RPG Life Sciences Limited (NSE:RPGLIFE)
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May 11, 2026, 3:29 PM IST
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Q2 23/24

Oct 19, 2023

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Q2 FY 2024 earnings conference call of RPG Life Sciences Limited, hosted by SMIFS 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 is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Dhara Patwa from SMIFS Limited. Thank you, and over to you.

Moderator

Thank you, Yashasvi. Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of SMIFS Limited, I welcome you all to Q2 FY 2024 conference call of RPG Life Sciences Limited. We are pleased to host the management of the company, and today we have with us Mr. Yugal Sikri, the Managing Director, and Mr. Vishal Shah, the CFO of the company. So we will start the call with initial comments on the results, and then we will open the floor for Q&A. Now, I hand over the call to the management. Over to you, sir.

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Thank you, Dhara. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on this earnings call. It's my pleasure to share with you briefly the market context and the brief highlights of our performance in quarter two, as well as the H1 of FY 2024. First, the market context. You all know the pharma market is ranging between 8%-10%. On the MAT basis, the market is growing at 10.6%. For the H1 period, the market has grown at 8%. There has been a pressure on volumes. The volume growth had been ranging between negative growth to very low single-digit growth. The growth is being driven by the price increases.

I'm happy to share with you in the same breath, RPG Life Sciences has registered twice the market growth. In the domestic business, we have 16% growth versus the market growth of 8%. On MAT basis, again, our growth continues to be significantly higher than the market. We are growing at 16% and the market is growing at 10% or so. On the positive side, we know that biosimilars are gaining acceptance, e-commerce is gaining foothold, API has got the attention of the government, PLI schemes are being rolled out, there is a focus on NCE research by the leading big companies, and there have been developments on the front of the government promoting generics as well as asking the doctors to prescribe generics.

We await as the government decides the steps forward in this direction. Let me now share with you, the progress of RPG Life Sciences. What is noteworthy is that for the fifth consecutive year, we have a very consistent year-on-year upward trajectory. Revenues: the sales growth continues to be higher than the market, as I mentioned earlier. If I turn to the Q2 performance, our growth has been 14% on the revenues front. On the EBITDA and other profitability indices, the growth is even better, maintaining the consistent uptrend which we have been having for multiple quarters and multiple years. 26% is the growth on EBITDA. PBT has grown by 29%, PAT has grown by 30%.

Margins getting reflected in margins, margin on EBITDA has grown from 23% - 25.5%, PBT from 20% - 22%, PAT from 14.8% - 16.8%. If we turn our attention to first half performance, I think similar reflections one sees: 14% revenue growth, 22% EBITDA growth, 24% growth in PBT, 26% growth in PAT. Similar reflections in margins, EBITDA margin 22.8%, moving to 24.3%. PBT, 19.8%, moving to 21.4%. PAT, moving from 14.5% - 5.9%, everywhere, increase in 150 basis points to 160 basis points or so. If we compare this versus the five-year trend, again, we have a consistent, as I mentioned, year-on-year upward trajectory. This has been retained this year as well.

On the margin front, from 10.4% in FY 2019, we are at 24.3%, which means close to about 14-15 percentage points, 1,400-1,500 basis points increase in the last five years. Similar reflection in PBT, and we have moved from 4.6% in FY 2019 to 21.4% in H1 FY 2024. PAT again, 3.3% in FY 2019 to 15.9% in H1 FY 2024. Retaining the upward trajectory, which we talked about earlier. Our journey so far has been a journey, I'm sure you have looked at the website and investor presentation, four steps. One is, first step was fundamental fixation. And when we talk of fundamental fixation, I'm talking about hygiene, I'm talking about people, I'm talking about organization.

From that step, we move to process excellence, which covers product portfolio, people, business processes. Then we move to sustainable, profitable growth, which one can see in the form of revenues, volumes and margins. And I'm happy to share with you, you will notice that in the up to INR 1,000 crore revenue peer companies, our company, RPG Life Sciences, is benchmark company today. Whether you look at profitability ratios, leverage ratios, liquidity ratios, valuation ratios, I think we are standing tall in that group. We now want to move forward to scale up parts, and that's the ambition which we have now. So, we've identified clearly as a part of our strategic framework, seven pillars of our growth. The first pillar of the growth is state-of-the-art plants, and the second pillar is the pipeline.

Which means, so far, we had a focus on domestic formulation business, which contributes 66% of our turnover. Now, we are also making sure that the other two segments of our business, which is international formulations API, also pace up. And therefore, these two pillars become important for us. One is, as I mentioned, the state-of-the-art plants creation, both formulations and API. And second is the R&D pipeline in the international formulation API both, so that they and they become our growth driver. As, as I shared earlier, we intend to make sure that our modernization and capacity expansion plan of both the plants gets over by the end of this fiscal. In order to make sure that we continue to make strides, there are two other areas which, which from the process perspective, we are focusing.

One is innovation, and second is use of digital, use of technology to pace up our processes. And these two have significant priority in the organization. We are working on over 100 projects on innovation. We are working on over 20 projects on digitalization, from back end to front end to functions, to help us to pace up our growth. Other than what normally you see in the pharmaceutical business, we are also very actively looking at adjacencies. We are also looking at the adjacent spaces, which fall within our franchise areas. We all have a strong nephrology franchise, and that's where we want to maximize that franchise. And we intend to, we are, we're actually working on the med tech to see that whether that also helps us to grow better.

Other than that, we have been talking about, you all know that our cash surplus situation is beefing up quarter after quarter after quarter, and we want to use that cash for the purpose of our growth. We have identified formulations as our priority. We have also added now API also as our priority for M&As. As I mentioned earlier, that since we are making sure that our API plant is getting modernized, we have R&D pipeline being developed in the API business, and with this, we thought API must also become our focus in the as well as M&A goes. Lastly, there's a huge, huge focus on talent development in the organization, and that is making use of the unique, unique situation RPG Life Sciences is.

Being a 50 year- 60 year-old company, we have huge experience available to us. At the same time, we have also inducted fresh blood from top management to middle management to the lower management, to make sure that experience plus the freshness contributes to the growth of the organization. I'm not going through the five pillars of domestic formulation growth and four pillars of the international formulation growth, and three pillars of the API growth, because I mentioned all of them in the investor presentation. I'm sure all of you would have the opportunity to go through. I must thank all of you who have joined this call. I sincerely appreciate, and I'll be too happy to answer any question which you have.

If I'm not in a position to answer some question because of some statistics or whatever, I will definitely make sure that your query gets answered. Thank you for the patient listening, and over to you for any questions you have.

Operator

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 have our first question from the line of Ankit Pandya from InCred Asset Management. Please go ahead.

Ankit Pandya
Assistant VP of Investments, InCred Asset Management

Yeah. Hi, thank you. So, first of all, congratulations on your good set of numbers. So you guys have a few, two, three questions. So I'll start with the domestic business. So we are seeing around 16.5%-17% growth in domestic business. Can you give the breakup of price, volume and new launches in the domestic business?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah. Yeah, I will give you the details. We have very, as I mentioned in my earlier comment, we have a strong volume growth coming up. If you look at the IQVIA data, IQVIA also confirms the same. Let me share with you the internal data. We have a volume growth of 8% or so. Our price growth is close to 5% +, and rest is the new products contribution. I hope that answers the question.

Ankit Pandya
Assistant VP of Investments, InCred Asset Management

Yeah. Yeah, sure, sir. So, secondly, on the gross margin front, so we are seeing, like, you know, significant improvement in the gross margin from almost 66% runway to 71%. So, is it, like, what... If you have to divide the gross margin, what will be due to the reduction in raw material prices and from given that even the, we are seeing strong growth in the international formulation and even in API business, so what, what has contributed in the margin improvement?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah. Okay. So we have had, as I mentioned to you earlier, that a very consistent profitability improvement framework created. And as far as... It's actually, it is applicable to both COGS and OPEX. In as far as the COGS are concerned, we are, we have worked on product reengineering. We have worked on 13 SKUs reformulated, that has helped us to improve our margins. We are working on the other efficiency enhancement measures like yield improvement, batch size increase in the manufacturing. We have also optimized the people in the plant setup. I think all of these are the structural factors which I keep talking about, that these are the structural interventions which have helped us to improve our margins. And that journey continues. That journey continues.

With every passing year, that adds more to, as the turnover increases, that adds more to our value gross margin increase. As far as this quarter is concerned, I think all of those factors have played out. Plus, we have some advantage of product mix this time. And that product mix advantage we have got from couple of products in domestic formulations, a couple of products in international formulations, and a couple of products in API. So, a very favorable product mix also has contributed to the margin, a shared margin in margin improvement this quarter. And as I mentioned, all the other structural interventions continue to contribute to our margin improvement.

Ankit Pandya
Assistant VP of Investments, InCred Asset Management

So, and given that these are all structural in nature, then, we can assume that around 69%-70% and on an average, going forward, the gross margin will be stable at this level?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah. A couple of percentage here and there, I think we should be able to retain the margin. Only impact which will not be there is because of the favorable product mix, which we have had in this quarter.

Ankit Pandya
Assistant VP of Investments, InCred Asset Management

This is somewhat the new base, or you can say that has been for RPG now?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Can you kindly repeat the question?

Ankit Pandya
Assistant VP of Investments, InCred Asset Management

This is the, in a way, the new base for gross margin from that we can assume for the next couple of quarters.

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah, I would assume so, unless you know what's happening in the macro environment. Input prices suddenly, you know that the oil behaves very funny, sometimes it goes up, it goes down. We have good number of solvents being used in our API. We have packing materials being used, and therefore all of that keeps on having some kind of fluctuation. So no one can predict about them. Otherwise, all the structural interventions will continue to play out, and, and I'm sure that will help us to retain our gross margin, barring those unforeseen situations which I just mentioned.

Ankit Pandya
Assistant VP of Investments, InCred Asset Management

Any material impact even from lower RM prices?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah, there has been an impact on lower RM price. I, I must share with you again, we have two initiatives there. One, we are renegotiating the prices with the current vendors, and we also have an alternate vendor development program well charted out, and that is what is helping us to reduce the RM price. But as I mentioned earlier, you keep getting fluctuations. You have negotiated a good price, but you still get a fluctuation because of the circumstances which I just mentioned. So that's, that's what my commentary on, on your question.

Ankit Pandya
Assistant VP of Investments, InCred Asset Management

... Okay, sir. So I have one last question. So on the cash front, seeing that, you know, the cash has, in a way, reduced from the last years that we had, I see that, you know, that given that your receivables and inventories have also gone up, I guess receivables have gone up significantly during the first half. So any particular reason? Because the cash level has come down, including the investment, liquid investment.

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Let me, let me assure you that, the company continues to generate cash as healthily as it has been doing quarter after quarter. That gets reflected with the margin improvement and revenue change. The change in the quarter-to-quarter situation on the cash flow is largely reflecting the couple of points. One is, we have provided for certain receivables in the market, which are closer to the current conflict, which is going on. And some there is some provision on that front. That's why the receivables appear to be little higher. There is, on the regular business, on the majority of the business, receivables are very, very much under control. Domestic formulation business is operating within 30 days-31 days. Receivables, no issues.

Inventories also are good. Yeah. There's another factor I would like to add on the inventory front is, as we mentioned, that we are modernizing the plants, Ankleshwar plant and the Navi Mumbai plant. So, we are building some inventory there for a period when plant will have shut down, when the movement of the manufacturing happens from the old unit to the new unit, or certain machines, which are going to be moved to the new one. So we have built up some inventory at Ankleshwar plant as well as the API plant, which has also added to the inventory. But I think these are all very transient, and with the...

As we move ahead with the fully operating new plant, I think all of this will get normalized. So I do not see any concern on inventories and receivables. Receivable, I mentioned to you, is basically because of the conflict which is going on at that part of the country, at that part of the world. So we have a couple of customers there, so we have provided for that. Inventory, I mentioned to you, is a function of the plant modernization.

Ankit Pandya
Assistant VP of Investments, InCred Asset Management

By year-end, we can expect it to coming back to the normal levels?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty confident, because the large part of the businesses is both the receivables and inventories are very, very much under control. If you recall, last year, we in fact, year after year after year, our net working capital is improving, both in terms of number of days and percentages. So that trend I expect to continue.

Ankit Pandya
Assistant VP of Investments, InCred Asset Management

So then, on the, just lastly, on the CapEx, like we have done around INR 30 crores of CapEx, in the first half, what will be your full-year guidance for CapEx? So given that we have upgraded and new line also coming up, so, for full-year CapEx guidance.

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah, yeah. So I think, good point you picked up. As a part of the modernization of the two plants, we are somewhere in that journey. So I expect maybe INR 60 crore or so, could be the CapEx, which will come up in the, in the rest of the year, to take care of our, both the plants modernization and the capacity expansion.

Ankit Pandya
Assistant VP of Investments, InCred Asset Management

Okay. That's it from my side. Thank you.

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one on your phone now. We'll take our next question from the line of Jitark Shah from SBI Pension Funds. Please go ahead.

Jitark Shah
Equity Research Analyst, SBI Pension Funds Private Limited

Hi, sir. Congratulations on the fantastic set of numbers. My question is more on the strategic initiatives that you mentioned at the, I think, the last slide. So, how do you plan to ramp up, and specifically on the M&A front, have you already identified any potential assets or, you know, areas that you would like to enter? And, would it be more on if you could throw some more color, whether it's more on the API side or, you know, on the international formulation side, that would be helpful.

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah. I think you rightly captured, M&A is our priority as the cash is beefing up, and we want to use it for our business purposes. Frankly, we are open to... we have been extensively working on formulation, and you all know that the valuations are going very crazy. We had close to about 18 deals evaluated. We even submitted certain MOUs. But keeping in line with what our overall overarching goal is that we will retain sustainable, profitable growth, we are little particular, but that search is on. To that, as I mentioned earlier, we've also added API. So we are also looking at any acquisition target, either in the formulation or in the API, which can help us to beef up our growth.

Of course, all the decisions which we take in the acquisition are very, very carefully evaluated, considering as a formulation concern as I mentioned, we have defined therapy, we have defined certain, certain kinds of gross margins. We have defined it. We've defined certain molecule segment, what kind of growth they should have. We have just defined. They should have very strong patient and prescriber base. So there's very stringent evaluation, so that we are able to get the right candidate, and we are able to add value, it becomes value accretive. So that's, that's a very important priority area for us, and considerable management time is being invested in evaluating or exploring the M&A opportunities.

Jitark Shah
Equity Research Analyst, SBI Pension Funds Private Limited

And, sir, so any timelines that you could indicate, like, whether we can see this in this fiscal or by next fiscal or anything? And if for international formulation, would it be in India or in export, or would it be in some foreign location, sir?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

I wish I could. I really wish I could. You know what, what are the developments happening in the market, how the valuations are going crazy. So frankly, I would have wanted it last year if it was possible. I would have wanted now in H2, if it is possible, but trust me, we can't, we can't predict. I'm being very honest to you. So that's, that's the point on the timeline. What was the second point on that thing, sorry?

Jitark Shah
Equity Research Analyst, SBI Pension Funds Private Limited

The geographies. So, would it be focused more on India-focused businesses and then you export it, or would it be in some foreign geography itself?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah. So we are a company which has crossed INR 500 crore turnover now. And therefore, our export business is one third, and two third is our India business. So naturally, we have to look at our comfort zone and our expertise zone, and that's where we'll focus. Now, that's what I'm saying now, but it depends on opportunity. The opportunity could go attractive even for the exports. I don't mind exploring, but my initial thought is it should be in the segment we are very confident of. It should be in the geography, where we have some kind of value addition we can do. We can leverage our existing relationship or existing business strength, and that's where we will focus.

So if I put a boundary? No, I'll not put a boundary. I'm just wanting an attractive proposal to come, which we can then get into more details there.

Jitark Shah
Equity Research Analyst, SBI Pension Funds Private Limited

Sure, sir. And just one last, follow-up on this. I think, so you have this happiness index, and, you know, you have people at the core of your philosophy. So any thoughts that whenever, any, you know, new entity that you sort of do an M&A with, how would you like to integrate, the employees and the people of that particular new entity, along with your, own philosophy and, you know, the, the way the functioning of RPG Life Sciences happens? So any thoughts on that, more from strategic and long-term perspective?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah. For RPG Life Sciences, and you know, for the entire RPG group, people are at the core. And therefore, of course, we'll cross the bridge when we reach there. But I think the people practices in the group, as well as in this company, are so very well-ingrained and institutionalized that anybody whom we make join our company has to go through the rigor of certain practices, certain SOPs, certain practices, certain induction training programs, all of that. And I think we will do all of that. And I can also share with you my personal experience. I've been involved in at least three big mergers, and so I have my playbook, which I know I will activate when the opportunity comes of the M&A.

My dos and don'ts are delivered to me at the global and the local level, and I know what are the things not to be done, what are things to be done, which we will bring into play as we reach there.

Jitark Shah
Equity Research Analyst, SBI Pension Funds Private Limited

Got it, sir. Thank you so much, and once again, congratulations. Thank you.

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. A reminder to participants to press star and one to ask a question. We have our next question from the line of Aditya Khetan from AK Capital. Please go ahead.

Aditya Khetan
Analyst, AK Capital

Yeah, thank you, sir, for the opportunity. Sir, my first question is into the domestic formulation business. So we are having a leadership position in the immunosuppressant portfolio. So which are the other categories so we are looking to play in, and how is the traction so far?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Okay. So, I think you rightly mentioned, immunosuppressant is our major portfolio in all the three segments: domestic formulation, international formulations, and API. You also know that we have a leadership position in immunosuppressant market, particularly in Azathioprine, one of the molecules, and we are building Mycophenolate, we are building Cyclosporine, and we are building Tacrolimus. There's a good traction there, so immunosuppressant continues to be our focus therapy. It is a niche therapy and we have very strong relationship with the nephrologist. So that is one. You have talked about the second and the third one. If you look at the portfolio, our portfolio is divided into two: mass business and specialty business. In mass business, our product portfolio is more-...

Though it looks like we have a antipsychotic product, we have a GI product, we have a cardiovascular product, but the products are the major prescriber segment is consulting physicians and GPs, and that is our strong forte. And this being a strong forte, I think this segment can give us a business for a large, large number of therapies. That's on the mass side. On the specialty side, we were strong in nephrology. You would have seen, we have built up rheumatology in the last three years. It is contributing close to about 14% of our specialty turnover, which was not existing three and a half, four years back. Then we are also moving into gastroenterology and dermatology.

Both of these segments, not into the mass one, but the high-end one. Along with rheumatology, gastroenterology and dermatology, we are taking care of the specialty. On the mass front, apart from the CPs and GPs, we are also working on the mass specialty therapies like diabetology, cardiology. Since we have identified these segments, in all of these segments, our intent is to have a coverage of 85%+ or so of the universe. Now, we have reached in majority of them, except the one which is consulting physicians. So the segment itself is pretty large. We have reached almost around 75%-80% of the consulting physician coverage. The...

Another segment which we are actively looking at is orthopedics, and because of our great performance of Naprosyn, we want to develop, build that franchise. That's another therapy segment which we are looking at. So you would have noticed that, there is an anchor available for all the customer segments we are entering, and that's what will assure us that any foray into the new therapy will be a profitable foray.

Aditya Khetan
Analyst, AK Capital

Thank you, sir, for the detailed explanation. So what would be the split between the mass and specialty in terms of margins?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

In terms of margin, the split between mass and specialty is almost equal. Reason being, we have a profitable product mix sitting in the legacy profitable product mix sitting in the specialty. And lot of life cycle management initiatives which we have put in place with the line extension product, which have better margin, are also helping us to have our mass business also profitable.

Aditya Khetan
Analyst, AK Capital

Okay. In mass business also, we are having some molecules which are having higher margins, that is it?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Our legacy business has a good margin. Incidentally, our price control products also have, major ones have good margins.

Aditya Khetan
Analyst, AK Capital

Okay. Sir, my second question is that, so do we are having any plans to enter into new geographies, for example, U.S.? I believe, sir, in, in, in international formulations, so which product categories are we focusing on, and how this is different from the domestic formulation product portfolio?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Okay. So the international formulation business, we are very defined, as I mentioned to you earlier, a four-pillar agenda. In the international formulation business, our R&D pipeline, the new product pipeline, is centering around three or four specific areas. One is immunosuppressant. Though we are in the immunosuppressant business, but we did not have any line extension. There are gaps in line extension, and there were certain molecules which we were not exporting. So now new product development is happening in those areas, and these four molecules are Azathioprine, Mycophenolate, Tacrolimus, and Cyclosporine. We are developing all the strengths which are available for these molecules, so that we want to be a very strong player in the immunosuppressant basket, international business.

We also want to have cross synergies because we are selling one of the molecule, which is Azathioprine, for a very, very long time, and if we develop other three, we expect some kind of cross selling synergies available there. So that was the category one. The category two is the product which have some kind of complexity, which we call as complex generic products. Complex generic products are the ones which have a genericized molecule, but the dosage form, the formulation has some kind of advantage. We have launched one such product called Sodium Valproate PR, long-release version. As you know, though, that product has been accepted by the UK MHRA. We got the approval. We have launched that product in UK. We are now entering that...

We have already entered South Africa with that product in the market. So that's the second category. The third category is those products which have some kind of complexity in manufacturing. For example, products which need low relative humidity or low temperature, that's our third category. And the fourth category is where you have a limited competition available. Now, all of these have been designed in a way that it steals the eye away from the biggies, the Big Pharma. So we operate in niches, and those niches will ensure that we have a profitable business going forward. I hope I could answer your question.

Aditya Khetan
Analyst, AK Capital

... Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Sir, just one last question. Sir, how much work of our manufacturing is outsourced, and for which of the products, and are there any plans to move them in-house?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah, yeah, I think that's another important question. Currently we have close to about 30% or so of our formulation being outsourced, but we are keeping it a bit flexi. As you know, we are adding capacities in the plant, and in the domestic formulation business, almost every single new product which we have launched is an outsourced formulation from a reputed CDMOs, which is a well-evolved group in the country. So as we launch a new product, it reaches certain volumes, then we evaluate that particular product and see whether we are able to add a few percentage gross margin by bringing that product in-house. So that's another strategy we have kept open.

I hope that answers your question.

Aditya Khetan
Analyst, AK Capital

Yes, sir. Yes. Thank you, sir. Thank you. That's it from my side.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one on your phone. We have our next question from the line of Shivnal Giri from Centrum PMS. Please go ahead.

Shivnal Giri
Research Analyst, Centrum PMS

Hi, Sikri. Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question. So my question was regarding the outsourcing bit only. So when we say we are outsourcing, are the majority of the new products that we plan to enter into, or the new therapies that we plan to enter into, also going to be outsourced?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah. As far as the domestic formulation business is concerned, yes, this is what the strategy we have followed so far. To my mind, this is smart strategy, because, you know, the CDMOs are quite evolved in this country, and they have... They add speed, they add, better margins to start with. When you acquire volumes, then I think, then you can always bring in. So, that's the strategy we are following. Unless we have a product which our R&D is developing, and then we will see that that product gets marketed by us in, our own premises, our own factories.

Shivnal Giri
Research Analyst, Centrum PMS

Okay. So even the research function has, is being outsourced in these kind of the new launches and the new therapy areas that we're planning to enter into?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah, I'm referring only on domestic formulation. We have actually, I was mentioning this, too, in my opening commentary, that we are now consciously establishing R&D, and that R&D team is focusing on the formulations which are to be exported.

Shivnal Giri
Research Analyst, Centrum PMS

Okay.

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

As well as international formulation is concerned. And similarly, API R&D is working on the formulation or on the APIs, which would be exported, and we are open to market those products in our own country, in our own country also. So, that outsourcing R&D is only limited to domestic formulation.

Shivnal Giri
Research Analyst, Centrum PMS

Okay. Would the therapy areas for international and domestic functions then be different? Like, it would be catering to different segments. So the international business would focus on different therapy areas than versus the domestic formulation, because then, research function in-house that you would have would be more productive for you to use that for your own therapy areas.

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think, in order to make more bucks on your investment, it's always good to have your R&D dedicated to exports. And, when you have such well ready CDMO system available, to maximize on that, that's the strategy which we have.

Shivnal Giri
Research Analyst, Centrum PMS

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Bismit Nayak from RW Advisors. Please go ahead.

Bismit Nayak
Analyst, RW Advisors

Hello. Sir, just one clarification for this quarter, we had a favorable product mix, for which gross margin is in, that is contributing 1%-2% to the improvement in sequential gross margin. Is that correct?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah. It has contribution to the gross margin. Exactly how much, I won't be able to decipher, but it has some role to play in the margins this quarter.

Bismit Nayak
Analyst, RW Advisors

H1, EBITDA margin can be maintained, going forward?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Mm.

Bismit Nayak
Analyst, RW Advisors

More or less, I mean.

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

I would love to. I would love to maintain that. That's the intent of the management.

Bismit Nayak
Analyst, RW Advisors

Okay. Cool. Second question is on MR count. What would be our MR count, as of today?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

MR count is 600+. But I just wanted to clarify, I don't look at the MR count per se. I look at the target audience, therapy, customer segments to be covered 85%+. So which is what we are ensuring. We have added in to make sure that we are able to cover 85%-90% of the universe of the identified customer segment. We have been, we have been having increases in the field force accordingly. So, I can share with you cardiologists, dermatologists, endocrinologists, all of these we cover close to 85%-90%. Similarly, rheumatologists, nephrologists, we cover around 90%-95%. Oncologists, we cover around 80%-85%.

The consulting physicians that I mentioned, around 60%-70% now, which we want to take it to 80%-90%. Tomorrow, we enter into a new segment. We like to cover 85%-90% of the customers in that segment also.

Bismit Nayak
Analyst, RW Advisors

That's good, sir. One final question, and then we are looking for an international formulation and API specifically, right?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yes, we have. These have also become our priorities now.

Bismit Nayak
Analyst, RW Advisors

Understood. That's all for now. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Dhara Patwa for closing comments. Over to you.

Moderator

Thank you, Yugal sir, Vishal sir, for spending your valuable time and providing this opportunity to host the call. Sir, any closing comments you would like to give?

Yugal Sikri
Managing Director, RPG Life Sciences Limited

Yeah. The closing comment is that last five years have been a very very foundational work, which we have done in the company, from fundamental fixation to process excellence, to sustainable, profitable growth, to a benchmark performance, which we have arrived. The journey going forward is to scale up, and scale up not only in domestic formulation, which contribute two-thirds of our business, but to also scale up in the remaining two segments, which we have: international formulations and API. And we are laying a strong foundation there. We, as I mentioned, are deploying our CapEx on both the plants upgradation. We are also making sure that our R&D pipeline, which is internally developed, is getting ready for international formulation, API business.

We continue to have a very strong, 70 product strong grid for our domestic formulation business, and that puts us on a strong footing. That, that's the talk on revenue. On the bottom line front, all the structural measures which have been taken over the last five years will continue to play out, give the stability in our margins going forward. And any scale-up will make sure that that adds to the margins going forward, and that's the management intent. The team is in place, both the top team and the middle management team. And I think this all works out quite favorable for RPG Life Sciences to step up its scale-up for it. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, sir. On behalf of SMIFS Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.

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