Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Anthem Biosciences Limited Q1 FY 2026 earnings conference call, hosted by Nomura. 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 a touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Saion Mukherjee from Nomura. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. On behalf of Nomura, I would like to welcome the management team of Anthem Biosciences and all the participants to this call. It is our pleasure to host the first quarter FY 2026 results for Anthem, the first for the company after listing. From the management team, we have Mr. Ajay Bhardwaj, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Gawir Baig, Chief Financial Officer. We shall start with the management comments, post which the floor would be open for questions from participants. I would now like to hand over the floor to Ajay. Over to you, sir.
Yes. Thank you, Saion. Good morning, everybody. First of all, welcome, and thank you for joining this first call, Anthem's first call after listing. So we have. I would just like to start, kick off this call with announcing to all of you that we have kicked off FY 2026 with a strong performance, laying a solid foundation for the year ahead. We've experienced a strong year-on-year growth in this Q1 of FY 2026, and it lays a solid foundation for the year ahead. The growth reflects a CRDMO revenue stream that started ramping up.
Sorry to interrupt, sir. Your voice is a little muffled. Request you to come a little closer, please.
Okay. Is it better now?
Yes, sir. This is perfect. Please go ahead.
Okay. Okay. So should I start again?
Yes, sir.
Just for everybody's information, we have kicked off FY 2026 with a strong performance, laying a solid foundation for the year ahead. The strong year-on-year growth in this quarter FY 2026 reflects our CRDMO revenue stream that started ramping up in Q2 of FY 2025. So all this has been possible because of our dedicated team, strategic focus, and operational excellence, and long-standing client partnerships. And I think we are very pleased with the results of the quarter.
And just to give you an overall sense of what the numbers were like, so our consolidated revenue for the operations was INR 540 crore for the quarter. The CRDMO business delivered INR 452.7 crore revenue out of that, and our Specialty Ingredients was INR 87.5 crore. The EBITDA was INR 214.3 crore, with the margins, EBITDA margins at 38%. PAT, which is the profit after tax, was INR 135.8 crore, with PAT margins at 24%.
Our net cash position as of June 30th, 2025, is INR 784.8 crore, nearly INR 750 crore of cash in the company. I now hand it over to the moderator for Q&A, so please feel free to ask us questions.
Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from the line of Ankush Mahajan from Centrum Wealth. Please go ahead.
Sir, congrats for the good set of numbers. My question is related to the capacity. So currently, we have a total custom synthesis capacity of 270 kL. We have a plan to increase it. Incremental capacity in this segment is 155 kL. We are incremental capacity. We are increasing it. Can you give us a sense of what kind of this further capacity will come in upcoming quarters? And second point, in terms of fermentation capacity, currently we have 142 kL, and how much incremental is coming and will add to the system?
Thanks. I'll take the call. I'll take the question. In terms of custom synthesis capacity addition, what we had earlier said was we'll be adding about 155 kL of capacity, out of which 130 kL was in Unit 2. So in our Unit 2 , the first phase of expansion has been complete, where we have added 54 kL of capacity in quarter one of FY 2026. Balance 76 kL is yet to be completed, which we should be doing in this calendar year. And the 25 kL that we were saying to add in Neo Anthem, that should also get done by this financial year, by this half year of this financial year closure. So that will complete our 134 kL expansion in custom synthesis in this year itself. Fermentation, 142 kL.
We are adding 40 kL more in Neo Anthem, which should also get done in this calendar year. That will, with the completion of the fermentation capacity addition, that will complete our Unit 2 and Unit 3 expansion. We will then embark on our Unit 4 expansion, where we have just done the groundbreaking in quarter one of FY 2026. Details on capacity additions, we will post it out to the investors once that is firmed up. It should happen over the course of the next couple of months.
Okay. So last one is from my side. What is the capacity utilization in custom synthesis in the last quarter and fermentation segment? And can we say to these peptides, what we are talking about, peptides, that will come under the fermentation capacity?
With respect to the peptide capacity that we have considered in the custom synthesis part itself, it's part of the 25 kL on the Neo Anthem side, which we have built in. The 155-kL capacity includes about 16 kL of peptide synthesis capacity. Leaving out the 54 kL, which we had just commissioned in quarter one of FY 2026, our capacity utilization on the custom synthesis side is similar to what we had delivered in the previous year, closer to about 70-odd %, and fermentation is about 50-odd %.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vivek Agarwal from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the question. Just one question on the quarterly performance. So though the YY growth is strong, but also on the low base, if you look at it on the quarter-on-quarter basis, so the growth is strong, 15%, right? And this is a bit unusual given the fact that customers are stocking inventory into the March quarter. So what has helped you in bucking the trend? Is it that existing products where you put an additional volume kind of stuff or any new product that have kicked in? If you can throw some light.
See, the bump that we got in the last quarter largely was of more revenue from our commercial products. And that has actually, and it's happened across the board. So not one product, as you know, we have a number of products which are commercial with our partners who are selling these globally. And we got a nice bump in terms of sales in the last quarter because of the increased demand from these customers. So that was the reason. But again, I would like to say that this definitely was an exceptional quarter. It's not that one can expect every quarter to be like this. The nature of our business is lumpiness. There'll be good quarters and some exceptional quarters. So I would like to let everybody know that this is definitely, we benefited from an uptake in our commercial products with customers across the board.
Understood. Thanks. Although you highlighted that it is an exceptional quarter, but how to look at the full year numbers, right? Is there any change in the outlook compared to what you've highlighted in the past, or is it more or less a status quo? You would like to wait and watch for the coming quarter, etc.?
So Vivek, you'd like to wait and watch for the coming quarters, but if I look at the outlook as such, historically, we have been delivering about 20% sort of CAGR growth. And our outlook remains more or less the same in terms of delivering a similar about 20% sort of a growth on a year-on-year basis, FY 2025 versus FY 2026, and going forward as well. But it's better to wait out on the quarters, Q2, Q3, Q4, to see how the numbers pan out.
Thanks. Just one more question. If you look at the gross margins, there's a dip on a quarter-on-quarter basis. So is it because of the mix or anything else that have resulted in the lower margins? Thanks.
I think broadly, the margins have been more or less steady. There has been a share-based compensation charge of about INR 4.4 crore this quarter in Q1 of FY 2026, which was not there in Q1 FY 2025 because we've taken the ESOP charge in H1 of last year. And that accounts for roughly about 0.8% on the margin side. If I adjust for that, then broadly, margins have been steady quarter on quarter, year-on-year as well. Yeah. Sorry, year-on-year.
Yeah. But the gross margins, right? So the gross margins are lower significantly on a quarter-on-quarter basis. I'm talking about that. I don't think that will have an effect of ESOP charges.
Absolutely. On a material margin level, if I look at it, year-on-year, it has been the same. If I look at on a quarter-on-quarter basis from Q4 versus Q1, we had a higher percentage of our R&D revenues on CRDMO business, because of which, as a percentage of revenues, roughly, it was about 16% versus 11%, which is right now for this quarter, which is in line with the overall FY 2025 number, because of which quarter four of FY 2025, the material margin was slightly higher.
Does that answer your question? Hello?
Yes, yes. I will join back the queue. That's from my side for now.
All right. Thank you.
Thank you.
Next question is from the line of Bansi Desai from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on a good set of numbers. The first question is a more broader one. This is regarding generally the pricing environment, given the recent developments around MFN policy, the political rhetoric around drug pricing. How do you see all of that translate into pricing pressure for CDMO companies and the negotiations that you are probably having with your innovator clients?
See, Bansi, thanks for the question. See, we are in an environment which is very uncertain politically. So what is true today may not be true tomorrow. But what we are finding is that there is. Everybody is operating in an environment of uncertainty. So in the past, also, we've had these instances where there was uncertainty. I mean, we look back at our track record of 20 years now, nearly. There were financial crises in 2008. Then there was COVID. We were able to navigate all those uncertainties by being adaptive to what's happening in the environment around us. I don't see that this will affect. That should change even now. Should there be policies which are adverse, which nobody can predict, I think, first of all, it will affect everybody equally. And Anthem should be able to navigate, as it has done in the past, successfully.
We are not hearing any negotiation on pricing pressure from our customers other than the normal what they say that when volumes go up, people want to discuss pricing, but there is no undue pressure on pricing that we are seeing from our customers at all.
That's clear, sir. And secondly, just on the gross margin bit, we were in the process of backward integrating one of our key molecules. If you can shed some light on where are we on that process, and have you started to see benefits of that in Q1 quarter?
Bansi, the backward integration part has been done now. Now we are no more reliant on any other external sources of supply for that key intermediate. You'll see the benefit of the gross margins in the quarters to come.
Understood. Thanks. Just last one. If you can just update us on how your late-phase pipeline, your late-phase III pipeline products have moved from the last RHP. So we had 10 odd molecules in phase III. Any update or development on that front?
Right, we had 10 products which were in phase III when we had filed the document till March 25. The two which were in the filing stage have got approved. So we had some of these molecules move on to the commercial part right now. So the commercial portfolio has increased from 10 to 12. Phase III has reduced from 10 to 8. And in the quarters to come, we will see some more positive impact on account of these molecules which have got commercial. But we don't know in terms of what sort of market expectations they will have in the end market of this particular product because it needs to be launched, and depending upon the success of the product, it will show results for us.
We can't predict the success of these molecules, but we are certainly plugged in, and if they go on to become large billion-dollar drugs, Anthem will certainly benefit.
Perfect. I have more questions. I'll join back the queue.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Debanjan Bhakta from Universal Sompo General Insurance. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello, everyone. On a good set of numbers. I wanted to just understand, do we have capacity in monoclonal antibodies like bioreactors and stuff, or is it going to be fulfilled by the fermentation capacity?
Yeah, so as we said, we have disclosed that we have large fermentation capacity. We have right now in the labs monoclonal antibody research going on for our customers, but do we have a commercial setup for that at the moment? No, but we are always driven by the needs of our clients, and going forward, as our projects unfold and they move toward commercialization, Anthem will definitely look at adding antibody production capacity, and at this moment, we have a number of projects in this space where we will be doing what is called cell-based manufacturers, so at the moment, we are definitely very, very plugged into this research, but we do not have any commercial products which are monoclonal antibodies.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's the only question I had.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Amey from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. I have one question on the modality side. So from the RHP, we understood we have exposure to ADCs, RNAi products, projects, etc. So is it possible for management to give some color on these new modality fronts? Because at present, we have good exposure to small molecules. But how we can see some of these new modalities start contributing on the commercial side of the revenue?
Thanks, Amey. See, with respect to the modalities, we had also mentioned in the document as well that we have upgraded ourselves from being a lab-scale facility in some of these modalities to commercial-scale facilities, so in high-potent, we have now commissioned the Neo Anthem commercial-scale facility. Peptides also, we have commissioned the commercial-scale facility. In RNAi lipids, we do manufacture batches which are more on the commercial or in the development batches level, so from a manufacturing technique from lab scale, we have moved up to the commercial-scale level. There are products which are still in the development stage which we had given in the documents, and that remains as a status quo which still continues to be in development stage. It hasn't moved to the commercial stage at this point of time to start yielding significant revenues for us.
But the work is still ongoing on the development stage across all of these modalities. And I think we have mentioned the number of products as well in our document of March 27. And status quo is there on June 25 also on the number of products.
Sure. Thank you. And the second question I have on the lateral versus the own product. So far, if you would have seen most of the CDMO players in India, they are more relying on the lateral projects because they are moving from being an API company to becoming a CDMO company. But we have been a CDMO company since day one. And so our dependence on our own product pipeline for the commercialization has been on the higher side. However, we don't have any lateral projects in our portfolio. So going ahead, are we looking to get more lateral projects as well? How does that as a strategy come into in terms of thought process? Do we approach lateral projects as well, or do you think that the focus should be on your own product portfolio?
Listen, the lateral project is very much on the cards. In fact, we have right now one project which has come laterally, and that we see that ramp up in the future. At the same time, the movement of becoming the second source for a large product, we've already had very good conversations with our customers. You know that for many of the products, we are the primary and the largest source for them. But that does open up doors for us to be a second source for some of the existing projects. So definitely, we are not averse to it, and we are very actively discussing it with our customers. And we see some of that fructifying in the future. So it's not something that we close the door on. And actually, we are seeing already one project which is moving in that direction.
Sure. Thank you so much. I will join back the queue.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Navpreet Kaur from Samar Wealth Advisors. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. So I just wanted to ask, what is the expected amount of CapEx in unit three and unit four in the coming years? In number-wise, I mean.
So Unit 2 and 3 , we have a capital commitment of about close to INR 150 odd crore, which we will be completing and getting unit two and unit three completely commissioned. Unit four is still in very early- stage right now of planning. And we will come back to the investor group once we have the firm plans in place for unit four expansion. And then we will report the numbers in terms of the overall CapEx that we are looking at spending on unit four.
All right. So will it be internal accrual, or you're planning for borrowing as well?
Navpreet, we have about INR 785 crore of net cash. A large portion of this net cash, we will be deploying towards our capacity expansion because both unit two, unit three, and also unit four will be funded from this treasury what we have. Plus, unit four, because it will be a greenfield project, so it will not be a single-year project but a couple of years of multi-year project. There will be cash iteration also from the business for these couple of years. We'll use that also for redeploying into capacity addition for the company. If we get borrowings at extremely attractive rates, we will not be averse in taking the borrowing. But on a net cash position, it will always be positive for us.
Okay. So I have one more question. So this quarter, we had 60% of revenue growth. And I wanted to understand what was really the growth driver. Was it volume-wise or value-wise in your commercialization molecules?
So see, our commercialized molecules were the growth drivers. And the requirement from our clients was for larger quantities. So they translated into bigger numbers in terms of sales. And it's not just one product. It's across the board, about five or six of our clients. All of those product categories have grown. And we've been saying this that there is definitely a lot of headroom to grow for these products. And we saw some of that in the last quarter. Having said that, it's not that customers do stock up material for future. So it's not like every quarter the quantities will be going up like that. We will still maintain that for the year. Our growth should be in the range of our historical 10-year historical growth, which is about 22%.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Before we move to the next question, a reminder to the participants to ask a question. You may press star and one. Next question is from the line of Sajal Kapoor from Antifragile Thinking. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks for taking my question. Hi, Ajay. Would you rather wait for innovators to award the contract before expanding capacity or build capacity now and be ready to welcome them? In your view, where is the line between necessary caution and missed opportunity?
Very good question, Mr. Kapoor. See, we have always expanded ahead of the curve. And that's the nature of this business. You have to anticipate your customers' needs, and you've got to add those new modalities. So you have to operate at the edge of technology development as well. So totally, as Gawir has already said, we have at the moment 70% capacity utilization, and yet we are adding capacity. What we see is from our clients is futuristic projections on what they think their molecules that we are working on, which direction they will go. Anticipating that, we make investments in capacity expansion. So clearly, we have so far in the past not missed opportunities because we didn't have capacities. That has never been the case. And I don't expect that to be the case in the future as well.
At the same time, but development or success of the product under development is not guaranteed. That's where Anthem has its own product lines, which are our Specialty Ingredients. And we are able to utilize our capacities efficiently while products are being approved by our clients. So the whole basis of this model, which was an innovative model that we designed, is this: that while our projects move along the pipeline towards commercialization, these are our clients' projects, as we get approvals, which also take time, we will be able to use our capacities to fill in with our own products. And I think that we see that we always invest ahead of time so that we are never found wanting in terms of capacity.
No. Thanks for the detailed response, Ajay. That was very thoughtful. My second question is, what are Anthem's top weaknesses today, if any, and how you wish to address them?
That's a very tricky question. And it goes down to almost a very fundamental question. We do look at what our strengths are. Weaknesses are always harder to identify. But at the moment, as we see it, the most uncertainty comes from what's happening geopolitically. In terms of our strengths, we are very strong in terms of developing new technologies. We are operating always at the cusp of technology development. We are arguably the only company which is doing chemistry using a lot of biology. And we are operating at a lot of interdisciplinary fields. So that's what our clients like. And that's where we will keep pushing the agenda. I don't see that we will again be slipping up on technology. So the whole basis of Anthem has right from the beginning been how can we push the boundary on technology development?
Since you've asked this question, we've answered this before also when we were doing our road shows. We will operate at the cusp of disciplines. The marriage of chemistry and biology, the marriage of manufacturing with continuous manufacturing with batch manufacturing, automation to a degree that allows us to be most competitive. This is Anthem's forte, and we will continue to make investments in this direction.
No, that's helpful, Ajay. And just as a comment before I step down and hand it over to the next participant, I interact with a lot of industry players in the CDMO space. And one or two guys that are regarded highly in this space, I asked, "How do you rate Anthem in terms of capabilities, ethics, compliance, etc.?" And both of them praised Anthem very highly. So keep up the good work. Wish you guys all the very best and hope to meet you at some point in Bangalore.
Thank you. Thank you. That's very encouraging. At the same time, we don't sit on our laurels. We want to keep pushing the boundary in terms of both being more and more compliant because that environment is changing rapidly, and secondly, pushing again towards new directions in technology development. Because see, there's a lot happening in technology out there, and Anthem has a front-row seat in drug development, and I say that very emphatically. We know what the thinking of drug developers is and what do they need, and anticipating their need is Anthem's forte, and we'll keep doing that. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Tushar Manudhane from Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Please proceed.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes, you're audible.
Sir, just if you could share the revenue composition geography-wise, like US, Europe, and if not, then what was the constant currency growth for the quarter?
So see, 15% of our revenues comes from exports from domestic, which is largely Specialty Ingredients. Within CRDMO, it's largely the US, which constitutes close to about 55%-60% of the CRDMO business, followed by Europe about 40-odd%. Hardly any revenues coming from ROW markets, Europe markets, or India markets on CRDMO.
So constant currency, how to look at it? Would it be possible to share constant currency growth or the volume growth?
So I can share the FX gain that has been recognized in this quarter in the other income. That's roughly about INR 3 crore.
Got it. And sir, within CRDMO, would it be possible to break the revenue of CRO and CMO and respective gross profit margins?
Not on the gross profit margins, but the split of R&D within CRDMO R&D revenues is about INR 50-odd crore, and the development and manufacturing revenues is about INR 400-odd crore, which is the split between the INR 450 crore of CRDMO revenues that we have.
I meant to ask this development and manufacturing. So again, there is a further two buckets, right? The development-related business and manufacturing-related business.
See, development and commercial manufacturing more or less in line with what we have reported in March 2025. So the percentages are broadly the same across FY 2025 as well as in quarter one FY 2026.
Got it. And just lastly, from my side, as you pick up these new sort of technologies, ADCs or peptides, just your thought process in terms of the profitability or the return ratios on these aspects or, let's say, the timeline to achieve that, any broad contours or framework? Is it in line with what we have of the existing business, or do you think that this is going to take lesser time or longer time, whichever way?
See, two questions asked over here in terms of some of these new modalities. They are still in the development stage at this point of time. So the quantities are smaller. So the value is smaller because the volumes are smaller at this point of time from a development point. Now, the gestation is obviously longer because some of these are still in the early- stage development, very few in the late stage development. So it will still take a long period of time to yield larger volumes or move towards commercialization. So it's very difficult to say that they will be having a significant impact from a margins point of view. But at this point of time, when they are in development batches, the margin profile is very similar to our existing business. Hardly much difference on some of these new-age modalities because development batches are currently smaller.
Got it. And just one addition to this. What gives the right to win in these segments where there are already established players? I mean, just going back to the history where you sort of cracked for the other segments. But as we stand today, what gives us right to win into these segments going forward?
So we have been engaged with the customers from the early development. So if you work by the time the product becomes commercial, you've been working on it for seven, eight, or even longer years, then it's very likely that you know more about it than anybody else. So the project would stay with you. And that's what gives us the confidence that since we are already working in so many of these modalities with customers and on a number of projects, these should stay with us.
All right. So that helps. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Amlan Jyoti Das from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir.
Sorry to interrupt. Your voice is breaking. Your voice is not clear.
Yeah. Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you now. Please proceed.
Yeah. Hello, sir. Congratulations on a good set of numbers. I just have a question on the margin front. So how do you see the EBITDA and gross margins going forward in this year and the coming couple of years?
Amlan, broadly, we are looking at steady margins for both on an EBITDA and a gross margin and also on a PAT margin level. So directionally, we have done close to about 38% on an overall number for an FY 2025 basis, and I think we'll continue to be in the same zip code from an EBITDA margins as well as from a gross margins level.
All right. Sir, one more question on the Q1 FY 2026. So your other expenses increase was quite high at around 90% year on year. Was there any one-off expense in this other expenses part?
Other expenses have gone up because we also—so this is on a consolidated level. We also have Neo Anthem and Anthem expansion, which has added in quarter one of FY 2026, so we had commissioned the unit to 54 kL of capacity, so obviously there is spend on power and fuel, which have gone up because of which the other expenses have gone up. I would also say from a CSR contribution point of view, that was also slightly higher in the first quarter, which will tone down over the course of the full year numbers, but that's the only reason what I could think of from an other expenses point of view of other expenses going up for quarter one of FY 2026.
All right, sir. Those are my questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Jash Gandhi from Dalal & Broacha. Please proceed.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity and congrats for the great results. Sir, just one question on the two commercialized molecules that you highlighted that have been approved now. So which therapeutic areas do they belong to? And are they for biotechs or are they for Big Pharma? That's it. Thank you.
Thanks for asking this question. From a client point of view or from a product point of view, we will not be able to take any questions because we have signed CDAs with respect to the particular products or particular clients where we are not supposed to disclose anything about the product. Unfortunately, I won't be able to answer this question on the therapeutic area or the clientele of the customer type.
However.
No, no. You asked, is it for biotech or Big Pharma? These are established pharma companies.
Okay. Okay. And sir, just one thing. Are any of these molecules part of the Q1 numbers? Are any of the deliveries part of the Q1 numbers or are they not?
They are part of the Q1 numbers, but the numbers are marginal.
Yeah. This is the initial phase, so they are there. But it's early days, so the impact is small.
Okay. Okay. And are they seeing any good traction on that product in the end market? I mean, because of the deliveries that you mentioned. So how is the traction in the end market? If we have any idea on the end market traction of these products?
Too early to say at this point of time because the molecules have been commercialized only in the last quarter Q1. So they themselves have to do a significant amount of market penetration. So it's very early to comment on the success of that particular product or how they are seeing the traction or seeing a market traction in their end market level.
But again, you see, since it's just been launched, there is a lot of headroom to grow.
Okay. And just one last question, if I may squeeze in. On the existing molecules that we have around the end molecules that have been commercialized, how is the traction in the end market of these molecules? Are they seeing because historically, they have been growing quite well, and a few of them are blockbusters as well? So how is the traction in those molecules?
See, again, I won't be able to comment anything on client-specific or product-specific information. The traction from their side has been good, because of which I think the traction from our side as a partner, as a supply chain partner to them, has been good.
Okay. And the new molecules that will be around roughly 5%-7% of the overall sales for the quarter?
We will not disclose those numbers.
Oh.
We are bound by experience. So [Foreign language] ज्यादा हम नहीं बोल सकते, क्यों मरवा रहे हो हमें? हम नहीं बोलते हैं ये.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Saion Mukherjee from Nomura. Please proceed.
Yeah. Sir, thanks for taking my question. Sir, I think you mentioned about discussion with the customer on pricing with all this noise on tariff, etc. I'm just wondering, two questions here. One is, is there any discussion in the recent past regarding setting up facility in the U.S.? Given that dynamics, do you see that a possibility sometime in the future? And then, let's say tomorrow, there is a tariff imposed, whatever that number is, how will that impact our business? Will we be able to pass on any impact on day one? How the dynamics would work out in such an eventuality if you can take us through that?
Okay. Your second question first, the impact on tariffs. See, we are dealing with global companies, and we could be working very often it happens that the company you're working for might be a European company, but the product is taken by them in the US and/or a US company which buys the product in Europe, in their facilities in Europe. So I think you have seen a large part of our numbers or sales do go to Europe. So from there, it is formulated and then distributed globally by the Big Pharma. So only the part that goes into America might be tariffed, and that is the end product. We are supplying the active or the advanced intermediate. So will these qualify as pharma itself is sometimes a question mark because some of the products, when they're under development, they are still chemicals and not drugs.
So this is all a bit murky as to how tariffs will affect some of the definitely the development and the other thing. And as these companies will probably adapt if there is a very heavy tariff put on pharma, most of our products can go to Europe as well. And from there, they're distributed to the U.S. So again, we will not be directly impacted. As far as putting up a facility in the U.S., I mean, that's a very long-term process. Just think about it. First, you set up a facility that itself, it takes much longer in a developed country than it would take here in India. Secondly, then you have to wait for approvals. Then all that, the whole cycle is maybe seven to eight-year cycle. And that's where I think there's a huge disincentive to go and set up a facility there for most people.
If somebody can say, "Oh, well, you can acquire a facility." The cost of acquisition is so onerous that it may not be even commercially viable. Taking all that into account, I don't think that's something that's on the cards. Of course, as we said, if there is the right type of candidate available for acquisition, Anthem is open to that. We are always looking to see if we can grow inorganically.
Okay. And then my second question would be, I know you mentioned about new technology frontier and how things are sort of changing at a fast pace. In this backdrop, what would be the potential bottlenecks as you try to keep pace? Will it be possible to organically build those capabilities on time, or you would require to look at acquisition to sort of manage these fast changes in technology?
See, again, when you're saying when we are talking about fast changes in technology, then when the new technologies are emerging, there are hardly any historical players that you can acquire because it is so new that there is nobody doing that at that moment. So mostly, it does require building up capabilities from the ground up, and that is what Anthem has been really good at. However, when you say you talk about new modalities which have been around for some time and there could be an acquisition target, then yes, Anthem will look at that.
Okay. Is it possible to discuss this INR 450 crore CRDMO revenues in terms of customer concentration, Big Pharma versus emerging pharma split or yeah, I mean, that kind of a split or concentration of the product if you can give some color customer and product concentration in this revenue base?
So, Saion, it's in line with what we have witnessed in March 25 from a percentage level. Our commercial portfolio is similar. And if you look at the commercial portfolio, it's largely coming in from the big companies. The development portfolio as a percentage of revenues has been the same as in Q1 FY 2026 as what it was in FY 2025, and that comes from the emerging biotech space. So broadly, the color of the business across the CRDMO and the split has broadly been the same, maybe marginal 1% or 2% here and there, but broadly, directionally, the numbers are the same percentage-wise.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next follow-up question is from the line of Bansi Desai from J.P. Morgan. Please proceed.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question again. So firstly, just on this commercial portfolio that we have, how should we think about the growth outlook here? So is it going to track the end molecule sales, largely speaking, or is there a possibility for us to do better? The reason why I'm asking is that we probably are a primary source supplier on a lot of these large products that we have. So is there scope for us to see increased wallet share or even forward integrate in some of these products?
See, Bansi, I mean, if you look at the relationships that we have with our large customers and for whom we supply commercial molecules, over the time since we've been engaged with them, we have been deepening our relationship. Our engagement with them has been pretty high, and we keep on discussing with them on a weekly basis in terms of what else could be done or on their projects as well. So from a customer engagement point of view, what we are doing is we're doing things in the right direction. Hopefully, that can add on to the wallet share. But I don't want to make any comment futuristic in nature which could say that we'll increase on our wallet share.
Broadly, the customer growth or end molecule growth is what we would actually mirror from a supply chain point of view by keeping our wallet share intact is what I would rather say.
Understood. And secondly, next year, we have GLP-1 going off patent in multiple markets. We now have peptide capacity also which is commissioned. Is this going to be an exciting growth driver for Specialty Ingredients if we say over the next two, three years?
Yeah. I mean, as we said, told everybody before, we are definitely participating in the GLP-1 space, and we have a number of customers, a number of pharma companies whom we are talking about. We are supplied samples to, and we are in very active conversation on developing this. Yes. So going forward, Anthem will be a serious player in GLP-1 because this is not a me-too type of product. And we believe that our competitive strengths will allow us to be one of the, I would say, the leading producers of GLP-1, surely.
We'll be able to compete with Chinese competitors as well.
Absolutely. I mean, if you can't, then you're not in the business.
Understood. That's great.
Thank you. Next follow-up question is from the line of Amey from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you so much for giving the opportunity again. I have one question on the BD team side. So most of our Indian companies, even the foreign peers, do have conscious presence of BD teams. However, we have been largely now at least working from India. So going ahead, do you have any thought process of putting up BD teams in these locations like Europe, etc., or we will continue to work from India?
So in terms of business development, I think our growth and our performance speaks for the fact that our BD approach has worked really well up till now. Again, we're not averse to putting feet on the ground in those geographies, but there has to be a very compelling reason. And at the moment, we don't see a compelling reason. We're able to manage all of it from here as well as wherever required need based, we will have people to support us. But in terms of our US BD, that is very well established, and we are working with our partners over there. And it's worked so well for the last 19 years that it doesn't give us any reason to want to change that. So I think that question has been answered a long time back, and we are able to manage it.
See, otherwise, you would see that our cost of BD will escalate very significantly if we were to start looking and putting our own BD on the ground in these countries. So I think we'll continue to do what we have been doing up till now.
Sure. And the second question I have on the CRO part of the business, at present, it remains one of the minority segments. Going ahead, do you have any thought process of developing the CRO part of the business? Also, we are largely FFS-focused players. Once you achieve scale in the CRO, you think that the FFS contracts mix would remain that high?
So Amey, see, our large focus has obviously been on the manufacturing part, on development, both development batches and commercial batches manufacturing. While number-wise, CRO as a percentage of revenues is roughly about 10%, and it is a reduced part of our overall business, but it still is a very integral part of our business. It's not something which is not being defocused or anything of that sort. We continue to focus on the CRO part because these are the feeders for our development stage molecules and which becomes the feeder for our phase III or the commercial stage molecules. So we'll continue to work on it. FFS will continue to be the largest share of our business compared to FTE.
I don't think so there will be any change of our strategy over there because what we have been doing so far has yielded us good results on the manufacturing front, and we'll continue to do that. If there are certain things on if a client does approach us for setting up dedicated stuff for them on an FTE model, we can evaluate any proposal which comes to us from the merit of that proposal and then take it ahead. But FFS and R&D being a focus area, yes, it is a focus area, and we'll continue to focus on working towards it and on the FFS part of the business.
Sure. And on the CRO, if we have to track the growth of this business, would it be the R&D scientist addition, etc., would it be right? Or anything you can help over there? Are we going to add R&D scientists which could drive this CRO growth? How should we look at it from the growth perspective?
So number of scientific staff-wise, we have added, and we are adding more and more. See, end of the day, human talent is what the company is all about. And we'll be keeping on adding talent from an R&D point of view. That will drive our revenues from an R&D front. It may not be necessarily on an FTE side, but definitely on the FFS side.
Also, Amey, some of the CapEx which has gone in both Unit 2 and 3 is towards expanding our lab capacity. So those lab capacities are being expanded because there is a need for more people in terms of scientific staff. So we are clearly going to add more science capacity, scientific capacity, both in terms of physical capacity and human resources.
Sure. Sure. Thank you so much. I will join back . Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Debanjan Bhakta from Universal Sompo General Insurance. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the follow-up. I wanted to get the split between the customer revenue split. How much percentage is coming from originators and how much of it is coming from generic companies?
So our CRDMO business is pure play innovator-focused. We don't do any generic work on the CRDMO part of the business.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. Next follow-up question is from the line of Amlan Jyoti Das from Nomura. Please proceed.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the follow-up. So my question is regarding the ADC space. So I just wanted to understand what capabilities do you have right now in the ADC space. I was also looking for conjugation capabilities. And one more. So you had one late-stage project in the ADC space. So just wanted to understand what is the state of the product right now?
It's still in the late stage. Status quo on that continues to be on our late-stage pipeline. In terms of capabilities, so we have done the conjugation. We have done the cytotoxic drug substance as well. So capabilities-wise, we have the full capabilities from an ADC point of view across multiple projects.
So we have done conjugation of the warhead with the linker. We have made both of them. In terms of conjugating with the monoclonal antibody itself, we've done proof of concept and have demonstrated to our customers. So we have all the capabilities. Currently, there is no project that has gone commercial, but we hope to change that in the future.
All right, sir. And of the five or six early- stage projects that you had in the ADC space, do you see any of these going to late stage early in this year?
I'll refrain to comment on that because it's difficult to comment on the timelines of some of these early-stage moving to late-stage.
Discovery is a process which is inherent in terms of timelines are hard to predict, but it's more important to have many shots on goal. If you have many projects which are there, so if you have more fish in the pond, there's more likelihood of catching that fish.
All right, sir. Thank you for the quick answers.
Thank you. Participants, to ask a question, you may press star and one. As there are no further questions from the participants, I would now like to hand the conference over to Anthem management for the closing comments.
Thanks a lot, everyone, for joining this earnings call. This was the first-ever earnings call for Anthem Biosciences, and we look forward to your participation going forward as well in the other earnings calls. Thank you, everyone, and have a good day.
Right. Thank you, everybody, and bye-bye.
Thank you, sir. On behalf of Anthem Biosciences Limited and Nomura, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.