Jubilant Pharmova Limited (BOM:530019)
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Q3 22/23

Feb 3, 2023

Operator

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Jubilant Pharmova Limited Q3 and nine months FY 2023 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode. There will be 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 and then 0 on your touchtone telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vineet Nair, Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Jubilant Pharmova Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Vineet Mayer
Investor Relations and Corporate Finance, Jubilant Pharmova

Thank you, Operator. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for being with us on our Q3 and nine-month FY 2023 earnings conference call. I would like to remind you that some of the statements made on the call today will be forward-looking in nature and a detailed disclaimer in this regard have been included in the press release that has been shared on our website. On the call today, we have Mr. Shyam Bhartia, Chairman; Mr. Hari Bhartia, Co-Chairman and Managing Director; Mr. Mazen Chabani, Group CFO; Mr. Arun Sharma, CFO, Jubilant Pharmova; Mr. Pramod Yadav, CEO, Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business; Mr. Jaidev Rajpurohit, CEO, Generics; Mr. Giuliano Pozzatti, CEO, CDMO; and Mr. Syed Pradmin, CEO, Jubilant Therapeutics. I now invite Mr. Shyam Bhartia to share his comments.

Shyam Bhartia
Chairman, Jubilant Pharmova

Thank you, Vineet. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us on Q3 FY 2023 earnings conference call of Jubilant Pharmova Limited. During this quarter, company reported higher revenue year-on-year, led by increase in sales in radiopharmaceuticals and allergy business and stable revenues in radiopharmaceuticals and CDMO sterile injectables. In CDMO, drug discovery services business reported stable volume and C-CDMO API business reported higher revenues during the quarter. The company's profitability stood lower in Q3 FY 2023 versus year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter due to lower COVID-related sales in CDMO sterile injectable business, industry-wide issues of generator supply, outputs that impacted radiopharmaceuticals business, lower production in CDMO API business and lower volumes in drug discovery services business. In generics, the company has undertaken large-scale business transformation focused on turnaround through cost optimization and driving growth in branded markets in India and growth in international markets.

In FY 2024, the company's profitability is expected to improve, driven by growth in radiopharmaceuticals, allergy immunotherapy, and CDMO sterile injectable businesses. Particularly in generics, API businesses and radiopharmaceuticals can also contribute to better profitability. The company has several growth levers across its various businesses of radiopharma, allergy immunotherapy, CDMO sterile injectables, generics, and CDMO, which help drive sustainable growth of the company in the medium term. In our proprietary novel drug business, we have several high-potential programs which are at pre-clinical and clinical stage. With this, I now hand over to Arun to discuss the performance of various businesses and financial performance in detail.

Arun Sharma
CFO, Jubilant Pharmova

Very good evening to all of you. I will start by sharing performance of our businesses for the Q3 of FY 2023. In our Specialty Pharma business, Q3 FY 2022 revenues were at INR 760 crores versus INR 635 crore in Q3 FY 2022, and INR 8.4 crores in Q2 FY 2023. EBITDA in this business stood at INR 117 crores versus INR 116 crores in Q3 FY 2022 and INR 198 crore in Q2 FY 2023 with a margin of 15.4% versus 18.3% in Q3 FY 2022 and 24.4% in Q2 FY 2023. Radiopharma revenues were at top INR 613 crores versus INR 510 crore in Q3 FY 2022 and INR 658 crore in Q2 FY 2023. Radiopharmaceuticals business reported stable performance year-on-year.

Sequentially, revenue variation is due to customer order rescheduling for some products in Q3 FY 2023. Radiopharmacies business reported higher revenue resulting from rise in volumes of new products launched. Sequentially, the business witnessed lower sales due to shortage of radioisotopes for around three weeks during this quarter. Turnaround plan in radiopharmacies business is on track to achieve breakeven in Q4 FY 2024. Moving on to allergy immunotherapy. Revenues were at INR 147 crore versus INR 124 crore in Q3 FY 2022, and INR 156 crores in Q2 FY 2023. Revenue and EBITDA growth was supported by better prices versus Q3 last year. In the CDMO sterile injectable business, revenues were at INR 272 crore versus INR 265 crore in Q3 FY 2022, and INR 299 crore in Q2 FY 2023.

EBITDA was at INR 56 crore versus INR 116 crore in Q3 FY 2022, and INR 71 crore in Q2 FY 2023. Reported EBITDA margin was at 30.7% in Q3 FY 2023. CDMO business stable performance during the quarter was on account of higher sales of other products during Q3 FY 2023 amidst nil revenue from Covid deals. Reported EBITDA declined year-on-year due to substantially higher base of Covid-related business in Q3 FY 2022. Business reported revenues of INR 89 crore and INR 22 crore from deals related to the Covid products in Q3 FY 2022 and Q2 FY 2023, respectively, and nil sales in Q3 FY 2023. Quarter-on-quarter variation in margin in Q2 FY 2023 and Q3 FY 2023 is due to plant shutdown, which happens twice a year due to Covid deals in the comparable period.

Moving on to generics business. Generics revenues were at INR 223 crore versus is INR 171 crore in Q3 FY 2022 and INR 161 crore in Q2 FY 2023. Reported EBITDA was at - INR 36 crore versus - INR 43 crore in Q3 FY 2022 and - INR 82 crore in Q2 FY 2023. Q3 FY 2023 performance improvement was on account of higher production at Roorkee plant and sales in non-U.S. markets. This was partially offset by shutdown at our Salisbury plant to upgrade part of our HVAC systems. The business also benefited from one-time gain due to a legal award to settle customer dispute. We continue to undertake quality improvement initiatives and are engaging with the U.S. FDA for resolution of a regulatory situation at our Roorkee plant.

Company is undertaking a large-scale business transformation focused on strategic reorganization of Generics business-wide cost optimization, direct and indirect, reprioritizing geographies to accelerate growth in branded markets such as India and select international markets. During the previous earning calls, we mentioned that company has identified annual savings of INR 100 crore in operating costs. The implementation of these cost optimization is on track and is expected to be completed by March 2023. Benefits of these cost optimization initiatives are going to reflect in our performance from Q1 FY 2024. We have further identified additional cost optimization opportunities of INR 50 crore, implementation of which is expected to be completed in H1 FY 2024. Moving on to our CRDMO business. Revenues were at INR 291 crore versus INR 236 crore in Q3 FY 2022, and INR 320 crore in Q2 FY 2023.

EBITDA was at INR 39 crore versus INR 25 crore in Q3 FY 2022, and INR 68 crore in Q2 FY 2023, with a margin of 13.4% versus 13.9% in Q3 FY 2022 and 21.3% in Q2 FY 2023. Drug discovery services business witnessed stable year-on-year revenues amidst slowdown in U.S. and select approach by clients. Demand growth likely to remain moderate in the year from target clients for integrated drug discovery services and DMPK. Currently, we're testing key clients adopting selective approach in launching new products. Sequentially, revenues were lower as Q2 FY 2023 had one-off revenues from fee for service, FFS, and drug discovery services. DMPK in vitro facility at Greater Noida has received validation which enables the site to provide comprehensive drug discovery service offerings.

Our API revenues were at INR 168 crore versus INR 116 crores in Q3 FY 2022. Revenues were higher due to increase in utilization and higher volumes as Q3 FY 2022 witnessed lower production due to plant upgradation. US FDA, during its December 2022 audit of Nanjangud facility, issued some observations. We are engaging with the US FDA to resolve the regulatory situation at the facility. Moving on to our proprietary novel drug business. We recently received Orphan Drug Designation, ODD, from US FDA for our lead program, JBI-802, an oral potent and selective dual inhibitor of two epigenetic targets of the polycomb repressive complex, LSD1 and HDAC6 for SCLC and AML. Our second program, JBI-778 for brain penetrant PRMT5 inhibitor for glioblastoma. The orphan drug status allows a 7-year market exclusivity specifically to the designated orphan use.

The filing fee for the initial NDA is waived, and FDA provides other development incentives, including clinical protocol, design assistance, and potentially accelerated review time. We are excited to give you an update on the emerging clinical data from our first in-human trial for our dual inhibitor of LSD1 and HDAC6, JBI-802, especially amid the recent announcement of acquisition of Imago BioSciences by Merck for $1.3 billion. As indicated by Merck, the acquisition is based on activity shown by Imago LSD1 inhibitor, bomedemstat, in its phase II trial that shows a decrease in the receptor-created level in the patients with a myeloproliferative disease essential thrombocythemia, ET.

We have now seen in the context of our first in-human studies, dose-dependent reduction of platelet levels in humans, confirming that we have achieved pharmacology active LSD1-driven effects, which represent a human proof of principle for our molecule to be potentially improved alternative to LSD1 inhibitors developed in essential thrombocythemia and related diseases. We believe that JBI-802 has the potential to be a better alternative to other LSD1-only inhibitors. We look forward to generating additional human data in 2023 towards maximizing value of this program. We are also exploring strategic partnering opportunities to continue development and unlock value for our phase I study, phase I-ready PRMT5 and other R&D track programs. I would now like to highlight financial performance for the Q3 of financial year 2023.

Revenues were at INR 1,552 crore versus INR 1,311 crore in Q3 FY 2022, and INR 1,600 crore in Q2 FY 2023. Reported EBITDA was at INR 155 crore versus INR 200 crore in Q3 FY 2022 and INR 232 crore in Q2 FY 2023. Depreciation and amortization expense during the quarter was at INR 94 crore versus INR 93 crore in Q3 FY 2022. Finance cost was at INR 51 crore versus INR 37 crore in Q3 FY 2022 and INR 42 crore in Q2 FY 2023. Higher costs, higher finance costs was on account of achieving lower interest rate. One month SOFR has increased to 4.36% on December 31st, 2022 from 3.05% on September 30th, 2022.

1 month SOFR stood at 0.03%, 0.3% as on March 31st, 2022. Reported tax was at -INR 16 crore as compared with INR 51 crore in Q3 FY 2022 and INR 5 crores in Q2 FY 2023. Net debt on constant currency was at INR 2,407 crore as on December 31st, 2022 versus INR 2,204 crore as on September 30th, 2022. Capital expenditure excluding R&D capitalization was at INR 218 crores in the quarter and INR 498 crore in nine months ending December 31st, 2022. Average blended interest rate for nine-month FY 2023 was at 5.06% versus 4.58% in nine-month FY 2022. Detailed nine-month FY 2022 financials can be accessed through our presentation which is uploaded on our website.

With this, I would like to conclude our opening remarks. We will now be happy to address any questions that you may have.

Operator

Thank you very much.

Arun Sharma
CFO, Jubilant Pharmova

Just a second. Sorry, one second.

Arvind Chokhany
Group CFO and Whole-Time Director, Jubilant Pharmova

Okay. That's it. Thank you. We are ready to take the questions. Please go ahead.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may enter 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 when asking a question. Anyone who has a question may enter star and one. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the questions queue assembles. We take the first question from the line of Vinay Jain from Karma Capital Advisors. Please go ahead.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I hope I'm audible. I just had a few questions pertaining to results. Starting with the radiopharmaceuticals business, again, like this quarter on a similar revenues, the losses have again gone back to INR 45 odd crore level. Can you specify the reason for the same? The top line seems to be consistent with the last couple of quarters, despite that, losses have increased again.

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

Yeah. Vinay, this is Pramod here.

Yeah. As we mentioned, all in Mr. Bhartia also mentioned, there was a one time event in the industry, where industry went through the shortage of technetium generator. In our pharmacy, most of the dosage that we dispense in that radioactive isotope which we use is the Technetium, which is produced out of Molybdenum. Molybdenum comes from the nuclear reactors. There are about seven, eight nuclear reactors throughout the world, which are supplying Molybdenum for different purposes. Unfortunately, all of them were under maintenance, and one which was running had a breakdown. The entire industry then was depending only on one smaller reactor which was running, and hence there was shortage for three days. Almost everyone got impacted because of that.

There was no supply of the Molybdenum and hence technetium was not available. This happened in the month of November, so that had a impact. We had all the costs through the system, but not enough revenue to cover it for those three weeks.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

Revenue again, as I see sequentially isn't far off. INR 410 crore is what we did in the previous quarter, and this quarter it's around INR 400 crore. It's not that far off from what we did in the previous quarter.

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

Yes. Obviously, as I mentioned, fixed costs remain there. When you lose the revenue like this, entire contribution goes on impact in the result. Some of the Technetium which we could manage, that we had to purchase at a higher price from the smaller reactor which was running.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

Is this more from a radiopharma issue or it's a radiopharmacy issue?

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

This was an issue of the radiopharmacy that, please keep appreciating overall number of doses which are getting dispensed from the pharmacy have gone down. To that extent, ultimately the consumption of the radiopharmaceutical product also goes down.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

My only reason for asking this is since the time of acquisition, we would have incurred almost INR 1,000 crore of EBITDA losses on this radiopharmacies business. Last couple of quarters, we saw the losses coming down. Again this quarter there is this volatility and higher losses. One or the other reason, for one or the other reason, the losses keep coming back to those almost INR 50 crore quarterly run rate. Now also we are talking about being breakeven by FY 2024 end. This is something which we need to maybe have a look at in a realistic manner. Can we continue to sustain the company by incurring such high losses on this business?

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

The losses numbers you are indicating were there in the year FY 2021, when we also had a disruption due to COVID. In FY 2022, the losses had come down drastically. In FY 2023 also the losses in the Q1 and Q2 were in the range of INR 20 crores, not the INR 50 crores.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

Right.

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

In Q 3, if this event was not there, then the losses would have been much, much lower than what we have reported. If we don't see any such disturbance in Q 4, you will see that the Q 4 losses are even much lower.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

You mentioned that this event happened in November. Has it normalized now in December and January, February?

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

Yeah. First two, three weeks of December the order supplies are back to normal.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

The losses should come down in Q4 then, I think.

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

Yeah, absolutely. That's my assumption.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

Okay. On the generic business, what was the one-time gain? Can you quantify that please?

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

Settlement.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

Yeah, on account of settlement, the legal settlement.

Arvind Chokhany
Group CFO and Whole-Time Director, Jubilant Pharmova

Yes. I think this is Arvind Chokhany. Hi. The gain was due to settlement of a long pending customer dispute. However, we generally do not comment on the individual customer related contract due to the confidential nature of the settlement, as you can imagine.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

I just wanted to know from a core business perspective, how has been the losses? This INR 36 crore loss includes the one-time gain. Excluding that, what would have been the loss trajectory? Something which I wanted to understand from you guys.

Arvind Chokhany
Group CFO and Whole-Time Director, Jubilant Pharmova

I understand the question. I think As you can imagine, there are some one-time events last year which was when this

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

No, I'm comparing your business on a sequential basis. There's no point comparing it on a year-on-year basis.

Arvind Chokhany
Group CFO and Whole-Time Director, Jubilant Pharmova

Yes. I think As I mentioned, it is not appropriate to give what was the exact loss due to the exact award, the award, the legal award, yeah.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

In the coming quarter now, hopefully with Salisbury also coming on stream in the Q4 , the absolute loss numbers reported this year, this quarter, so Q4 should be lower than this? By when we are we expecting to be in the black as far as the operating profit is concerned for the generic business?

Arvind Chokhany
Group CFO and Whole-Time Director, Jubilant Pharmova

Yeah. I think the question is by what is our expectation on improvement in generic's profitability, right? That's your question, I guess.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

Yeah. Yeah.

Arvind Chokhany
Group CFO and Whole-Time Director, Jubilant Pharmova

The expectation in generics' profitability is that from this, nine months, which is close to approximately - 34%, we should in the next year, next year end, which is our FY 2024 year end, should be we should significantly improve. It should be close to negative mid-single digits, is what we expected.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

Next year again we are expecting. This is despite your cost optimization activities which we have talked about, despite that, we would be incurring losses in the generic business this year as well.

Arvind Chokhany
Group CFO and Whole-Time Director, Jubilant Pharmova

Yes, at a much lower understanding. As you can see, this year has been a significant loss of this year. Those are going to be much lower next year.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

Just on the regulatory part, where are we? We were supposed to get an update from US FDA on the Roorkee plant in November. What is the update on that? Also if you could comment the same for our Nanjangud plant as well.

Jaidev Rajpal
MD and CEO of Jubilant Generic, Jubilant Pharmova

Yeah. This is again, Jaidev Rajpal. Let me just take to give you an update on the regulatory status of the Roorkee plant. As you recall that we had an audit last year in July 2021, which resulted in an import alert with a few products exemption. We had a follow-on audit in July 2022, for which we received same status, which was the OAI before and continuing OAI in October, disclosed through our press release. At this moment, we have one product exemption that we continue to supply to US, right?

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

Okay.

Jaidev Rajpal
MD and CEO of Jubilant Generic, Jubilant Pharmova

Beyond that, we have, as I said, we have completed all the CAPA that we had committed to US FDA. Beyond US, we continue to supply to all other markets, which includes Japan, Europe, Germany, that is, Nordic countries, South Africa, and a host of other African countries as well. Other than US FDA, at this moment, we are continuing to supply to all other markets, and US we continue to supply the product which is under exemption.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

I get that, but I just wanted to understand if the import alert remains as it is. There is no change on that system.

Jaidev Rajpal
MD and CEO of Jubilant Generic, Jubilant Pharmova

No, no. As you mentioned, in October, we received continuation of the similar status, which was OAI with import alert.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

Okay. Lastly, if you see, sir, API business again, plant upgradation happened in the Q1 , and we were expecting revenues to see a bump up in the H2 . If I see for the last three quarters, there hasn't been much improvement on the API business as such. The numbers have been hovering at around INR 160-170 odd crores. Again, because of that, margins also are taking a hit. What is the outlook on the API business per se? Because really the things are not turning out the way we had earlier envisioned over here.

Giuliano Perfetti
CEO of CDMO, Jubilant Pharmova

Yeah. Thank you for the question. Giuliano Perfetti speaking. Let me divide your question into two questions. One is on the FDA inspection Nanjangud, and the second is about the Q3 sequential revenue versus Q2 . On the first part, as we mentioned in the past, the site is currently in OAI status, so we are selling all over the countries. US FDA completed its audit in Nanjangud facility in December 2022, issuing a Form 483, which was containing eight exceptional observations. Jubilant kindly replied to this observation within 15 days, precisely on January 1, 2023.

FDA has acknowledged up to now the receipt of this Jubilant's response. Jubilant's response described the actions being taken to address the exceptional observation. The company is updating FDA regularly on its progress, but to date we have not received any further communication from FDA regarding the inspection or our response. With the corresponding qualification, we can just say that we cannot provide further update on the outcome of this. For the moment, nothing is changing from the previous status. Coming on the second question, you're right. We were mentioning in Q3 this year we were expecting to regrow in revenue. By the way we grew in revenue versus previous year significantly, more than 45%.

As a sequentially, we were basically aligned to the previous quarter. There are two reasons for that which have been briefly called out before by my colleague, Arun. The first reason was, plant is going through a complete plant upgradation. Currently in the plant we do have, in the site, we do have 6 plant, four of them are being upgraded. The last upgrading, which was supposed to be completed in Q2 , prolonged even in Q3 . This created some lower volume because of the shutdown. This delay was due to the situations linked to the instruments and late coming versus this one. In addition, there was also some lower volume in specific products which we are selling in U.S. and particularly lower down.

Vinay Jain
Head of Research & Fund Manager, Karma Capital Advisors

Our understanding was that the plant upgradation was done and completed in the Q1 itself. Maybe there is some lack of communication also which is happening from the management side. If you see your presentation in the Q1 , you have mentioned that plant upgradation is completed and you should see a revenue bump up happening in the H2 of the fiscal year. It's pointless to compare it on a year-over-year basis, because last year any which ways there was a maintenance shutdown which was there and which impacted our revenue. Just one last thing again, like company, the way things have been going again, we seem to have bounced back sharply from the COVID.

For one or the other reasons, the numbers have been disappointing. Maybe we might have to take some hard calls, if necessary when it comes to the radiopharmacy business as well. If things are not planning the way we had, at some point in time, we might have to, maybe, have a relook, on that decision. Yeah, that's all from my end.

Operator

Thank you. A reminder to participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may enter star and one. Our next question is from the line of Rahul Vira from Abakkus Asset Manager. Please go ahead.

Rahul Vira
Senior Research Analyst and Fund Manager, Abakkus Asset Manager

Hi, team. Just wanted to understand on drug discovery side, usually like whenever our molecules have been moving, the R&D expenses usually would move very sharply up. Are we expecting any kind of sharp move in our R&D expenditure going forward?

Giuliano Perfetti
CEO of CDMO, Jubilant Pharmova

Can you repeat the question? What do you mean for sharp, on R&D expenses?

Rahul Vira
Senior Research Analyst and Fund Manager, Abakkus Asset Manager

Oh, some new.

Syed Kazmi
President and CEO, Jubilant Therapeutics

[inaudible] . Our spend really depends on how programs move forward based on the emerging data and the collaboration opportunities. Depending on how the clinical data turns out. Sorry.

Operator

Sorry to interrupt.

Giuliano Perfetti
CEO of CDMO, Jubilant Pharmova

Syed, you have to mute your video.

Syed Kazmi
President and CEO, Jubilant Therapeutics

Yeah, I'm on mute. Anyway, I'll try again.

Giuliano Perfetti
CEO of CDMO, Jubilant Pharmova

So to mute on the-

Operator

Yeah.

Giuliano Perfetti
CEO of CDMO, Jubilant Pharmova

This is better. This is very clear, yeah.

Rahul Vira
Senior Research Analyst and Fund Manager, Abakkus Asset Manager

Okay. All I was saying is that the spend really depends on the emerging clinical data. Once we have collected some human data in the ongoing study, then we will be able to determine how fast we have to expand those studies. Then we can manage and report our expenses accordingly.

Giuliano Perfetti
CEO of CDMO, Jubilant Pharmova

Okay.

Rahul Vira
Senior Research Analyst and Fund Manager, Abakkus Asset Manager

One more question from my end. In terms of the commentary that we have provided, specifically, for our high margin business, that will be contract research. You mentioned that the growth may moderate. Any particular view on that, sir?

Giuliano Perfetti
CEO of CDMO, Jubilant Pharmova

This is for Giuliano, this question on, the contract research discovery.

Rahul Vira
Senior Research Analyst and Fund Manager, Abakkus Asset Manager

No, no, sir. Yeah, contract research. Usually we do 50%-60% revenue, but this time it's somewhere at 49% margins. We mentioned that the growth will be moderate. Wanted to understand some insights on that will be helpful.

Giuliano Perfetti
CEO of CDMO, Jubilant Pharmova

Yeah, I think, what is happening on the market is that, overall the market is remaining healthy in terms of demand. I mean, despite the fact that in the this quarter there are signs which I can call out also in the previous call of a more selective approach of our customers to run programs in contract research. This is resulting in a slight, let's say, lower growth than in the past, which is in this case is almost between the same level of volume. We do think that this probably will stay also for the short term, for the next quarter.

There are our view and there are views that the market will restart to grow into the same level that we had previously, even from the H2 on or end of this year, this fiscal year. In terms of profitability, this market, from the way we discussed in the past, it was expected to generate an EBITDA around 30%. If you compare to The same quarter last year, EBITDA was a little bit on the peak for this incident of FFS business, which was affected positively the previous year quarter. In terms of the way we see the future, what we are doing now is we are continuing our program of expanding our capability.

Like you mentioned, the commission of the NPT capability within the Greater Noida site. We have now completed the phase I of the chemistry and NPT excellence center. We are still developing our talent pools of scientists in order to be ready to catch the growth once the market will return to the level that we do expect. Based on the fundamentals of this market, there are no other reasons for investing at that time.

Rahul Vira
Senior Research Analyst and Fund Manager, Abakkus Asset Manager

Sure. Do you have any plans to expand like you already have in Roorkee the new facility?

Giuliano Perfetti
CEO of CDMO, Jubilant Pharmova

No, the new facility is fully operating. It was commissioned at September 2021, and we run at a high level of capacity utilization. We call out that we will further expand the facility and in order to be ready to catch additional demand that we do expect starting from end of FY 2024.

Rahul Vira
Senior Research Analyst and Fund Manager, Abakkus Asset Manager

Sure. Sure. Good points. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Raghav Vedanarayanan from JM Financial. Please go ahead.

Raghav Vedanarayanan
Equity Research Analyst, JM Financial

Hello. yeah. Am I audible?

Operator

You are, sir. Please go ahead.

Arvind Chokhany
Group CFO and Whole-Time Director, Jubilant Pharmova

Yes. Yes, you are. Go on.

Raghav Vedanarayanan
Equity Research Analyst, JM Financial

Yeah. Okay. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I have two questions. The first is, where do you see the long-term margin back and what will be driving these margins? The second question is, with respect to the CRDMO business, how do you see this growing in the future?

Arvind Chokhany
Group CFO and Whole-Time Director, Jubilant Pharmova

Yeah, hi. This is Arvind here. You know, with regard to the sustainable margin, you know, we have very strong pillars of growth in, you know, radiopharma, pharmaceutical, allergy, CDMO, generics and also drug discovery services. They are the pillars which will drive the sustainable growth in the medium term. In the short run, we have to overcome some challenges which both Jaidev as well as Giuliano have articulated. The three challenges we have to overcome is breaking even the generics, which we're targeting for next year, improving the API performance through remediations, as well as breaking even the pharmacies. The management team is working on a very strong KPI for all of these three things.

We can assure you that, you know, all these businesses are being closely monitored through various project programs that we have. I hope that answers your question, Raghav.

Raghav Vedanarayanan
Equity Research Analyst, JM Financial

That answers the question. The second question is, regarding the CRDMO business, how do you see this growing?

Giuliano Perfetti
CEO of CDMO, Jubilant Pharmova

Yeah. I think we need to distinguish for drug discovery side, for drug discovery business, we do see double digit growth happening starting from end of this year. We see that the outlook in midterm is quite robust in terms of demand for new projects and the way the company is positioned, particularly in United States. We have a large presence in terms of customers that are biopharmaceutical and need large customers. We think that the growth is definitely on that level. On API, I can't provide a detailed any guidance for the next year because of the pending outcome from this question.

What I can tell is that, we have a strong plan which is focusing on cost containment within API to reduce structurally the cost. We do have in place a security transformation program happening at the site. Third pillar is, we are acting a refocusing of our portfolio of products in order to target products which are more profitable and with more potential for growth.

Operator

We have the line for Mr. Giuliano connected. Over to you, sir.

Giuliano Perfetti
CEO of CDMO, Jubilant Pharmova

Yeah. I don't know if I finished my third pillar worked on the portfolio rationalization. With the third pillar we build the basis for the first of all of API and DDDS, the entire CRDMO.

Raghav Vedanarayanan
Equity Research Analyst, JM Financial

No, I think that answers my question.

Operator

Okay. Thank you.

Raghav Vedanarayanan
Equity Research Analyst, JM Financial

Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, you may enter star and one on your touchtone telephone. We'll take the next question from the line of Mitesh Shah from the Nirmal Bang Equities . Please go ahead.

Mitesh Shah
Research Analyst, Nirmal Bang Equities

Thanks for taking my question. I have a couple of questions regarding the margins. The supply constraint has also impacted the margin of your radiopharmaceuticals as well?

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

Mitesh, well, the technetium generator issue was related to the radiopharmaceuticals, which is a part of the radiopharmaceuticals business. You-

Mitesh Shah
Research Analyst, Nirmal Bang Equities

Pharmaceutical.

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

Uh, uh.

Mitesh Shah
Research Analyst, Nirmal Bang Equities

Yeah, yeah. Technically, because it came down from 22% to 10% this quarter. The pharma business came down to 65.61%. That also.

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

There in the Q2, we had the higher sales of our higher margin product. If you recall in the Q2, we had indicated that this is a one-time bump, where the customer had, you know, booked for extra quantities. We had indicated that in Q3 it will again correct it. That correction took place because the sales of high-margin products were less than the expectation in Q3. Then we had this impact with the radiopharmaceuticals because of the shortage of some products.

Mitesh Shah
Research Analyst, Nirmal Bang Equities

Got it. I again, on the generic side, what is the differentiation between the US and the other geographies of your generic business?

Jaidev Rajpal
MD and CEO of Jubilant Generic, Jubilant Pharmova

Sorry, can you repeat your question?

Mitesh Shah
Research Analyst, Nirmal Bang Equities

What is the geographical differentiation between U.S. and the other geographies for generic market, basically. Generics.

Jaidev Rajpal
MD and CEO of Jubilant Generic, Jubilant Pharmova

We segment our business in three geographies, North America, ROW, and India. If you look at from the presentation that has been uploaded on our website, on a 9-month basis, this is approximately INR 383 crores out of INR 563 crores is North America. INR 950 crores is ROW and INR 29 crores is India. That should give you rough estimate of the diversification of the geography-wise.

Mitesh Shah
Research Analyst, Nirmal Bang Equities

In a sequential terms, the generic business, can we assume mainly both for the margins and the revenue front, so mainly because of this one-time gain?

Jaidev Rajpal
MD and CEO of Jubilant Generic, Jubilant Pharmova

Uh.

Mitesh Shah
Research Analyst, Nirmal Bang Equities

Should I exclude that and we also have improvement in the margins and the growth as well?

Jaidev Rajpal
MD and CEO of Jubilant Generic, Jubilant Pharmova

One-time settlement did contribute significantly to the margin gains in Q3 FY 2023. Therefore, it is likely that in the next quarter this may or may not be sustained. Having said that, the revenue gain, the revenue growth in generics was not limited only to one-time gain. As we've mentioned, this is also due to resumption of production at our Roorkee facility. As you would recall, was undergoing implementation of CAPA as an outcome of US FDA. In this two months of this quarter, we resumed full production at Roorkee facility, which continued to supply, as I've mentioned before, markets such as Japan, Germany, Nordic countries, UK, South Africa and one product to US.

Mitesh Shah
Research Analyst, Nirmal Bang Equities

Got it. That's it from my end.

Jaidev Rajpal
MD and CEO of Jubilant Generic, Jubilant Pharmova

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Sumangal Pugalia from RaRe Enterprises. Please go ahead.

Sumangal Pugalia
Investment Associate, RaRe Enterprises

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is on the radiopharmacy. Since I recall margin loss is guided in the current quarter. How confident are you of your breakeven guidance for Q4 next year?

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

Hi, Sumangal. This question Vinay had also raised earlier, I couldn't comment on that when he made the last week at the management meeting also. As we have been saying from last few quarters, we are extremely confident the turnaround plan on which we are working into the pharmacy business is absolutely on track. If no such untoward event happens which happened in the month of November, in FY 2024, by end of FY 2024, we are very hopeful that we should be breaking even in this business. We are growing revenue as you have seen. We are growing revenue through organic growth with existing products. We are growing revenue by taking new products in our baskets.

we are increasing our market share. We are bringing the operational efficiencies and significantly

Sumangal Pugalia
Investment Associate, RaRe Enterprises

Sure.

Pramod Yadav
CEO of Specialty Pharma and CDMO Sterile Injectables Business, Jubilant Pharmova

as I see, we remain

Sumangal Pugalia
Investment Associate, RaRe Enterprises

Okay. on the generic side, I just wanted to get a flavor of the cost that we are looking, the cost savings that we are identifying. This year and another INR 50 that was up next year. These are significant amounts. Are these virtually excesses in the system or what? Can you just, give a, kind of insight into what are these costs, the nature of these costs?

Jaidev Rajpal
MD and CEO of Jubilant Generic, Jubilant Pharmova

We heard the first part about the INR 150 crore. The second part we could not understand the question. What about that you want to know?

Sumangal Pugalia
Investment Associate, RaRe Enterprises

I just want to understand the nature of these costs, that we are cutting down.

Jaidev Rajpal
MD and CEO of Jubilant Generic, Jubilant Pharmova

Oh. You're saying what is the source of the cost saving? Where are these cost savings coming from?

Sumangal Pugalia
Investment Associate, RaRe Enterprises

Yeah, correct.

Jaidev Rajpal
MD and CEO of Jubilant Generic, Jubilant Pharmova

Let me answer your question in two parts. The first question is, as we've mentioned in our last investor call, that we had identified INR 100 crore of savings, which the saving implementation program is on track and is expected to complete by March 2023. Therefore, we should see these cost savings in our next year's performance. As we've also mentioned, we've identified a further INR 50 crore cost savings, whose implementation program will begin next year, which is first Q1 , which is April to June quarter of FY 2024. It is expected to finish by September 2023, which is FY 2024. Q2 of FY 2024. The nature of savings is coming. It is broad-based. It is coming from three major sources.

Source number one is we have had direct cost reduction, that we have managing our number of people on our roll, so direct cost savings. Second is that we have material cost savings. We are identifying wherever feasible alternate vendors for our material, so that's the second source. The third source is that we have taken a, we have modified our operating model in product development, that we are increasing the usage of external R&D only from internal R&D. This is a three-way saving that is helping us. It includes both, as I mentioned, a direct cost saving, the material savings and C, change in the operating model.

Sumangal Pugalia
Investment Associate, RaRe Enterprises

Thanks. My final question is on the novel drug. How close are we to this capital raise or commercial licensing or agreement? What is the stage? How should we look at that business?

Syed Kazmi
President and CEO, Jubilant Therapeutics

This is Syed. To answer your first question on the capital raise, as you well know, the biotech market in the US is still in the process of recovering. In the current environment, investors are looking for more mature data, if you will, especially from clinic. We have started our clinical program. We are in the process of collecting clinical data, and at the same time we are also having discussions with investors in terms of to what extent the landscape has evolved with regards to requirements of clinical proof of concept data before they come on board with the funding.

We hope that by end of this year we will have enough critical mass of the clinical data to enable external funding, at a favorable term, and that's what we are shooting for. In the meantime, we will continue to have those discussions and assess the market interest. Because of the recent transactions that have happened, especially the one that you mentioned in Tucker's remarks about Merck acquiring a company called Imago for $1.35 billion, in the space we are working on, I think that transaction has created a lot of interest for our programs. Our program is behind the Imago program, as that work has been going on for seven, eight years.

We're certainly optimistic that, with the market improving on one hand and the Imago transaction on the other, we are getting traction now with regard to some of these meaningful discussions. We'll, we have already collected some human data, but are looking to generate more robust clinical data later this year and then, hopefully, get back to fundraising at an appropriate valuation. With regard to partnering, I think with large pharma and biotechs we will continue to pursue those discussions similar to what we have done with our two prior partnership programs, including a licensing that was done through Lengo Therapeutics. We have mentioned about the throughput acquisition of Lengo, for which we did receive some portion of the upfront that we have plowed back into the business.

We are looking to partner the assets at the right inflection point and not just for partnering, which will be typically after IND filing or early clinical proof of concept, essentially to maximize our deal value.

Sumangal Pugalia
Investment Associate, RaRe Enterprises

Sure. Are you guys willing to share any kind of rough estimate on what can be the potential monetization in a broad range also?

Syed Kazmi
President and CEO, Jubilant Therapeutics

I mean, it all depends, right? It's all contingent upon the program, the data, the strategic fit. There is a huge range. It's very hard for me to give you a meaningful response but it all depends on the program and the data that's emerging like we said before. I mean, as we have mentioned for an early stage program like Lengo, we have received about $6 million in FY 2022, which as I mentioned, has been plowed back to the business. As part of our confidential licensing agreement and M&A deal terms, over the next 5 years we'll be entitled to additional milestones and as well as royalties.

Every deal is different and, it all depends on the data packages that we are able to generate. We are feeling pretty confident about the differentiation of our programs as they are moving through various preclinical and in some case clinical stages. We are very excited about these new novel medicines to meet the unmet medical needs, and we certainly hope that there will be traction on the partnering front once we have a critical mass of data available.

Sumangal Pugalia
Investment Associate, RaRe Enterprises

Sure. Thank you so much.

Syed Kazmi
President and CEO, Jubilant Therapeutics

Okay. Thanks for the question.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference back to the management for closing comments. Over to you, sir.

Arvind Chokhany
Group CFO and Whole-Time Director, Jubilant Pharmova

Thank you. Thank you for joining the Q3 earnings call for Jubilant Pharmova. Look forward to see you all in the next quarter. Until then, please send in your queries to the investor relations team. Thank you very much and good evening to all of you.

Operator

Thank you, members of the management. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Jubilant Pharmova Limited, this concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.

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