Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q2 FY 2026 earnings conference call of Anthem Biosciences Limited. 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 has been recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rushabh Shah from Adfactors PR Investor Relations. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Anushka. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Rushabh Shah from Adfactors Investor Relations. On behalf of Anthem Biosciences Limited, I would like to welcome you all to the earnings conference call for the Q2 and H1 FY 2026. Today, on this call, we have with us from the management, Mr. Ajay Bhardwaj, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Gawir Beg, Chief Financial Officer. We will begin the call with a brief opening remarks from the management, followed by a Q&A session.
Please note that certain statements made during the call may be forward-looking in nature. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results or projections to differ materially from those statements. Anthem Biosciences Limited will not be in any way responsible for any actions taken based on such statements and undertakes no obligations to publicly update these forward-looking statements. I would like to now hand over the call to Mr. Ajay Bhardwaj for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Yeah. Good morning, everybody. This is Ajay. We are here to present our H1 FY 2026 key financial highlights, and I'm very happy to report that we've had a good consolidated revenue growth from our operations to 1,090 crores for the half year up to 30th September. Our CRDMO business out of that has delivered 926 crores of revenue, and our specialty ingredients have delivered 163 crores in revenue. Our EBITDA has also grown and now stands at 480 crores with an EBITDA margin of 41.4%. And that is respectable growth. The other income in the first half is 71 crores, and the PAT, that is profit after tax for our business, stands at 309 crores with a PAT margin which has grown now to 26.6%. Our net cash position at the end of September 30th has improved to 993 crores of cash in hand.
This is, in a snapshot, the financial highlights of this first half for Anthem Biosciences. We are very enthused by the growth in our numbers, and we are quite confident that going forward, we'll be able to deliver on what we think would be a good growth for the rest of the year. I now open up the floor for questions and answers. If there are any specific questions, or through the moderators, we'll answer them openly and frankly. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from 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 a moment while the question queue assembles. We take the first question from the line of Bansi Desai from JP Morgan. Please proceed.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. So firstly, this quarter, we saw our specialty ingredients business reporting a decline. So if you could help us understand what was the reason and how should we think about the specialty business growth for the rest of the year? And my second question is on our costs. So we saw both employee expenses and other expenses decline year- over- year. I'm assuming some part of it would be because of ESOP costs being in the base. But if you could help us understand, is this the sustainable base from here on?
Yeah. Yeah, Bansi. Well, the specialty ingredients business, and we have said this throughout whenever we presented our company, is that our capacities, the way we have created the capacities, is that they are fungible between our CRDMO and our specialty ingredients business. So we actually have had, since the CRDMO part has been busy, we are therefore, at that time, we do take a little step back from our specialty ingredients capacity availability. And therefore, our specialty ingredients business will, from time to time, show a little slowdown. Overall, it's a business that is a healthy business. It does help us when we do new expansions and we are waiting for large customers or large programs to come and fill up those capacities. Our specialty ingredients business helps us generate revenue and turn around our manufacturing capacities or our manufacturing facilities very early on.
That will continue to be the case. Overall, if you see our Specialty Ingredients business, even though in some years it is flat, it has consistently grown. It's trending upwards. We expect that also to continue. But at the same time, if we are over-demand for our facilities, for our CDMO business or CMO business in that case, we would actually tend to divert resources to that. And that's always good news for us. So we do see a decline this year, this half in Specialty Ingredients, but I think this will hold up in the rest of the year. But there's nothing to worry about. The business is solid, and it continues to grow.
Just to add on that, Bansi, so in quarter one, we added our CP6. We commissioned it and inaugurated the CP6 block. Just about a week back, we also inaugurated our CP7 block, so our Unit 2 expansion, which is roughly about 130 kiloliters of expansion, is now complete, so now we have adequate capacity which would be able to cater to both our segments, and hence, we feel that going forward, at least for this year, we feel specialty ingredients will be able to make up for the decline which we had seen in H1. With respect to the second part of the question on the employee cost, yes, you're absolutely right. In H1 of last year, we had employee cost which was roughly about 16% or 17% of sales.
And that included about INR 36 crores of ESOP charge that we had taken into consideration because that was the first year of the ESOP allotment. For this half, we have taken the ESOP charge is roughly about INR 8 crores, INR 4 crores each broadly for quarter one and quarter two. Net of that, if you look at it, the employee cost has largely been around that 12.5-odd % as a % of sales for both H1 of last year as well as H1 of this year. We feel that that's a decent enough employee cost % which will continue to be in. Other expenses have broadly been in the same zip code when it comes to H1 and H1 of this year as well as last year.
That's something also what we have been striving to deliver in terms of how do we create more operating leverage in the business, which is reflecting in the operating expense reduction and overall margin improvement that we are seeing in the business right now.
All right. Just one clarification. So this ESOP cost, 4 crores per quarter, is this likely to also come down starting next year?
Yes. For the options that we have granted, which is roughly about 90% of the pool, it's on a sliding scale. So INR 36 crores we recognized last year. This year is about INR 16 crores, which is what we have split across the first two quarters of four and four. Going forward, it's going to come down further.
All right. I have no questions. I'll join back.
Thanks.
Yeah, thanks.
Thank you. A reminder to the participants, in order to ask a question, you may press star and one on your touchtone telephone. We take the next question from the line of Nikhil Mathur from HDFC Mutual Fund. Please proceed.
Yeah, hi. Good afternoon. My first question is on the capacities. So with the new block coming on stream in Unit 2, and we have commissioned in Q1 as well, can you talk about revenue potential from these two capacity additions? And also, if you can help us with Unit 3 utilization, I mean, I suspect it might not be fully utilized yet. So how are Unit 3 kind of shaping up?
Okay. I can take the Unit 3 part, and Gawir will answer the thing that we have to take it into proportion of how much capacity we've added in Unit 2 versus what was there earlier. Unit 3, as we said, has a lot of specialty blocks. We have commissioned it now, and compared to the previous years, we have a very good WIP, so a work in progress in Unit 3, and many more POs are now coming into Unit 3, and I wouldn't put a number to it,
but it will be a substantially larger number than it has been in the previous years, so by the end of the year, and that's what we are going to be tracking for, by the end of the year, Unit 3, which is new Anthem, will also deliver a decent number. It still won't be in the profitable zone, but it is trending upwards significantly now.
Okay. On Unit 2, roughly, I think CP6 and CP7, 130 kiloliters have been commissioned right now. All put together, close to about INR 182 crores of CapEx have gone in CP6 and CP7. It is completely unutilized at this point of time with lower capacity utilization. So based on our asset turnover, which is roughly about 1.6x-1.7x, we feel the revenue potential will be similar from here, close to about INR 300 crores is what we can look at generating from CP6, CP7. On new Anthem, as it stands for 30th September, our gross block plus CWIP is about INR 350 crores. Plus, there are a couple of additional blocks on fermentation, which is yet to be commissioned. So all put together, our gross block will be close to about INR 450 crores plus over there.
This includes the high-end manufacturing of peptides and high-potent compounds, plus fermentation and biotransformation is also what we're adding. We expect that once on a full stream basis, if it comes up, the long-term target on this is also to deliver about 1.4-1.5x on asset turnover. On INR 450 crores capital base, we can generate close to about INR 600-650 crores of revenues on a long-term basis. I'm not talking about near term, but it will take some time in terms of peptides and high-potent and other fermentation block to be filled up completely.
Right. So I mean, what we are hearing from the industry, I mean, from your peers and your commentary as well in the last six, nine months, that there is an inflow of RFPs to Indian companies. There is a better order backlog for the companies. So based on this INR 450 crores of gross block that is to be absorbed by Anthem over the next two, three years, you are not at loss of capacity for any increased RFPs that are coming your way, right?
Yeah, Nikhil. That's why in our business, we have to build it, and then they will come. And we are ready with capacities to service new RFPs. And you're right. We've had surprisingly some good new inquiries, which we are very enthused by.
Understood, and secondly, from a longer-term perspective, let's say four, five years, the Unit 4, which the land parcel is there in the books for you, how do you think that will shape up in terms of that facility getting commissioned? And when are you likely to pursue orders for that particular facility? I mean, when is the first revenue that one should expect from that unit?
Okay. We've started the work already on Unit 4, and we've informed all of you about that. I think the civil works are in very good shape, and when you visit next time, we'll show it to you as well, and this unit should be, as we have said, consistently commissioned in two years from now. It's a greenfield project, and it's a significant investment we are making there to the tune of INR 1,000 crores, so we are absolutely positioning the company to become a leading player in this whole space. We already are, but to become significantly important in terms of both capacity and availability of skills, so we are definitely on track to get this done in two years' time.
Understood. If I may ask two more questions, can I go ahead?
Please. [Foreign language]
Okay. On the employee headcount front, before the Unit 4 kind of kicks in, how many employees do you need to add in terms of manufacturing R&D? I mean, is your current headcount good enough to take in the orders that you are envisaging next two years?
Go ahead. Go ahead.
See, with respect to Unit 4, we need to add people.
And Unit 3 also will need, as we expand, as we fill up the thing, there will be a need for more people. But we are very mindful in terms of hiring, and we are careful hirers. So we do take into account how we can optimize headcount. So we will need to hire if we are going to increase our revenues from Unit 3, we will need more people. But the way we go about is we transfer some trained people from Unit 2 and Unit 1 to these new units.
And under those people who have already fully absorbed our systems of our way of operating, we train new people. So usually, there is a very good hand-holding and a very good training program, which allows us to get industry-ready people by investing heavily in people training. So we are going to do that, and we are already doing that in Unit 3, and that will continue to happen.
So if the employee addition will be in a calibrated manner and you will have revenue growth next two, three years, would the current level of margins be sustainable then?
Yes, Nikhil. See, we've been very mindful in terms of having the ratio of employee cost as a percentage of sales is something what we track. And in the industry, we would be among the lowest from an employee cost as a percentage of sales. And we'll be mindful about that in terms of how we are looking at adding resources. The revenue growth, which you will see in new Anthem or subsequently also when Unit 4 gets commissioned and the base what we need to add from an employee point of view will reflect the employee cost as a percentage of sales in similar lines. So there won't be any. We don't anticipate that we'll be looking at a margin compression. Rather, we would continue to hold our margins as we have done in the past.
Yeah. I mean, you can see that the EBITDA growth has been healthy even now, and we believe that this will continue to be.
Got it, sir. This is very helpful. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Nikhil.
Thank you. Before we proceed with the next question, a reminder to the participants, in order to ask a question, you may press star and one on your touchtone telephone. We take the next question from the line of Saion Mukherjee from Nomura. Please proceed.
Yeah, hi, sir. Good afternoon. So my first question, if you can give some color on the pipeline in terms of phase three assets and how should we think about commercial quantities for those assets? And also, in your existing commercial products, are you seeing any significant volatility in your products, or we should expect a steady sort of 20% kind of growth that you have guided for earlier?
Yeah. Hi, Saion. Yeah. First up, the first part of your question, you see, when we actually in July, when we IPO'd the company, we had 10 commercial molecules in our fold, and this is what we had put in our DRHP. The next quarter, if you will look at it, the last quarter, the Q1, it had increased to 12 commercial products. So two more products were added to which were approved, which where we support our customers. In the last quarter, another two have been added. So today, we are actually addressing 14 commercial molecules where Anthem is developed and is now going to participate or is participating in the supply of advanced intermediates or APIs. Now, in terms of their future of these products, analysts have said that some of these would be blockbusters, and we are very enthused by that.
But when you launch the product and for it to go to blockbuster status, it takes some time as well. But we are there with our customer to support them. And we are also very you can see from 10, now it's 14 molecules that are commercial. That's a 40% growth in approved molecules. And if you remember, at the time of listing, we had said that we had about 12.
10 late-phase molecules.
Yeah, we had 10 late-phase molecules, so that pipeline continues to be healthy, and our funnel, as we have talked about in the past, we've added more customers in the early stage. There are good ones which have moved to now the middle stages, and we have four new approved molecules, and again, some of the late-stage are moving into the phase three part, so we see this as a very important part of our sustainable growth, and that's what Anthem is aiming for, and yeah, we are very, very, that's why we have created these new capacities. We're not doing this for any other reason. Now, our new units, and these are in Unit 2, which is already an FDA-approved unit, these capacity expansions are there so that we are able to support increased volume from our customers.
As far as our current molecules go,
Yeah, there is a decent amount of orders in hand, and we expect that these molecules will continue to grow for our customers. But again, the word of caution in all this is it depends on how our customers perform. And we have very good customers, and so far, they are doing well. So we are confident that we will deliver the growth that we have been talking about, both in terms of earnings and revenue top line.
Right, right. So just to clarify, now you would have six late-stage assets, right? Because since the IPO time, yeah.
The 10 late phase has gone down to six because four of them have moved to commercial now. So from 10 commercial plus 10 late phase, it's now 14 commercial and 6 late phase.
Understood. Actually, a lot of these late-stage pipelines have gone commercial in quick succession. So the remaining six that we have, do you have any visibility when should we expect, assuming everything goes right, when should we expect those six to enter the commercial phase?
Yeah. [Foreign language] but it is not in our hands. So the thing in this is this is a process which is entirely controlled by FDA and our customer. But you can imagine, most of these companies are biotech companies. They also have a cash burn going on. So they are very keen to push these through and have them approved as soon as possible. So do I have a visibility on when they'll be approved? No. If you had asked me at the time of listing, "Will we have four new products by end of Q2 or in the first half?" I wouldn't have been able to predict. It's the same going forward. But the good news is that we have a very good funnel.
And also now we have, and without naming customers, which I can't, we have some inquiries for new RFPs, which are existing molecules for our customers. And we expect some good sales to come from commercialized molecules where we are now going to support our customers, maybe as a second source. And that is also going to be, as you people had asked us, all of you, that, are you targeting those type of customers? And we had told you yes, and we are seeing some fructification of that also going on.
Okay. That's great. And so last question, if I can ask on margins, you had talked about 35%-40% margin level. Now, with the new facilities coming on stream, and at the same time, I think there could be some benefit because of currency, any fresh thoughts on guidance? Should we think about being at the upper end, or how should we think about EBITDA margins in the coming quarters and next year?
So Saion, if you look at the margins for this half year, we have done about 41.4% margins, out of which about close to 2% to 3% of our margins is attributable to FX income because FX net is roughly about INR 34 crore that we have recognized for this half year. Largely, it has been an impact. It has been an increase on account of employee cost reduction, other expenses reduction. There is a bit of a split on product-level margins, etc. So I think on an overall basis, going forward, we'll be on the upper end of the 36%-37% that we have always guided towards on the EBITDA margins level.
Largely because of the cost element, which we are quite conscious of in terms of how do we keep it in a check situation so that our various cost element as a percentage of sales shouldn't increase significantly from what we have been delivering so far. Upper end of the segment is what of the 36, 37 of what we have been guiding is what we'll be looking at achieving for the full year also.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. I'll join back. Thanks.
Thanks, Saion.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Gaurav Bhama from JM Financial. Please proceed.
Hi, sir. Good afternoon. Firstly, congratulations on great set of numbers. I just had two small hygiene check questions. In the presentation, there are two particular numbers that I wanted to inquire about. The first is 56.4% commercial molecules contribution to revenue, and the second is 9.8% R&D services contribution to revenue. Is it on a quarter basis or a half-yearly basis, sir?
This is half-year.
Half-year. Thank you, sir. That's it from my end.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Damayanti Kerai from HSBC. Please proceed.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is regarding two opportunity segments, which you indicated could be interesting. So, if you can share any update on how biosimilars and generic GLP-1 semaglutide opportunities are shaping up for you. Do you have any visibility of these segments contributing meaningfully towards the revenue in near term?
Yeah. So again, we are progressing steadily in that area. As you can imagine, we have to produce PV batches and all the rest of it, which is what is going on. And then we have to get the plant approved by FDA. But that will in the near term, you and I may define near term differently, but it won't happen in the next two quarters, but we will see after that, I think, some positive traction in these areas where we are doing and then the GLP-1 in the biosimilar. Then GLP-1, yes, that's an opportunity which we are working with quite strongly. And we are working with a bunch of innovators as well in this whole area.
So the point I'm trying to make is that this is going to be a very active field, and I think Anthem will arguably have one of the strongest positions in this space because we are fully integrated all the way backward. Because most of the people who are doing these products, particularly the first one that's going off-patent semaglutide, most companies are looking to get the fermentation fragment from outside, primarily China. Anthem is not going to do that. Anthem will work. It has developed the technology to make the fermentation fragment as well.
So that will give us tremendous advantage on cost of goods control. So we will be most vertically integrated among these players. And we have sampled quite a few of them. They have ambitious plans. And since we are a B2B player, we are working. We have sampled many of them. We expect to be supplying the GLP-1 to our customers in India.
Okay. So next year, when the innovator patents expire in India, at that time, during that time, this could be a very meaningful addition to your revenue, right? We can think in that way.
Absolutely. I would say it will add to our revenues,
yes, and you are right, and everybody's expecting it to be a significant product, yes.
Okay. And I think you have one unutilized plant, right? The plant which was indicated for that Q product. What is the status right now? You said you are planning to repurpose that for other products in your.
Yeah. That's the one. Very good point. That is the one that is going in for biosimilar. That is the one which we have completely repurposed without any significant investment. That has been retooled to develop that biosimilar, which is already a marketed biosimilar. We are going to be the second source, then the first source because they're shifting production out of the West.
Okay. Sure. My last question is on the CapEx. Apart from that INR 1,000 crore CapEx, which you have budgeted for Unit 4, in, say, next one to two years, what kind of spend you foresee?
So largely, it will be for Unit 4 itself because Unit 2 is complete now. Unit 3 fermentation is something what we have to complete, which will happen by the end of this year. And Unit 4, the major CapEx is on account of this INR 1,000 crores. Otherwise, replacement CapEx will not be significant for us because we expend a significant portion as repairs and maintenance on plant and machinery and other things which happens during the course of the year. So major CapEx is on Unit 4, which is INR 1,000 crores for our phase one expansion.
Yeah. So Unit 2 is almost fully built out. Unit 3, as Gawir said, there's fermentation, which we'll be completing soon. And that also will be then I don't think there'll be any more significant CapEx in Unit 3. So all our energies will now move to Unit 4 and also making sure that we fill up these expanded capacities in Unit 2 and Unit 3. That's where our whole focus is now.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your response. I'll get back in the queue.
Thank you.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Tushar from Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Please proceed.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. So just on the balance sheet side, the inventory has been much lower compared to March 25 numbers. If you could elaborate on that.
So on balance sheet side, see, with respect to inventory, we would have mentioned that a portion of a particular product, we were sourcing significant intermediates from an outsourced vendor, which was a client-approved outsourced vendor. Now, for this year, we have got approvals, and now we are manufacturing the intermediate in-house. So whatever we had procured from the outsourced vendor, that inventory has reduced, and now it has been converted into raw materials because we are doing the in-house manufacturing of that. So because of which the raw material, the inventory has reduced. That's largely the reason.
What we have also seen is that some of our customers who have asked for sort of a check on the inventories, what they have at their end with respect to their products have been filed or which have in commercial supplies, there they have asked us to keep reduced their because they are looking at reduction of their inventory. So they have asked us to reduce our inventory for the manufacturing of those products, because of which we have brought down the inventory days to about 105 days or so versus what it was in H1 2025 as well as FY 2025 full.
Got it. So is it that, which is why while the number of molecules for us in the commercials have increased, but somehow certain base molecules or certain molecules which we were already supplying, there is some amount of temporary sort of constraint in terms of supplying to the customers, and which is why probably the revenue growth, if I have to think about, let's say, subsequently for next 12-24 months, while the new molecule business will shape up nicely, but let's say base molecules will have some time to again pick up. Is that the way to understand?
See, base molecules, so I'll answer this question across two parts. One is the new molecules which have been commercialized right now. Four molecules have been commercialized. These molecules will take some time in terms of delivering significant numbers. So because they have just gone commercial, the clients will be planning for the launches of these particular products in various markets where they are looking at launching this product. So it will take some element of time to ramp up on the new molecules which have just gone commercial. With respect to the existing 10 molecules, what we have, see, our revenues from our existing molecules have been robust. The products are also doing quite well for our customers. There is a significant amount of growth in the products as well.
But every customer does a status check in terms of how much inventory is there in the market, how much they want to keep in the entire supply chain. And when they do a check on that, they look at reducing some element of inventory which is overfilled or oversupplied. And hence, there could be a reduction in our inventory because we have got indication from them for the next year or so in terms of how much we want to supply. But on an overall basis, existing business is also growing significantly for some of these customers, and we anticipate that our supplies to these customers will also continue to grow in the similar lines. New products will help us in terms of growing further.
Got it, sir. And as far as Unit 3 is concerned, so first of all, which geographies these products supply from a regulatory standpoint?
Yeah. Tushar, these and Unit 3 will also be focused towards our highly regulated markets. See, as I've said before, we follow one system. So in the interim, while we wait for FDA to come and approve that, we are supplying a lot of quantities for their studies. And this is what we did in Unit 2 also. And we expect that with one or two projects, which we might just in the near future, we file with FDA and get FDA to come in and approve the unit.
And the aim will continue to be to supply to the regulated markets because that's what we are. That's where our customer base is. And the second part is that the GLP-1 and all that, we will definitely supply the rest of the world as well. But the standards that we follow are the highest level of CGMP. That will continue to be our strategy.
Got it. So from that perspective, once the facility gets commissioned, subsequently, at least to generate the stability data and get the product qualification, so that timeline to be considered before getting the meaningful revenue from that. So effectively, FY 2028 to be the timeline to think of the revenue per se from Unit 3?
See, okay. I can disclose one piece of information now that we have about already INR 56 crore sales hung out. So about INR 56-60 crore, INR 55 crore is WIP in Unit 3 already. By the end of the year, we hope to add another few tens of crores. So we are already seeing revenue being generated there in Unit 3. Our idea would be to push this number to, say, INR 100-150 crore, by which time we would be supplying.
This has been our strategy. We don't like to keep our plants vacant. After that, by which time we would have filed some product from there and get FDA to come in and inspect it. After that, you see a big kick up in revenue because by then, also some commercial molecules will be in there. This is how our strategy is. We are already building up a Unit 3 sales.
So sorry to harp on this, but just so this is as of now more of the lab business probably because the products are under development?
No, it is pilot scale business. Lab to pilot scale.
Understood. Interesting. That is.
When we say pilot scale, it would mean quantities of 5, 10, 20, 30 kilos, that type of quantities, which then are used by our customers for various of their filings, doing their thing, and meanwhile we supply the other rest of the world things. Also, we will be using Unit 3 for our specialty ingredients, so it's always a mixed bag. The idea is we have made this investment. How do we make this investment sweat quickly?
Great. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Thanks. Thanks, Tushar.
Thank you. Before we proceed with the next question, ladies and gentlemen, please limit your questions to the next question. We take from Srinath from Spark Asia Impact Managers Private Limited. Please proceed.
Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, can I interrupt?
Sorry to interrupt, Srinath. Could you please come closer to your device and then speak?
Sorry. Who's speaking now? Sorry to interrupt. Who is this?
Srinath. I'm Srinath. I'm from Spark Asia Impact.
Nice to meet you.
So just tell me, give us how the sales have been for the European and North American markets quarter on quarter and year on year. Whether you are seeing any impact on R&D spending by U.S. biotech companies due to the year starting?
So Srinath, with respect to Europe sales, it is the highest for us, followed by U.S. sales. But one thing I would like to mention over here, the clients that we supply are global clients. So based on the requirement in terms of where they want us to supply, whether they want us to supply to the European CMO who's doing the formulations, or they want us to supply to the U.S. counterpart, U.S. CMO, where the formulation is eventually done, we supply it.
So it should not be construed that if you're supplying to Europe, then that is for a European customer. If you're supplying to U.S., that is for a U.S. customer because these are all global giants, and we supply based on their requirement across geographies. In terms of Europe sales, it has mirrored the growth that we have seen for quarter two of FY 2026. H1 Europe sales has been at a decent growth of about 25-odd% [Foreign language] H1 of FY 2025, and same way for the US sales as well.
To answer your second part of your question, Srinath, are we seeing some effect of the funding? But we hear mixed voices. We have good addition of new customers, which always points to I think in the past, what has changed is in the past, every project was probably getting funded. But now, they're very selective. And there is new funding available. And when I talk to our clients, they say, "We see green shoots. The winds are changing." And we certainly hope so. But we are seeing a steady flow of new good customers. But yeah, in the past, it was anybody who had a project, they would get funding.
That's not the case now. Investors are more selective. Luckily, we have very good people on the ground, what we say our sales force, our feet on the ground. We are able to keep the funnel of good new inquiries is still being maintained. We are not unduly worried in both cases that even if there is now new funding sort of becoming opening up, that's also good for us. Up until now, we haven't really, really seen the impact of this drought of funding, not on Anthem at least.
Okay. Okay. Got it. So my last question is, what would be the utilization levels for custom synthesis and fermentation for the quarter, sir?
Not for the quarter, but at least for the half year, I could say that it is at the same levels as what we had disclosed in the prospectus. So custom synthesis bearing the CP6 and CP7 expansion, we have done about 70% utilization on the existing base, and the fermentation was about 55% utilization.
Yeah, 50%. We've been quite busy with that large-scale fermentation. And we expect that with the new addition of fermentation and projects waiting to go, customers are waiting for us to have that so that they can buy the product from us. That should happen also in the next quarter or at the most before the end of the year.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you for your focus.
Thank you, Srinath.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Bansi Desai from J.P. Morgan. Please proceed.
Yeah. Thanks for the follow-up. Just on Unit 4, sir, you mentioned INR 1,000 crores of CAPEX. What would this translate in terms of capacities for us?
Bansi, in terms of capacity, what we are looking at is close to about, give or take, 400 kiloliters on custom synthesis and fermentation about 100 odd kiloliters, give or take. Because this is the initial plan as we progress towards the civil work, and we feel that there's a possibility of changing the mix down the line.
Based on inquiries and customer requirement. You see, in our business, we have to be very flexible and agile. So we have a plan right now. However, when we build these shells, we can internally completely modify it before we order equipment. So as Gawir said, fermentation, we are planning at about 100-200 KL, depending on some projects. And the.
Custom synthesis.
Custom synthesis is 400 KL. Basically, it will double our capacities. This is in the first phase.
Yeah. So all of this should get commissioned in the next two years' time.
Yes. Absolutely. That's the goal.
Yeah. Thanks for that. And sir, it's engaging. I mean, it's quite encouraging to hear that on peptides, we are now engaging with the innovators as well. I understand we have 16 KL of capacities today there with new Anthem coming in. But I would assume you would have plans to further scale up as well in your Unit 4. So any color or any thoughts on that as to what capacities you would be planning to add, especially on the peptides or GLP-1 side?
Peptides, the way we have in Unit 3 itself, we can double it. We have kept room to add more capacity there. That's why I said when we build, we build shells. We finish the civil work so that we don't disrupt any of the, and the fit-outs can come quickly. So if our customers and we are engaging with them on a very continuous and high-level engagement at the moment, if they say, "Okay, we need to double this," in six months, we can have all the fit-outs. So the 16 KL can become 32 or even 40 KL very soon in Unit 4 because we're adding more fermentation. The sum of that, you can go into the fermentation part of GLP or peptides. And then we definitely have in mind creating capacity, which could quadruple or at least triple what we have now.
All right. Just last one. Sir, in terms of large customers, we've mentioned in the past that we have a relationship with three of the top five. Have we added any more maybe in early stage? If you can comment on that.
Sorry again. What was that? Added more customers in?
Added more large customers, the top pharma clients?
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, without naming them, we do have our major engagement going on, which will again show us dividends, not immediately, but in the near term with two major global pharma companies, and I mean really major.
That's great to hear. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Bansi.
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Sanjay Kumar from iThought PMS. Please proceed.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. First set of questions on the peptides. So I think we have 10 peptide programs. Am I right? And if you can give the breakup of these programs, say, how many of GLP-1s or both generic and others in the pipeline or other therapies, like say, peptide drug conjugates, if you can give a sense of your peptide programs.
So these are all non-GLP-1 novel peptides where we are working on for our CDMO customers, the 10 peptide programs in an early stage at this point of time. The intent of building up the peptide commercial facility was to ensure that as these programs move from early to late phase and late phase to commercial, if it does move, then we have the capacity to go ahead and service this program.
And alongside when the GLP opportunity came in, we also realized that we have the capability. And because of fermentation being there, we are completely backward integrated. We took up GLP program as a separate program, which can help us in terms of utilizing that facility that we have set up. But the peptide program, which you did talk about, the 10 programs are novel peptides, non-GLP, early stage programs right now.
Some of these peptides, there's a lot going on in this space. They are being looked at, as you said, peptide drug conjugates. In oncology, in metabolism, in other therapies, peptides are really finding a very strong voice. And when you talk to these innovators in obesity also, they're saying we're developing peptides now, which will put all these GLP ones into shade. So we don't know. We are not privy to what their thing is, but they are very, very confident that the future is in peptides.
And this will tackle both metabolism, heart attack, obesity, all those things as well, in addition to oncology. So peptides have a very big runway. And one has to look beyond just the GLP ones. And Anthem is, that's where we want to position ourselves. GLP one is more immediate, but there is much more room to grow in the peptide space. But again, the time frames are anywhere between two years to five years. But what we do today, that's what's going to be the anchor for tomorrow.
Got it. Got it. And these generic GLP ones, have we, let's say, done the process validation for semaglutide? Are we going to file DMF for semaglutide? What is our strategy? Do we have any signed deals for generic sema?
Well, PV, yes. We are doing PV. Have we signed deals at the moment? No. But are we working with companies? Have we signed it with, as you say, any of the very big players? No, but we are working with them to be in their supply chain, and it will happen for sure.
Okay. And on capabilities within peptides, what peptide length can we synthesize today? Can we do continuous synthesis, hybrid synthesis? And you also said that you are completely backward integrated. Does it mean you'll make amino acids in-house, do the protection in-house, and also do the synthesis?
No, no, no. Not amino acids. See, that is a completely different business. But we will start from amino acids. But some of the things, see, for instance, many of the peptides are biosynthetic. There is a fermentation bit followed by a synthesis bit. Even the fermentation bit, Anthem develops. So there, the assembly is done by the microorganism. Just to take an example, like semaglutide, which is P29, is the fermentation. So 29 amino acids are assimilated or are constructed by fermentation. So that fermentation bit, Anthem will do also. But most people who are in peptides do not have this cannot happen at a small scale. You need large-scale fermentation. And that's where Anthem is already present.
So the strategy for many of the people that we are working with, and these are significant global companies, is we'll buy the P29, and then we'll do the assembly of the rest of the chain. That is where Anthem begs to differ. We will have to make P29 plus the assembly. So that's where we are fully integrated. But yeah, we are not going to make amino acids.
Got it. Got it. And the 16 KL facility?
Sorry, Mr. Gawir. I would request you to go.
Yeah. I'll come back and look you.
Yeah. Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Ankush Mahajan, and I would request him to please limit your question to one.
Sir, thanks for the opportunity. So if we see that the first half strong quarter in the revenue, that is 26% growth, and we already have incremental four molecules in the commercial phase, then we see that CP6, CP7, 130 KL already installed, and considering Unit 3, that's a 350 plus 100 crore of CapEx. Can we see the similar rate revenue growth for the next six months and for FY 2027?
See, Ankush, these four new commercial molecules, they are just now recently being approved. Yes, we have supplied quantities, and it depends on what our customers want today. And some of these are in the pre-launch phase. They're working out their launch strategies. Also, remember that sometimes these companies are biotech companies, and once they have an approved product, they get acquired. So we are not at all privy to what will happen at that end. But having an approved product in a new indication or a new product in an existing indication can very often be a gold mine for them. So for us also, it becomes downstream. It becomes a very valuable product. In terms of growth, we have said that if you look at Anthem's history, our CAGR is 20% or thereabouts for the last, I don't know, 10, 15 years.
We hope to be able to maintain that. And that is what we are focused on. At the end of the year, see, in our business, quarters can be lumpy. I'll be very honest, and I'm going to reiterate that. Some quarters can be exceptional because customers say, "Mujhe, ye sab isi quarter mein chahiye." But Ankush, in other quarters, it can be a little down. But at the end of the year, how we perform, it depends on what we've done throughout all the quarters. So I would ask all of you to just bear that in mind. Going forward, also in the next five years, 10 years, there will be quarter-to-quarter variations possible. But are we trending upwards? So far, our track record has been we've always trended upwards, and we'll continue to do that this year also.
Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thanks a lot, everyone, for joining this call. This half year has been a decent performance for us. We've delivered good revenue growth as well as EBITDA, PBT, and PAT growth. And thanks to all of you for showing continued interest with Anthem. Thanks for taking out time in terms of asking us questions to get to know about our business in much more detail. We look forward to your continued participation with Anthem, and we'll speak to you again next quarter. Thanks a lot, everyone.
Thank you, everybody. It was, as always, a pleasure, and we'll continue to engage with all of you going forward as well. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Anthem Biosciences Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.