Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Alivus Life Sciences Limited, formerly Glenmark Life Sciences Limited, Q3 FY 2025 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Soumi Rao. Thank you, and over to Ms. Rao.
Good evening, everyone. I welcome you all to the earnings call of Alivus Life Sciences Limited, formerly Glenmark Life Sciences, for the quarter ended December 31st, 2024. From Alivus Life Sciences, we have with us Dr. Yasir Rawjee, our MD and CEO, and Mr. Tushar Mistry, our CFO. Our board has approved the results for the quarter ended December 31st, 2024. We have released the same to the stock exchanges and updated it on our website. Please note that the recording of the transcript of this call will be available on the website of the company, www.alivus.com. Now, I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that some of the information shared as part of this call, especially information with respect to our plans and strategies, may contain certain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.
These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risk, which would cause actual results to differ materially from these statements depending upon economic conditions, government policies, and other incidental factors. Such statements should not be regarded by recipients as a substitute of their own judgment. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Our actual results may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by these forward-looking statements. With that, I invite Dr. Yasir Rawjee to give his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, Dr. Rawjee.
Thank you, Soumi. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our Q3 earnings call. I would like to extend our warm wishes from Alivus for the new year to each of you. It marks a notable milestone for us as we officially transition to Alivus Life Sciences. This name change reflects our deep commitment to creating life-enhancing solutions. Alivus, derived from the root word life, embodies our aspiration to kindle hope, improve health, and help people live fuller lives. This rebranding signifies a new phase in our journey as we continue to innovate and grow. Moving on, let me turn to the broader industry shaping our business. So, within the pharma industry, we observe steady growth driven by increased outsourcing, rising demand for specialized APIs, and supply chain diversification to reduce dependency on single regions. The industry is also witnessing growth in the areas of sustainable manufacturing and advanced technology.
Now, focusing on our performance for the quarter, we reported revenues of INR 642 crores, a growth of 12% YoY and 27% QoQ. This was driven by both GPL and non-GPL business, which grew 15% YoY and 11% YoY, respectively. Generic business grew by 16.9% YoY. From the geography perspective, regions like India, Europe, ROW, and Japan have contributed to this growth. While we were able to recover some of the spillover revenues of Q2 during this quarter, some portion will be recoverable in Q4. Our CDMO showed encouraging QoQ growth of 25%, whereas the year-on-year growth is subdued due to the cyclical nature of the demand. Coming to our profits for the quarter, we reported gross margin of 55.6%, which is in line with our earlier guidance. Our EBITDA margin for the quarter was 31.3%, up 90 basis points YoY and 310 basis points QoQ.
This is essentially a result of better product mix with stable expenses. Our pipeline remains robust with over 548 DMF and CEP filings globally as on December 31st, 2024. Our high-potent API pipeline with a significant market opportunity continues to advance with multiple products in various stages of development. We have 21 products today with a total addressable market of $45 billion, with six products having been validated and six more products in advanced stages of development. Our quest for high-quality innovative solutions and scalability continues in order to build a sustainable business over the long term. With this, I now turn the floor to our CFO, Mr. Tushar Mistry, to provide a detailed overview of our financial performance for the quarter. Over to you, Tushar.
Thank you, Doctor. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our Q3 and nine months FY 2025 earnings call. I would like to briefly touch upon the key performance highlights for the quarter and nine months ended 31st December 2024, and then we'll open the floor for questions and answers. Our revenue from operations for the quarter stood at INR 642 crores, a growth of 12% year-on-year and 26.6% on a sequential basis. The gross profit for the quarter was at INR 357 crores, up 7.9% year-on-year and 26.6% sequentially. The gross margins for the quarter stood at 55.6%. EBITDA for the quarter was at INR 201 crores, up 15.2% year-on-year and 40.5% sequentially. EBITDA margin for the quarter was at 31.3%, up 90 basis points year-on-year and 310 basis points quarter- on- quarter, driven by better product mix. And the PAT for the quarter stood at INR 137 crores, with PAT margins coming at 21.3%.
Let me quickly discuss nine months financial year numbers as well. Revenue from operations remained flat over nine months FY 2024 at INR 1,737 crores. Gross profit was at INR 939 crores, and gross margins were at 54.1%. EBITDA at INR 509 crores, with margins at 29.3%. PAT was at INR 344 crores, with PAT margins of 19.8%. Looking at therapeutic mix, CVS and CNS continue to lead the growth during the quarter, with both areas collectively contributing 15% to the top line. R&D expenditure for nine months was at INR 56 crores, which was 3.2% of our sales. For the quarter, it was INR 20 crores. Touching upon the balance sheet and cash flow movement, the working capital days were at 182 days as of December 2024. Coming to capital expenditure, we invested INR 33 crores during the quarter, where the total investment for nine months was INR 119 crores.
We continue to remain a net debt-free company, and I am happy to inform you that we have generated a strong cash flow from operations of INR 184 crores in nine months FY 2025, with cash and cash equivalents, including short-term investments of INR 499 crores as of 31st December 2024. In conclusion, I would like to say that we are optimistic about the future trajectory on the back of steady demand environment. With that, let us open the floor for Q&A.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your touchtone 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'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question comes from the line of Ahmed with Unifi Capital.
Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations. Good set of numbers. My first question is on the CDMO business. Despite the contribution from the board project, the absolute number still looks subdued. So can you explain on this? And secondly, do you expect this number to scale up materially in Q4 with the new project?
Yeah. So CDMO, the fourth project has kicked in, but it's just kicked in, right? So materially, it's not that significant in terms of contribution. Okay. And the three projects that we have, we've explained before that they do have a cyclical nature in terms of demand. And so owing to weaker demand, right, we've seen CDMO not pick up as much as we had anticipated. But going forward, I believe that this is going to get better from next quarter onwards. But again, on a quarter-to-quarter basis, just given the fact that we don't have that many number of projects, we would see a cyclical performance on the CDMO segment.
Okay. Thank you, and second question is, if you look at the working year current capacity utilization, did the 208 KL addition in Ankleshwar contribute in the current quarter also?
The 208 KL addition of capacity has contributed, but mind you, that's an intermediate capacity, and typically, we look at our finished API capacity when we are looking at sort of scaling up. However, it does matter, but still, in terms of connecting, right, we look at the API finished capacity, right?
Fundamentally, the utilization has been around the 90% level that we usually are at. Okay. Okay. Got it. Last question. If I look at the OpEx number, the OpEx growth is slightly ahead of our top-line growth. So is there any element of one-off or anything as such, or is this just par for the course?
So some part of it is in line with the growth in the revenue numbers, but of course, there is some element of one-time as we are looking at some transition costs getting incurred in Q3 as well as in Q4, so some small element of that is there, and there were some higher costs on the sales and marketing front also in this current quarter.
Got it. Can you quantify the one-off transition cost?
Transition cost would be in the range of about INR 3 crores-INR 4 crores in this current quarter.
Okay. Okay. Got it. Yeah, that's it from my side. Thank you so much.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question comes from the line of Sajal Kapoor with Antifragile Thinking. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. Interesting name, team. I like it. So congratulations on a good set of numbers. Happy to see some recovery in CDMO, and hopefully, it should get better from here. Just a couple of questions, really. One, which two, three things will not change in this new avatar, and what do you think must change to strengthen the business?
So our approach to the portfolio, right, in terms of chasing higher value opportunities is something that we will continue. Okay. The geographic diversification that has made our business very stable, I would say, right, is also something that's a win, and that's also something that we would continue to drive. Okay. As far as operational efficiency, I think we do a good job, but there's certainly room to do more. Okay. So these are the sort of business operations and R&D elements that would stay intact because these are the things that have really helped us to continue to build a sustainable business, right? What will change, though, is that given the fact that we are able to invest more in the business, our approach will be to build new levers to drive further growth.
So this is important, especially in light of the fact that in the past, the investment that we have made has been largely limited to increasing capacities just to service the business. The only exception, I would say, is when we introduced the oncology platform. This was two and a half years ago, and that also has paid rich dividends in terms of the portfolio that we've been able to build and the business interests that we've been able to generate. So given that kind of uptick potential in the business by building new platforms, it's very clear to us that we need to build in that direction in terms of new platforms so that can fuel further growth. And then we are positioned well because we do have the ability now to invest more. And I would say, now, do me a favor.
Don't ask me what that is going to be, okay, because I'm not going to tell anyone this, right? Simply because, I mean, we have too many, I mean, we have a lot of things in the pipeline that we're thinking of. Some of them we are even ready to implement, but it's a generic business, and there's a lot of copycat culture in our industry. And so we'd like to keep it a little quiet while we build these platforms to fuel further growth. So I think that summarizes it, Sajal. This is how we're going to sort of go forward while keeping a very strong element of our current DNA intact.
That's a very thoughtful response, and I wasn't expecting anything less from you, Dr. Rawjee. So thank you for illustrating your vision out there. And I also appreciate why you need to keep this strategy close to your heart for now. You're not revealing it, and I completely appreciate that. And last question is, US FDA has not audited our plants for several years. And so I understand how difficult it is to estimate the time of the audit, but how can we interpret the relatively low frequency of US FDA audits on our facilities vis-à-vis some of the other API plants that they have visited twice in two years kind of a frequency? So I mean, how do you read into this?
We do understand a little more than just sort of guessing, right? And that is these agencies talk to each other, okay? And I happen to have interacted with some investigators, right, informally. And basically, because they share information, right, it's the risk ladder that they build, right? So their frequency goes up when they sense a riskier company, and their frequency, we go down in their ladder in terms of the frequency of audits. We've had successful audits from Japanese PMDA recently. We've had successful audits from ANVISA Brazil recently. And these are all agencies that talk to each other. So we expect that FDA should come. It's been a while. And so based on the fact that it's been a while and we've had quite a number of filings, we believe that this will happen.
The good news for us is that our approvals in our facilities are not being stopped. Okay. So we continue to get, our customers continue to get approvals, and so it's not hampering business, but yeah, I mean, it would be nice to have the US FDA come in and take a look at us, and sort of, we can move forward from there.
Sure. Sure. And this PMDA, was that for Dahej or Ankleshwar?
PMDA was Dahej. ANVISA was Ankleshwar.
So both are good agencies. I mean, even Brazilians are very particular. So that's good to hear and look forward to the next quarter. And of course, understanding what platforms is it that you would be revealing. But yeah, congratulations and best wishes. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question comes from the line of Harsh Shah with Vera Holdings. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, sir. I just wanted to get an understanding about how much the onco blocks are contributing because when I look at the previous revenue, I would presume that onco would be sitting somewhere in the other segment line items. But it's a segment that's around 33%-34%. So I just wanted to get an understanding how much the onco is contributing. Is there a possibility that we can give out a separate line item for the onco block just like we give it for cardio, CNS, that piece?
Okay. You know what? You've been pretty muddled, your voice that came through, but I understand you're asking us about how much has onco contributed. Is that your question?
Yes, that is correct.
Okay. See, the thing is that with onco, right, we are currently in the seeding stage. Okay. We've got six products validated, and these are all going to customers who would eventually launch with these APIs. We have another six that we will be validating soon. That will be 12 APIs in a short time that would have been seeded with multiple customers. Commercially, they have not contributed a lot because we have only supplied exhibit batch quantities to customers. There has been some revenue from onco as a result of that, but we are not yet in the commercial phase with respect to our oncology pipeline as yet.
Okay. And so when you say that the market size of the 12 drugs, which are under various stages of development, is $45 billion, what would be the API market size out of that?
Okay. Now, you know what? This is a surrogate markup. Okay. And let's understand that most of this $48 billion, right, is basically an innovator marketplace. So let me help you to break it down. Okay. So if you then look at what would this market size look like when the generics happen, it's going to reduce very significantly. And then the API is a subset of that. Okay. So you have price erosion when generic launches happen to the extent of 95% plus. Okay. But what this does, why we sort of give you the total addressable market, right, is basically to give a sense in terms of what we are going after in terms of the potential. That's the reason for putting out such a number.
But I do understand it sometimes can cause a lot of excitement, right, and in terms of how much we could sort of do on the API side, but it's a substantial market that we would be catering to even after generic penetration happens.
Yeah, and what if we try to assume it would be somewhere in the range of 10%-20%, the size of generic API market from the if you have to derive it from the surrogate market size?
No. Like I said, it could go down to 5%, right, of what it is today when generic happens. So say $48 billion becomes like $3 billion. Okay. And then API is part of that, right, in terms of the overall market. You get that?
Thank you. Mr. Shah, please rejoin the queue for more questions. Next question comes from the line of Karthik with Catamaran. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Sir, can you help us understand what is the long-term strategy on the CDMO business segment?
Sure, so in the CDMO spectrum, which is pretty wide, I mean, we are looking at end-of-life cycle projects, okay, so that commercialization is relatively quick, and the other part that we focus on is the specialty segment where, again, basically, it's not a full clinical study repeat, but short clinical studies that specialty companies do with an enhanced formulation, okay, but they still end up getting quite a good exclusivity period, and this basically gives us, again, a relatively quick entry into the market along with pretty good realization, so that's the strategy that we've been following so far, and we would continue to do that. Again, we see a fair amount of traction, right, with newer projects, especially because we've got a pretty big portfolio that helps us in both the end-of-life cycle as well as specialty.
Thank you, sir. And in terms of people in the team, have you hired more manpower for to especially focus on CDMO? And how many would these people be? How large would this team be?
Currently, it's the same team that drives the generic business in Europe, North America, and Japan. But these are the three large regions where we get traction on the CDMO side.
Sir, is there any perceived conflict of interest between CDMO clients giving you business because you're working for a lot of generic clients as well?
Not anymore. I mean, I've had this issue crop up years ago, right, but I think, again, because of the segment that we are in, right, there is no real threat. Okay. In fact, they prefer to go with an established manufacturer because we've achieved economies of scale. We've achieved a pretty strong supply chain security. I mean, we've ensured that, so the combination of a strong supply chain as well as optimized costs on manufacturing and materials procurement basically gives them a significant advantage for their end-of-life cycle business.
Understood. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Nitin Agarwal with DAM Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Dr. Rawjee, in the past, you've talked about post-transition. Are you looking to sort of step up some of the growth investments? Have there been any specific areas where some of these activities are already underway, and if you can sort of highlight them.
Yeah. So I was answering Sajil, right, earlier where I said that we've already started looking at things, right, and started work in R&D already. Okay. We hope to have our own R&D facility in about a year, year and a half. But we're not waiting for getting that extra space in order to expand. We've already started doing work in a couple of areas. Okay. Unfortunately, I won't be able to tell you what all that is, but work has begun, in earnest, on two areas. Okay. Basically, new platforms that we have already started working in, and we'll be adding a few more, right, in the next six to eight months. We hope to sort of commercialize these kind of some of them in early FY 2027, right? So it's work in progress.
We've started making early investments, small investments, because it doesn't yet involve manufacturing, but it's certainly happening at the R&D level at this point.
Given the fact that we've got now relatively unfettered access to the cash that we have. In the past, we've been giving out larger dividends given the structure that we were in. How are we looking? We continue to generate pretty reasonable free cash even at this point of time. Any thoughts on how would we look on cash utilization for the business? One part is R&D you mentioned will take up some amount of incremental cash. Where else does the money really go from here beyond this?
Listen, there is also the greenfield expansion that is coming up in Solapur. There's a good amount of investment that is happening in that area as well. CapEx for the next three to four years is well laid out. It should be in the range of another INR 400 crores-INR 500 crores easily. And so that's how the surplus cash will be utilized. Of course, post-standalone also, there will be some surplus cash on the balance sheet. The dividend will not be as high as what it used to be in the past. But obviously, there will be some element of dividend also that will come.
Secondly, Dr. Yasir, on the slide where you talked about the cumulative filing status, we've got 168 DMFs which are there in North America. Now, all of these are, I mean, are these, I mean, what proportion of these products would be sort of supplying literally on an annual basis? Or some sales orders are coming through on a regular basis?
About half. A little more than half.
Okay. And so in terms of.
Because the thing is that patent expiries also have not happened, right? So many of these are not commercial. I mean, they are filed. Okay. But the patent expiries are going to happen in the next few years, and that's when we'll be supplying commercially. So you get it, right, why it's about half.
Yeah. Sir, the key point is versus the filings that are there in North America, the number of filings in other regions are far lower, especially like countries like Japan and Brazil. So I mean, how much of an opportunity is it for us to sort of geographically expand the current basket?
So that's a good question. I mean, the thing here is that these markets, Brazil, Japan, and so on, we've been filing on the basis of customer interest. Okay. Because you see, what happens is that we've already got all the data in place, right? And we also have either validated material at the commercial scale or we are supplying commercial quantities to other regions. So here, it's a relatively easy sort of thing to do to make the filings happen because we've got the stability data. We've got everything in place. So the thing but then you don't want to have an empty file, right? If there's customer interest, they want to go ahead. Yeah, we are ready to file. We file. They take our material, produce exhibit batches, and then file the dossier. So that's the way things have been going.
I think it's a good optimization in terms of resources, right, how we plan our resources.
When we look to the next three to five years, you'll see most of your growth, if you were to break it up, will be coming from your existing portfolio or it's going to be largely driven by the newer launches?
Oh, a big part is going to come from newer launches. I mean, a big part is going to come from new launches. And if I look at four, five-year horizon, I mean, half the revenue will be from new, right, right? So about half the revenue that will come in, let's say, year four or year five from now will be from new launches.
Okay. Okay. And last one, if I can squeeze in, in terms of the competitive intensity in the business, have you seen any changes over the last few quarters?
No. The competitive intensity remains the same. It's high. But then again, right, I mean, we do have our differentiators, right, in terms of being in the regulated market space, offering better service, better product, better cost many times, right? So all that is there, right? So we continue to sort of tread along the same lines in that sense.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Tarang with Old Bridge. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. A couple of questions. One, how is the volume growth for this quarter? And second, for the CDMO business, you averaged about INR 140 crores in FY 2024. Nine months, you are at about INR 100 crores. So would we expect some growth? I mean, given that we are already about three weeks into the quarter, so some view on the CDMO business in the immediate term. And secondly, given that the fourth project has just been commercialized and you're expecting one more project to be commercializing in H1 of FY 2026, how should we see the trajectory of that business for FY 2026? Or is it too early to really forecast FY 2026?
Tarang, FY 2026 is a little early because we are expecting approval on the fifth project, right? Just like any project, right, I mean, the initial uptake is a little slow. And so I answered Amit earlier, right, that the CDMO on the fourth project has started, right? But it's not very significant, right? And then the three projects that we have, right, they do have a bit of a cyclical demand pattern, right? And so that is playing out essentially on the CDMO. On the volume growth, I'll just come back to you.
Yeah. Volume, I mean, price erosion that we have seen is around 6%. So volume growth is about 18% for us in the quarter.
Okay. Just on the CDMO and overall business, Dr., I mean, generally, what is the kind of advantage that you have on the business? I mean, do you have a good view of how the quarter or how the next six months are going to pan out? Or generally, it's really a monthly tab that you have on the business?
A good question. See, what happens is that when these kind of projects start, right, initially, you get a lot of feedback because the customer wants to make sure that you're going to service them. But as your service levels are at a high level anyway, then they don't worry about it. And they just sort of take you as a regular supplier, right? So visibility in that sense becomes lower, okay, because it's just like, "Yeah, we'll get the material anyway. There's a certain lead time, and that's it," right? So that's how it usually happens. So you kind of get taken for granted as you.
Get better at your work.
Yeah, so that happens.
Okay. Sure. Last question on CapEx. I think FY 2025, my notes might be slightly incorrect, but were we anticipating INR 300 crores-INR 350 crores in FY 2025?
Yeah, that's right. Your notes are right. And the first line item is about INR 190 crores. As I explained earlier, the budget allocations are already there for the projects that we have Glenmark. For example, the greenfield project in Solapur, as well as the new R&D center that Dr. Yasir Rawjee spoke about. Some of these have not yet fructified. I mean, while Solapur has started, the spends have not yet hit the balance sheet yet. And the R&D center, we are still scouting for the right place once again, and we'll have the outlook.
Got it, so there's just a timing mismatch. There's nothing really changed.
Right. Yes.
Got it. Okay. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Damayanti Kerai with HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is for Dr. Yasir. So just want to understand the generic business pickup a bit further. So very strong performance. So can you clarify a few things? First, whether the without spillover benefits from the previous quarter, how was the performance? And does TQ number also reflect some sort of front loading by the channel partners? And then on the broader industry part, if you can comment on the demand and pricing scenario. So I guess I just heard like 6% price erosion. How does this stand versus erosion in the prior quarters? So these are my questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Damayanti. As far as the servicing in this quarter, yeah, we partially made it up. Okay. It's difficult to kind of give an exact number, but even without that, let's say we had done that number in Q2 already, you would still have a pretty strong growth in Q3 as well. Okay. Of course, and like I said, right, and the reason for that is that we've got to meet customer expectations first, right? So if we've sort of slowed things down for a customer in Q2, we had to make it up in Q3. That was the most important part, and it's a multipurpose facility, right? Our facilities are all multipurpose. So we had to sort of stack that up depending on to ensure that customer servicing happened.
So I mean, short answer is it would have still been a pretty strong quarter in Q3, right? Even if, let's say, we had done some of the servicing in Q2. And that's why we said in our commentary that some more will also happen in Q4, some of that servicing that needs to happen that's still sort of pending from Q2. On the front loading, you'll have to help me a little bit. I didn't quite understand when you say, I mean, are customers stocking up? Is that what you're asking?
Actually, in December quarter, which is a calendar-end quarter, right? So I guess we have seen in the US that there's a bit of front loading or stocking up by the channels. So just want to understand if that was the case for your numbers as well.
No, I don't think so. In fact, we've actually seen in the past a reverse kind of trend because it's their last quarter and they are rationalizing inventory, right? So they want to sort of order less. But I mean, it hasn't really happened, right? As far as erosion goes, erosion remains more or less steady at about 4.5%-5%, right? And that's on the bucket. Okay. It doesn't happen at a product level, right? We see that on more mature products, we see more erosion, and on newer products, we see less erosion. But as a function of the bucket, we see about 4.5% to 5.5% kind of erosion on the overall.
Just from the demand perspective, are you seeing better demand from your customers, or it's more steady, say, compared to last few quarters?
So demand is stable in India, Europe, Japan. In fact, it's really good in Japan, ROW, and Europe, right? India is stable. But the U.S. and Latin America are a bit weak. Okay. So we are seeing I mean, we've been talking about Latin for some time now that because of the Argentinian currency situation, right, our Argentinian customers are very conservative these days in terms of their demand, right? And so that is impacting Latin demand overall, right? And then the U.S. also, the demand coming from the U.S. also is a little subdued. So overall, I mean, because we have got strong demand coming from Europe, Japan, ROW, right, it's kind of covered it up. And going forward, we'll see this trend for a couple more quarters, right, with these regions that are performing well to continue to perform well.
These other two regions, that is basically the Americas, right, going to be a little subdued.
Understood. Thank you very much for the explanation. I guess it clarifies.
Sure.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Shubham Padhiyar with Tamohara Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I just have one quick question on working capital cycle. So it is at 182 days. I just want to ask, are we standing at the top end of the spectrum, and is it going to go down for the next quarter, or is it going to still go up for a little bit?
Yeah. We believe there should be a peak out for this working capital. From this level, it should ideally come down.
Yeah. That's it. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Jay Patel an individual investor . So please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. And congratulations on the good set of numbers. My first question is regarding, sir, our thought process for backward integration. So we have backward integrated at Ankleshwar, and now even at Solapur, we are doing a significant backward integration for 400 KL. So just wanted to get a thought process around that. Is it to protect our margins or you want to deal with your raw materials from China? So your thought process would be good too.
It's for both. I mean, there is a margin benefit also, usually. But it's also where we've got a pretty substantial business, right, and a narrower supply base where we don't want to risk it. We are going to go in that direction by backward integrating.
Yeah. And secondly, there is a lot of chatter regarding U.S. Biosecurity. So many players are very much hopeful about Indian pharma industry. U.S. really wanting to deal with from China. So how do you see this?
Yeah. It's certainly going to be positive, right? The act has not passed, right? But with enough awareness in the pharma community, right, in terms of how the U.S. is thinking about this whole thing, right, I think the word has already got around that people need to de-risk if they are completely dependent on just China alone. So that has gone well, I would say. And I mean, that momentum has picked up. So people, it's going to, I think, be a positive thing for us going forward. I mean, we've definitely seen more interest, right, even on existing commercial products, right, more inquiries. And I would say that it's because of this.
Sure. Sure. And so last question is regarding high-potent API as well as the iron complex molecules. So what is the competitive scenario domestically in India? And the broader question related to that would be, do we have or do we choose any products, newer products based on competitive intensity or market size? So just wanted to get a sense of how do we choose newer products.
Okay. Let me just address the iron complexes and high potency. Iron complexes are complex molecules. It's very difficult for everyone to do it just like, let's say, small molecules are done. Simply because in order to establish equivalence with the innovator, the amount of characterization that has to be done has to be very significant. Okay. So iron complexes, so basically, the bar that agencies like US FDA put is very high in terms of establishing equivalence. And that's why the competitive intensity is pretty low, okay, in these complex molecules. As far as high-potent goes, it's a different approach you take. We basically target getting in early with customers, right? And because the R&D investment is quite significant, basically, it's how quickly you can lock in the customers.
And if we are able to lock in a good number of customers at the beginning, then you end up getting a sustainable business over the long term. So that's how that game is played. As far as the domestic market, we don't do much, frankly, in the domestic market, in either iron complexes or in terms of high-potent, right? We are largely targeting the export markets and the regulatory.
Actually, I was asking regarding competitors, Indian competitors in these segments.
Yeah, so the high-end companies who are operating at our level in terms of quality, regulatory, those players are our competitors. But then there's a handful, right? You don't have everyone that you find on Google can be a competitor for us, right? That won't happen.
Yeah. Sure. Sure. Thank you. That's good information.
Thank you.
Thank you. Last question comes from the line of Dilip an individual investor . Please go ahead.
Good evening. Congratulations to the company and the management for a good comeback to see in this quarter. I have a very specific two questions. The first question is that will the company pay the dividend this year as they used to pay last two years? Good and some dividends have been paid, but I think last year the dividend has been not paid. That's one question. Whether they would be I mean, they are in a position to pay because they have a lot of cash available with the company, almost close to INR 500 crore cash I could see from the figures. The second question, what I could see that there is change in the management and the ownership from the Glenmark to the Patels of Nirma has gone to that company.
And I believe the new management, they have a lot of expertise in chemicals, pharma, and many other areas, supposed to be having a lot of keen interest in such kind of pharma companies. So probably they have acquired. That could be my guess. So any idea, being a top management, any idea if they are going to have some kind of a forward integration in any kind of a pharma formulation sectors in future they would like to go? These are the very simple two questions.
Okay. So Tushar will comment on the dividend question. As far as the management of Alivus' goals, right, the management remains the same. Okay. This management team has been running the company for the last six years. And Nirma, who has come in as the majority shareholder, continues to back this management team simply because we've got the track record and they like our approach with respect to the business so far and the plans that we have to take the company forward. They do bring in a lot of very good experience and understanding about the chemical business, and that will certainly play a very important role when we get into more automation in terms of handling, let's say, if we get into larger high-volume products. So that benefit will certainly come to us as a result of Nirma's ownership of the company. Okay.
But directionally, it's the same approach with the same management team that is going to continue to drive the company. Okay. As far as dividend, I'll hand over to Tushar and answer.
Thank you.
Yeah. The dividend till last year has till the time we were a part of Glenmark Pharma was also from a requirement for upstreaming the cash to the parent company. And that's why the dividend seems to be higher at that point of time. There is no such direction at this point of time from Nirma. And in fact, as Dr. mentioned in his earlier comments, that the cash on the balance sheet is going to be used for future growth capital investment. So dividend may not be as high as what it used to be in the past, but it will certainly be there to some extent going forward.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Alivus Life Sciences Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.