in spite of the increasing turnover. If you see, the last three years, the COGS as a percentage of revenue has come down from 43%-39%. This is significant growth. OpEx grew only by 6%. Way below the revenue growth. And OpEx as a percentage of total revenue is today at 24.46%, as against 25.67% for the corresponding period. And you will be glad to know that it's come down from 27% in 2023-24 to 24.46% in the current year.
Those factors, whatever I mentioned, have resulted in a growth of 17%, way above the revenue growth in EBITDA margin, and it is at 38.5% as against 36.5% in the last year's corresponding period. Capitalization of about INR 62 crore, primarily in CSL, has absorbed additional depreciation of INR 5 crore. PBT, again, grew by about 17.8% from INR 500 crore to INR 589 crore, stands at 35.2%. And this is happy to say that it is higher than the entire year of 2024, which was INR 568 crore. Then PAT, again, is INR 477 crore, higher than the PAT of INR 461 crore achieved in the full year of FY 2024. All the above positive factors have resulted in growth of 20.5% in PAT. PAT stands at 28.5% as against 26.3% in the last year. It may be pertinent to note that we have been promising around 25% as the target PAT.
We are well above that. Coming to the balance sheet, net worth stands at INR 3,338 crores as of December. Cash and cash equivalent is at INR 1,381 crores, as against INR 1,180 crores after investment of about INR 180 crores in CapEx. CWIP stands at INR 183 crores, majorly accounted by One Labs, the injection, which is under final stages of completion, and the OAC plant, which we are putting up near our facility in Pondicherry. Inventory, as we have been saying, is close to customer with the winning point for Caplin, and it stands at about 61%, including the transit. 55% are there in our warehouses and 12% is in transit, reaching anytime now. Receivable stands at 121 days as against 118 days.
Even though we've been promising 120 as a benchmark, it's slightly more because last week of the last 10 days of December, we couldn't get the remittances in because of Christmas vacation there abroad. But that has been more than compensated by the more remittances in the month of January, and we hope to get back to the more level by March, if not by June. The cash flow from operations stands at INR 358 crores, as against INR 284 crores in the previous corresponding period.
And free cash flow, as I said, after an increase of INR 180 crores in CapEx, stands at INR 131 crores for the nine months period ending December 25. I think these are the few points which I thought would brief you. Those results have been with you for a while now, and we'd be more than glad to take any questions. Over to Mr. Vivek. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. CFO. We can open up the floor for questions now, please.
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. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for the moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of CA Garvit Goyal from Sareen Alpha. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, please.
Good evening, sir. First question is on oncology's API facility. It is getting further delayed, sir. Earlier, we were speaking about Q1 FY 2027, and this PPT, we have mentioned Q3 FY 2027. While I understand that we are doing the CapEx via internal approvals and all, but, sir, these delays are now going beyond the normalcy. I'm sure an efficient and experienced capital allocator like you, this must be in your mind because ultimately, we have to grow the business. So for that, we need the assets at the right time. So what is your view on it, sir? Why are these delays happening on a consistent basis? So that's my first question.
Okay. Can I give you the answer to this one? Okay. Yes, it's happened. But in the current context, what is important, actually, is not the delay. It's not totally denied, actually. It's not a denied opportunity today. It is fully completed. And that too, when we get into the next level, that too, for the regulated markets, this facility is ready for the U.S. FDA, actually. And we are also planning to go for 10-12 injectables at a time in the form of filing and invite the U.S. FDA inspector for the audit. Hence, what happens, you are aware that sometimes the facility completion, it takes its own time. It may be because of various reasons.
The reason one here, I would like to say like this, the ecosystem in, actually, Tamil Nadu has not been extraordinary, like what do you call, Hyderabad or Bangalore or Vizag or Ahmedabad or Mumbai. Hence, it also gets delayed. That's one reason. At the same time, as you rightly said, the money is not borrowed. There is nothing in the form of, actually, interest loss. I won't say there's an opportunity loss also because sometimes it is for the greater good, which is difficult to understand. What is not obvious many a times, actually, it will create some tangible opportunities also. Yes, please.
So one other point also. One other point also, Garvit l, is the API units are going to be only for backward integration, but remember that we are not really relying on our own API as the first source. This is going to be a second source. So even if the API units get delayed by a further 2-3 quarters also, which will not happen, but even if they do happen, it's not going to be materially of any effect to the company because our R&D and our filing continues to happen despite it being our own API or from external API. Till this point, 100% of all the filings and approvals we receive are from external API. So please remember that this thought process of getting into our own API is strengthening our supply chain, but by no means it is going to have any material impact immediately. Yeah.
When you say the ecosystem is not extraordinary, what kind of challenges are you facing? Can you further elaborate that?
Talent, whether it is in the form of consultancy or in the form of some project heads, actually, people will come. They don't stick to it. See, if you want to give me an example, at one point in time, ours is a turnaround story. Today, we are the number one company in Tamil Nadu. There are companies which are 10, 12 years ahead of us. In fact, they started the company much, much earlier to us. Still, they have not even reached 50% of our sales also. And I don't want to mention the name of the company. Since you asked me, I have to answer that way.
Understood. Secondly, on the growth part, first 9 months of sales are up by 10%-11%, which is well below our last 3-year average of 15%, which we used to use as a benchmark in the recent calls. Even if CapEx fixed assets, these have doubled in the last 2.5-3 years, but our top line is up by only 40%-50% against that. So why are we slow in growing our top lines? I agree that base has become high, but I'm not asking for we should grow 30%-35% on this higher base, which I understand from the earlier phone calls, earlier interactions as well, but not even doing 20%-25% despite having the strong CapEx.
We earlier were speaking about entering into the new markets and new product approvals that we are getting on a continuous basis. I'm not able to understand why it is taking us so much time to ramp up on the assets or the CapEx or the efforts that we have made over the last 2-3 years.
Vivek, can you answer, please? Question?
Yeah. See, we've been very consistent with our messaging that the next 18-24 months is going to be a gestation and a consolidation phase for us, right? So there are multiple things that we are working on. Number one, our entry into the larger markets of Mexico, Chile, Colombia. Number two, our oncology business is still at a very nascent stage. And number three, our US label and our US B2B business is getting consolidated right now. Now, remember, we are not in the domestic market where the minute you come up with a product, you can directly go and then start making sales, right? We are all in either emerging markets or regulated markets where things take at least 3-4 years for some amount of gaining maturity.
So we feel that 28 and beyond looks very exciting for the company on all fronts, on all these fronts that I was talking about, which is larger markets of LATAM, U.S., and oncology, etc. So we need to be a little patient. But during this time, we've been able to consistently still grow at low double digits. And our US business, which is gaining much more traction, is showing growth of almost 25%-30% also. So we are also able to put away a significant amount of cash into our reserves where we are building up a watchlist where, if there is even an outsized inorganic opportunity that comes through, we will not be shy to do that as well. So I don't think we are slowing down by any means. I would say that we are consolidating.
27, 28, and beyond could be something that is very interesting for us all to look forward to.
Got it, sir. Regarding on the margins front, is there any further scope of improvement in the margins?
I think we're at a part of 27%-28%. I'm not sure if.
28.5%, as it is. Yeah.
I'm not sure if there are too many peers within this range, Garvit, so. But regardless of this, yeah. But regardless of that, I think once we start firing on all set base, on these newer initiatives that we take up, there is a potential for that to go up as well. I don't deny. But I think at 28% for us to stabilize this and maintain itself would be an excellent achievement. Yeah.
More probably because margins are at peak, and for the next 18 months, we are speaking about lower double-digit sales growth. Bottom line should be more or less in line with the sales growth only. Is that understanding correct?
The bottom line will remain where it is. I mean, look, there might be 1 or 2 percentage points up or down, but that 26%-29% part is something where we are comfortable with, and we expect that to continue.
Got it, sir. Thank you very much, sir, and all the best for the future.
Okay. Welcome.
Welcome.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ahmed Madha from Unifi Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. I have three questions. Firstly, the buyout we made for a few ANDAs on the oncology side, if you can give some sense what amount we have paid for the ANDAs, I think, we got. Secondly, what will be the timelines do the site transfer and the commercialization take? And from the $473 million addressable market size, what sort of potential market share Caplin Steriles can gain?
Okay. So see, some of this information is of confidential nature, so I won't be able to go into too much details of it. But what I can give out is we are very, very prudent in how we spend our cash. And that includes these acquisition targets also. The one clue I can give you is that we sort of try and make it a point that any acquisition of an ANDA that we do is always equal to or lower than the cost of actually filing that ANDA itself. So you may draw your inferences from that. And in addition to that, timelines-wise, what happens is we need to do the site transfer by way of what you call as a post-approval supplement, a PAS.
Now, we need to run at least one batch of that product and then put that in stability for three months and then apply for the PAS, which is six months. So all put together, we expect some of these products to come to market by early next year, late this year or early next year. Finally, when it comes to the market share, out of the 14 products, there are two of them that are fairly large in size, but they're also extremely tricky because they need completely dedicated lines, dedicated units, etc. We might not be doing that in-house. We are very actively scoping out contract manufacturing companies for that. We have narrowed it down to two, both in Europe, and we are in late-stage discussions to take transfer it to their side.
In general, I think you can always expect the first couple of years to have about a single-digit market share. Then when we consolidate, and then when we have a larger portfolio of products to offer, then that slowly starts inching up towards the double digits in terms of market share.
Sure. That's very helpful. On the Mexico and Chile business, we have made a lot of progress in terms of approvals, building the pipeline, getting the inspection, and the plant, everything ready. It can give some sense how far are we from meaningful top line generation from those markets and what sort of progress we have made in terms of commercialization and getting the top line ready?
Yeah. When it comes to, again, Mexico and Chile, I would still put the same timelines at about 18-24 months is when we can start to see it firing on all cylinders. Of course, when it comes to both these markets, typically, they are a little bit tender-heavy as well, right, especially Chile. But again, we are trying to get into the private market, which is what the base of our business in Latin America is. More than 80% of our revenues from LATAM come from the private market, which is what we are trying to do the same in Mexico and Chile as well. Chile is a little bit further ahead compared to Mexico because we've been in Chile for some time now, but mostly on tenders. Now, we are getting into the private market, and the same for Mexico in 2026 as well.
I would still say that 18 months is a good timeline for us to see something meaningful on the top line to the parent company.
Sure. Lastly, on the P&L, if you look at the operating cost, it has been very stable for the last few quarters. You have made progress in the top line growth gradually. I'm just curious to understand that despite the new plants coming in, both the plants which got commercialized, I think, in the last 3, 4 months, I'm assuming, and top line growing gradually, the cost has been broadly steady state. Would you like to help us understand what sort of explains that?
I'm not fully clear on the question. What is the question?
I think you'll probably be able to answer to that.
Yeah. I'll put it a different way. If I look at last year, the operating cost, which was apart from the employee cost, was about INR 89 crore. This quarter, it is about INR 88 crore, and we have grown top line by 10%. So broadly, the costs are similar. We have grown top line by 10%. While we have also commercialized new plants, which I'm assuming will have incremental costs coming in with hiring and other initial OPEX costs. So I'm just curious to understand what explains that the costs have not gone up despite top line going up and new plants getting commercialized.
I think.
Can I quickly answer?
Yes, sir.
Yeah. I would like to. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead, CFO.
Yeah. Yeah. Correct. So a couple of years back, when we were in the same meeting, you were asked for this lower turnover and recurring cost. We have built the infrastructure. We have built the facility fully, as rightly said, the employees have all been recruited for the enhanced capacity. So also, as mentioned by one of the previous speakers, that most of the projects have entered final stages. Nothing has been put into operation yet. So initially, you capitalize whatever the pre-operative expenses are getting capitalized. And then once the products are put on stream and then start commercial, we'll see the impact on the OpEx. And as you have mentioned, the cost also, previously, the sales were on FOB basis to most of the companies.
About 1 year back, 1.5 years back, we have converted them into freight. The freight cost and the purchase turnover has also come down. It has gone into the other thing, which is the sales in the COGS. You used to see COGS as a subsidy in the past. Okay? It has now become a main C, it has become an operating cost. So there are some rearrangements that happened.
Sorry to interrupt, sir. Sorry, your voice is a bit muffled.
I'm audible now? Clear?
Yeah. It's better now. Yeah.
Okay. So I was trying to say that the infrastructure has been built, and then when the plants which are put into commercial use shouldn't be in a big spike.
Your line is a bit muffled, and we can't hear you clearly.
Am I audible now?
Yeah. You can try again, sir. Let's see.
Okay. So as I was mentioning, the infrastructure has been created. The landfill has been created. Facilities were created for the enhanced capacity. Once these projects are put on commercial, you will not see any big spike in the expenditure as such. So that is one of the reasons why, even though the top line is growing and operational efficiency has also improved, as I said, the productivity has improved. That is also giving a room for percentage as a percentage of revenue. The OpEx is either lower or around the same level.
Sure. Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shrinjana Mittal from MS Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Just one quick question. Mr. Sathya, you can help me with the Caplin Sterile webinar number? That would be very helpful. Thank you.
Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. For the quarter ended December 2025, the EBITDA for CSL consolidated is INR 31.09 crores.
Okay. Thanks, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next, we have a follow-up question from the line of CA Garvit Goyal from Sareen Alpha. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the follow-up. Sir, is there any further materials update on the inorganic acquisitions that we are evaluating right now?
Nothing to report at this point, please. So if there is something material, definitely, we will update as and when necessary, but nothing is at very late stages or anything like that at this point.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Richa from Equitymaster. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity, sir. Am I audible?
Yes. Yes.
Yeah. Sir, I wanted to understand. I'm new to the company. In the last on-calls, I've gathered that you had a INR 1,000 crore CapEx plan, of which half was nearing completion and the other half was expected to happen over 2-3 years. Part of it is backward integration. If you could give some clarity, how much has already been incurred? What is the plan for next 2 years, and what kind of asset turn you are expecting over this CapEx?
I request the CFO to take this, please.
Could you please repeat the question, madam? We were not very audible.
Yeah. The question is, out of the INR 1,000 crore of CapEx expansion that we have taken up, how much has been spent already, and what is expected to be spent in the next two years? The last is asset turn, is it?
Yes. What kind of asset turn are we expecting? Because there is some backward integration element as well, so.
I think you're right.
Yeah. Okay. Can I go ahead?
Go ahead.
Yes, sir. Thank you. Please. Yeah. So what we have capitalized thus far is about INR 153 crores, and INR 124 crores is in CWIP. This is adding up to about INR 280-INR 290 crores. And what we have further advanced about the 88, what Mr. Vivek talked about ordering certain four lines, we have advanced already about INR 88.54 crores, about INR 100 crores. INR 385 crores is already spent. The rest is to be spent over the next 12 to 18 months.
Okay. Asset turns also, if you could give some clarity?
No. Asset turn differs from when these projects get capitalized and start earning revenue, madam.
I understand. I understand. Let's say over 3-4 years, I was asking that because some of it is going into backward integration as well, so it might look very different from your historical turnover. So at maturity in 3-4 years, what kind of asset turn do you expect over this CapEx?
It will be difficult to predict as of now because our asset turnover doesn't directly, it's a denominator, not a numerator. Because as C.C. also put it, we are into asset-light model also. So we are working with various CMOs, CDMOs, and whatnot, and then that will give me a top line without any contribution from the plants. So we are mixed, and also, we are investing heavily into R&D, which would not directly give to the commercial operations. So the same product or the companies are a mix of both asset-light model, R&D-heavy, and then project-based. So it will not be lower than what we are today.
Okay.
Also, I think much of it will depend on the kind of product that we do and the market positioning for those products at the time when they come to market, etc. So typically, for a multi-product facility, typically for a facility that focuses on—I mean, for a company that focuses on different kinds of markets—asset turn is something that is difficult to really pin down, please. I think it's more—if I'm not wrong—I think it's more applicable to an API industry rather than formulation.
Okay. Sir, one more thing. How should we look at the tax rates? Are they going to stay where they are or increase?
Yeah. Again, request CFO to take this, please.
Yeah. Tax rates, we have been telling that we have some revenues, and we are at about 20%-21%. We expect that to be around that in the coming years as well.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one at this time. We have the next question from the line of Ketan, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. First of all, I'd like to place my appreciation for the chairman and his entire team for doing a fantastic job. I've been invested in this company for the past few years, and I've seen that quarter-over-quarter, you guys are delivering revenue growth, margins, cash. Everything is fantastic. Sometimes, I feel it is too good to be a true story, but I mean, it is what it is. So really, my appreciation for the entire team. Now, coming to my query, my question is, for the nine months, is it possible to provide the revenues for the Chile market?
The Chile market, what is happening there is, as has been told actually by Vivek, this is a market where it's all tender-heavy. 75%-80% is tender, and 20% is private market. Very recently, we told our guys to actually focus on private market. And the first month itself, they had done some $100,000 business. Although it's not huge, it's really good actually for a market where people focus only on the tenders. So hopefully, the revenues are there, but the issue is this market being a tender market, and then the import duties are very high. And the payments also from the government, it comes a little late compared to some other countries. Starting from this month or next month, we are likely to do around $200,000-$300,000 of remittances. We are likely to get it from Chile.
That's what I've been told by our people in Chile. Chile takes time, but once we complete the OSD, we have completed more of injectable. Injectable goes only into the institutions. Private market, of course, has no well. We should sell more of OSD and other products. But of course, now only we are submitting some products for registration. Hopefully, in the next 1-2 years, we will do very well in Chile.
Okay. Thank you for the explanation. Thank you.
Thank you.
Sure. Thank you.
The other query I have is on the U.S. margins. Now, when I look at your segmental figures for the nine months, the figure is about INR 323 crore for the US market revenue, and the profit before tax is 34%. So I just wanted to know that right now, the margins look about 10-odd%, but going forward, is this likely to inch up? I mean, in terms of the margins for the USA business, is it likely to go up in the next few quarters and few years?
Yeah. Coming to your question ask, I would like to say something afterwards. Vivek will actually bring the horse. If you look at actually injectable facilities, whether it is in China or U.S., we are always big boys again. In two years, we will be in a position to complete 14-15 lines exporting products to U.S., which is, of course, no, it's not that easy. And we will be one among the four, maybe three or four from India. And I've also seen companies which are very advanced in China in the form of producing biosimilars and a lot of biological products, hardly one or two companies concentrate on the U.S. market. It is also true, compared to other markets, this is not that actually lucrative. But why you will have to get into this market? Because this is the biggest market in the world.
If you can create many lines, like 14, 15 lines, then what will happen? You are part of the big boys' game. It's not that we are going to compete with the big boys, but what we will do is we will have to increase the number of lines to tell you honestly that I hustled my way out of the person I used to be. I used to be a person in charge of marketing. I didn't know anything about actually manufacturing. I had to play a different role for the last 3, 4 years. Now I understood actually that we will be in a position to handle even 13, 14 lines also over a period of time.
Once we get into that stage, maybe which I spoke in the form of video SOP and other things, I am sure now, one more, in addition to that, we are also going for women empowerment. Most of these women in the rural areas, they are totally deprived actually, and then the economic independence makes all the difference to them. And the men in rural areas are different from the women. So the women, on one side, actually very disciplined. They come to work, and they do their work also. Only thing, we have to teach them. We are trying to teach them through video SOPs. Once that happens, as I'm 100% sure, this market, especially the US market, will start fructifying us in such a way it has happened to some of the big companies of India.
Yeah. Thanks, Chairman. And when it comes to margins, Kethan, how we look at it is, see, out of this INR 320 crore of revenues from the first nine months is all from the existing products itself. And some of these products are what others would call a slightly commoditized kind of products. So despite that, we've been able to have a fairly decent EBITDA number, a fairly decent PAT number. But remember, all of these acquisitions that we have done for the ANDAs, all of this R&D work that we do, everything gets expensed out. We don't capitalize anything. So there is a bit of a drag because of the plans that we have for the future. Over a period of time, especially when some of these newer products, etc., come through, you will start to see the bottom line go up.
In fact, even now, I think we are comfortable with where they are, but this will definitely start to go up. 2028 and beyond, as Chairman said, when we have 13, 14, 15 lines, your expenses start to cap out after a bit. Every additional revenue that you have will be a direct impact to the bottom line positively. We'll have to wait it out a little bit. We are happy with where it is today because we know that this is in addition to all the drag that we've had in terms of the R&D and the inorganic ones, etc. It should only go up from here.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the responses. Once again, my deep appreciation to the entire team at Caplin Point. Kudos to you all. Keep up with the flow. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sachin Kasera from Svan Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Good evening to the entire team at Caplin Point. As mentioned by the previous participant, congratulations to the team for the consistent performance that we have delivered even in difficult times in the last few years. So that's a great job by us. Just coming back in terms of the current opportunity and the growth that we are talking of, so the presentation mentions that Chile will be among the top 5 markets in the next 2-3 years. So can you just quantify, give us some sense, if not an absolute number? So when we say top 5 markets, are we talking like $10 million-$15 million type of revenue, some sense on that when you say in the top 5 markets for us in the next 2-3 years?
Yeah. $10 million-$15 million per year, definitely it's possible. Maybe we will even actually go beyond that one. That is for sure. If you look at one or two companies from India, they have been doing a very good business in the form of $1 million-$1.5 million. But again, they all have more of OSD in the form of like 80-90 products, whereas we have more of injectables. Whatever that we manufacture injectables for the US market. And we are also focusing on OSD now, plus our oncology facilities also. In the next two months, we'll start the commercials. We are planning. We are also doing some, I think, BE/BA studies for the oncology products, which, of course, we'll submit for registration. So we'll definitely do well actually in Chile. That is for sure. It's a question of time before it happens.
Can you comment a bit about Mexico? We have mentioned about putting up a facility also there. What type of investments are we looking at the Mexico facility? That will be primarily for serving the markets of Mexico, or will that facility also serve markets other than Mexico?
Mexico, there is an advantage for the local industry. They give 10%-15% advantage to the local factories for the supply to tender business. That's one of the reasons we are keeping this facility there. Second, these are the products actually where the transportation cost also is quite high because high volume s and others. We may even go for liquid orals also there. We'll be transporting water from one continent to the LATAM continent. It's ideal to start a factory in this part of the world because the cost of production will not go high because of the other factors which I mentioned now. Second, we also get an advantage of supplying to the tenders with 10%-15%. Traditional margin. And third, we always believe in catering to the private market, especially to the bottom of the pyramid.
I'm just waiting for the first inspection to be completed here from the US FDA. After that, I'll go there to Mexico and see how exactly the market responds. The initial work, I always used to do it afterwards. The Vice Chairman, who happens to be my son, used to take over. I'm just waiting for that to happen.
But any sense in terms of the type of investment we are looking in Mexico, broad range in terms of the CapEx plan there?
The investment may not be very high for iron mines and the liquid orals. It will be in the region of INR 100 crore-INR 125 crore. It will not be more than that. Most of these products, there is nothing in the form of bioavailability or bio sorry, bioequivalents or bioavailability. Once we complete the project, we'll be in a position to get into the market immediately.
Sure. My next question is regarding GLPs. You have mentioned that we are developing our own GLPs, and some of them we are doing some sort of a tie up with the Chinese companies. So next 3-4 years, what is the type of opportunity do we see that can it be like a very meaningful contribution to our all revenue and profits?
In the next, are you mentioning about the next 3-4 years?
Yes.
We will definitely do well in the next 3-4 years' time. The kind of investment which you make, it is not an investment which is very shallow. We are investing in hard assets. The assets actually will definitely fructify over a period of time. Already, we are on 50 dossiers in our CSL. And in the next 3-4 years, you'll have 100+, maybe 125 ANDAs. In addition to that, you will also go for global dossiers from that facility. And then we are also in the process of completing another facility. I'm talking of the APIs, both API, not just for captive consumption. It will be a vertically integrated company like any other big company. The only difference is most of the big companies, their API volumes are quite high, whereas ours is for the captive consumption.
But these big companies also, they slowly move actually from one area to the next area. But the companies of our size, they will not get into the space, but we are hardly few companies. If you look at the injectable companies, most of the companies that you see in India, either they are big or people who are into CMO business. We are not into CMO business. We are like big people, sorry, big companies. We are following the footsteps of big companies for manufacturing as well as filing the ANDAs, filing the dossiers also for ANDAs. So we are sure to actually do very well, not only in the U.S., but also in Latin America and the rest of the world too.
Sure. Thank you. But sir, my question was more to do with GLPs. We have mentioned in this yeah.
Yeah. So when it comes to GLPs, Sachin, we are entering into the smaller markets in Latin America to begin with. And we are doing something very unique, which we will reveal that as and when the right patents and everything are set up. But at this point, I would say that it's a little bit of an unknown space because what happens is the GLPs have been very extensively used in the developed markets. So in the developing markets, we are just slowly starting to see some amount of usage. And only now, I think this year, all the patents and everything except US will expire. So we will start to see a little bit I think there'll be a little bit more clarity on how these products are going to get picked up.
Of course, in India, one of them has picked up significantly more than the other one. The truth is, it is moving in a different direction, in our opinion. Again, this is a conversation that will take a long time. I would say that we would be in the second wave of people that start to commercialize it, not in the first wave. To be honest with you, that might actually work out better for companies like us to be in the second wave rather than the first wave.
Sure. Just one question on CapEx and also linked to that in terms of our overall in-house outsource production. So once we complete this CapEx of INR 1,000 crores, from what I understand, right now, we have a model whereby we partly manufacture in India and partly we get it outsourced from China. So how do you see that mix changing? Will it remain the way it is right now or in the next three years? Is there going to be a change in terms of the mix between what we produce in India versus what we get it sourced from China?
I would like to say a few words on that one. If you look at China, we will now be able to compete with them in cephalosporin and penicillin area. We have been sourcing products of penicillin and cephalosporin from China, and we will continue to source from there. If you look at, again, biosimilar, they are much, much advanced, even GLP products. The API, at one point of time, it was actually $500. semaglutide today has come down to $80. So this is a market where they can chase the economies of scale. And some areas, we will not be in a position to actually compete with them. It's better to join somebody whom we can't compete with. That's one.
Second, how the change will come maybe in five years from now, the most important thing one has to worry about is actually not this one, how the AI will impact the industries. If robot can replace 100-200 people, the manufacturing actually in U.S. and the manufacturing in India will be almost the same, probably the cost-wise because if you do it for India, then, of course, export may not be that. That's the reason what we are doing now. We are slowly trying to also create some facilities in countries where they may allow actually robots without any hesitation. So this is one thing which is the most important one than any other things because we are also thinking of full-finished biosimilars. We are also thinking of various areas where India is positive. Of course, India-centric products, we are trying to do China-centric products.
We are following the asset-light model.
So fair to assume that 60/40, which is in-house versus outsourcing, probably could become like 65%-70% in-house and 30% outsourcing because we are doing almost INR 1,000 crore CapEx. So that should mean that going ahead, we are able to produce more in-house rather than outsourcing?
You're right. You're right. It will happen. It will happen. But again, what we will do is the outsourcing part from China, we don't want to reduce it. The reason being, we are outsourcing from big companies, and then we are outsourcing again, actually, products which cannot be actually manufactured that cheaper in India. Coming towards Cephalosporin and penicillin. And even if you want to go for a biosimilar facility, it is better to test the waters in the form of full-finished rather than going actually for a factory from the scratch. So we will have some collaboration with the Chinese partners and continue to do the business in the form of asset-light model. What you said is true. The 60/40 may even go actually 70/30.
Sure. And just one last question. Once we complete this INR 1,000 crore CapEx, are we going to look at another round of large CapEx, or then for the next two, three years, the CapEx intensity is going to come down?
See, what will happen probably is we'll have to think of actually meaningful inorganic growth after that. This can be in the form of acquiring the products. It can be in the form of acquiring a distribution company which will help us in the private market. It can be in the form of acquiring some companies where there will be a value addition for Caplin Point. But.
Sure. But not too much in terms of manufacturing. Manufacturing CapEx will go down.
I don't think so. It will come down. It will go down. It will go down.
Great, Chairman. Thank you so much and all the best.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
Thank you, everyone. Thanks for taking time out to join the call. It was excellent interacting with all of you as usual. We hope to stay in touch with each and every one of you. Thank you.
Thanks to all of you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you to Dolat Capital and your team as well, please. Thank you.
On behalf of Dolat Capital Markets Private Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.