Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Sai Life Sciences Limited Q1 FY26 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone, and I'll hand the conference over to Mr. Diwakar. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you so much. Good evening, good morning to all the participants in this call. Before we proceed on the call, let me remind you that the discussion will contain forward-looking statements that may involve known unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors. It must be viewed in conjunction with the business risk that could cause future result performance or achievements to differ significantly from what is expressed in the prior forward-looking statements. Please note that we have mailed the results in the same way available on the company's website. In case you want to see the same, you can write to us, and we'll be happy to send the same over to you. To take us through the results and answer your questions today, we have the top management of Sai Life Sciences Limited, represented by Krishna Kanumuri, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr.
Siva Chitt or, Director and Chief Financial Officer. We'll start the call with a brief overview of the quarter just past and then conduct the Q&A session. With that said, I'll now hand over the call to Krishna. Over to you, Krishna.
Thanks, Diwakar. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We're pleased to share that FY26 has commenced on a robust footing, with the Q1 performance reflecting strong momentum across discovery development, commercial manufacturing. This growth is a result of deep partnerships we have nurtured with global pharma innovators, underpinned by scientific rigor, operational excellence, and our ability to scale with speed. Revenue for the quarter grew 77% year-over-year, supported by broad-based growth across businesses, particularly CDMO, which grew by 113% year-over-year. This growth has translated to strong profitability, with EBITDA increasing by 373% year-over-year, with margins expanding significantly. Beyond the numbers, we continue to make significant strategic progress. We expanded our integrated discovery platform with the launch of a state-of-the-art biology facility at the Hyderabad campus. This will enhance our ability to support complex targets and deepen our role in large integrated programs.
Looking ahead, we are commencing work to add two new production blocks by the second half of next year to further scale up operations and support future growth, and we have also just started building a new process R&D block, which will nearly double our process R&D capabilities, add clinical scale capabilities, as well as early phase formulation capabilities. We are also on track to add about 30% extra space in discovery plant this fiscal year, so we are adding capacities across, and this will really enable us to support both clinical and commercial supply programs, aligned with increasing scale and complexity of molecules we work on. Talent continues to be a core of our delivery engine. We have onboarded over 250 scientists and technical professionals during the quarter, expanding our team's depth and bringing in capabilities aligned with new modalities and next-gen science.
I'm pleased to share that during the quarter, we successfully completed 11 client and regulatory audits across our sites, further reinforcing our consistent track record of quality and compliance. Our digital-first mindset, integrated quality systems, continue to be key differentiators for us. As part of our growing green initiative, we've expanded our GoGreen Plus initiative with DHL, furthering our commitment to greener logistics. As we look ahead, we are closely monitoring the changes in the macro environment and remain confident of the long-term trajectory of our business. We remain sharply focused on scaling responsibly, investing ahead of demand, and strengthening our scientific depth to serve the evolving needs of our global clients. With continued expansion of infrastructure, deepening our talent, and increasing traction across modalities like peptides and ADCs, we're well-positioned for sustained profitable growth.
With that, I would now love to hand this over to Siva Chittor , our CFO, who will provide an update on our financial performance.
Thanks, Krishna. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our Q1 FY26 Earnings Call. We're excited to share our financial performance for the quarter, which underscores the strength of our business fundamentals and the focus on our long-term priorities. We're pleased to report that our revenue for Q1 FY26 reached INR 496 crores, a remarkable 77% increase compared to INR 218 crores in Q1 FY25. This growth was primarily driven by strong performance in our CDMO business, which recorded INR 314 crores and impressive 113% growth from INR 148 crores in the same quarter last year. Additionally, we also saw solid growth with revenues of INR 182 crores, which represents a 38% increase from the INR 132 crores in Q1 FY25. This overall revenue growth was fueled by continued traction in our fully integrated delivery model and deeper engagement with our global clients.
The growth in the CDMO business is attributable to increasing revenues in certain commercial products and growth in the early phase R&D revenues with pharma companies. The CRO business continues to grow on the back of integrated discovery programs. While we expect a strong start to the fiscal year to provide some momentum for the rest of the year, we would like to reiterate that the CDMO business by nature tends to be lumpy and is better viewed on a longer-term basis. Our EBITDA for the quarter stood at INR 125 crores, an increase of 305% year-on-year compared to INR 31 crores in Q1 2025. This impressive growth in EBITDA has resulted in an expanded margin of 25%, reflecting a year-on-year improvement of 14% in EBITDA. This enhancement in margins is attributed to operating leverage, scale efficiencies, and improved productivity across our site.
As we have stated in our previous calls, we believe that this business can be scaled to achieve 28%-30% margins as our revenues grow, and our results for this quarter show a positive movement towards that goal. We are also pleased to report a positive turnaround on our profitability. Our PAT for Q1 2026 stood at INR 60 crores, a significant improvement as compared to a loss of INR 13 crores in Q1 2025. During the quarter, we invested INR 134 crores towards capital expenditure. This is in line with our planned investment to expand capacity and enhance our capability. We believe these investments are critical as we focus on supporting next-generation and emerging modalities, including peptides, ADCs, and all of those. Our commitment to investing in new R&D infrastructure and process development capabilities positions us well to meet the evolving needs of our clients.
As we look ahead, we remain optimistic about our growth trajectory. With a strong foundation in place, we are focused on scaling execution, strengthening client partnerships, and investing in technology and talent to deliver sustained performance and long-term value. We believe that our strategic investments in operational efficiency will continue to drive our success in the coming quarter. In conclusion, I would like to thank our dedicated team for their hard work and commitment, without which this all would not have been possible, as well as our clients for our continued trust in us. We are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead and are confident in our ability to deliver exceptional results. With this, I turn this around to questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with 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 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. The first question is from the line of Dhara Shah from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi team, this is Abhinay. So my question is, in the past, we've talked about H2 being better than H1. Will that hold for this year also and for both the segments, CRO and CMC? So that's the first question.
So Abhinay, without getting into the specifics of the year, that's a general trend that we have seen across the years, and we believe the trend will continue, but I'm not giving any specific guidance on this year.
So there's nothing in a way that is lumpy in this quarter that will sort of break that trend down. So that's the understanding we're trying to get.
There are no one-offs that have been accounted in Q1, is what I can confirm.
Great. Great. And secondly, one of the lines in the presentation we've added that the strategic investments will double our overall capacity by FY27. So that is basically taking us to 900 KL, right? So we are doubling versus FY24 levels or so. Is that the right understanding?
No, I think we're talking about two doublings. We are doubling our process R&D capacity by next year, and manufacturing capacity will go up by 80% by FY27. So both are actually going up.
So we'll reach around 900?
I think the base reference number for the manufacturing is 400.
We didn't call in 3,500.
Okay. And within that, we are also saying that we'll be diversifying our footprint and reducing concentration risk. So could you elaborate a little bit more on that? Is it more with new customers that you are going to work in the big pharma side? Is your share of new modalities which you've called out in this presentation that is increasing? Any qualitative color on that? Thanks.
We have a gist too. We had a continued momentum. We've onboarded several new large pharma customers, as well as we've expanded our depth of collaboration with customers. So I think this is based on not only visibility of existing pipelines, but also the fact of our new relationships which we have started, and existing relationships are getting much broader and deeper.
Great. Great, team. I'll come back in the queue.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Karan Gupta from ACMIIL. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yeah, please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Please continue.
Yeah, one question regarding the revenue split. We are targeting that our CRO space will be close to 40%, something over 50%, something in the overall pie, considering the lumpiness in the CDMO, as we are also seeing the other peers that are reporting numbers. So what's the target for the CRO to take ahead?
So sorry, we're not very clear, but I'm assuming that your question is about the CRO-CDMO split. Our broader guidance is somewhere around the two-thirds, one-thirds. In a quarter or in a year, there could be specific movements that could be slightly not matching the two-thirds, one-third, but would broadly remain in that territory.
In the CDMO space, we are not seeing any demand scenario where the customers are not expanding or not giving the orders. This kind of scenario, we are not expecting in the CDMO space.
We are not expecting.
Okay. Any large customer contributing to the major portion of the CDMO space? I mean, number of.
So we reported our client concentration, and we do this on a full-year basis. And I think the client concentration that we reported, I think, top 10 customers is around 40%, and we do this on a full-year basis. We don't add these numbers every quarter because the quarterly numbers will not make sense. But we are generally a very diversified platform, and that's what we believe in from a concentration perspective.
Okay. Okay. Thanks. Thanks. I'll get back to the queue.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The next question is from the line of Divyaxa Agnihotr from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Am I audible?
Yes, you're audible.
Yes. I just had one question. I think I just saw your customer split for your CRO business, which was around 38% for big pharma and 62% for biotech. So I just wanted to ask a question around the biotech funding environment. I know you give these numbers sort of annually, but where do you see sort of the funding environment shaping up in terms of the customers or in acquiring newer customers? So are you moving towards big pharma? So I just wanted to understand that scenario from your end.
I don't think there's any specific strategy to go after big pharma versus biotech. We're engaged in the market. It depends on the market cycles, how they go. I think right now, obviously, big pharma is building a footprint in India for the long run. So you will see probably more traction in big pharma in the immediate term. So I think biotech funding is coming back, but it's really focused on more later-stage assets, which are more on the CDMO side. And the amount of funding on the discovery side definitely is coming back, but the level of investment is less. So I think what you will see is you'll see biotechs coming back, but not with very large contracts. They'll be coming to what they were doing probably four or five years back with maybe 20, 30 FTE programs, not the 100, 150 FTE programs they were before.
So end of the day, you will be basically selling to the whole market, and everything goes through the cycle right now. So we don't specifically target one customer or other.
Okay. That's all from my end. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Madhav from Fidelity. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Thank you so much for your time. First question was on the six molecules which you mentioned are in phase III or in the pre-registration phase. Could we get some color in terms of some of the phase three readouts or when the client plans to launch those in the pre-registration phase? Are there any such molecules which could be up for launch in FY26 or in the rest of the year?
So we've had two of the phase three molecules that have provided a positive readout, at least the news report suggests that there is a positive readout on phase III. They were slightly earlier in the year, a couple of months ago. We don't have a very specific date on when once the phase III is done, they will have to assemble data, which will then have to go back and file with the FDA, which would then enable them to get approval date. At this point in time, I don't have very specific information, but we've had movements on two products that are in phase III that have seen a positive readout.
Okay. Got it. And any of them in the pre-registration side, which are maybe already filed and due for launch? Is there any molecule in that sort of part of the pipeline as well?
There was one small molecule, Madhav, but I think that's just gotten approved. But it's not a very, very large at this point in time. It doesn't seem to be a very large revenue for us, but it just moved very recently.
Okay. Okay. Understood. Got it. And then in the presentation, you mentioned that the dedicated CRO client has seen 30% growth or 30% expansion in the business that we do with them. Could you give some more color in terms of has that already started showing up in the numbers for us, or that comes through in the coming periods? And how large is this client within the CRO business? If you could give a broad sense, that would be helpful.
Madhav is not commenting on the individual client because he's given restrictions. The expansion in terms of that 30% has already happened, just happened a month and a half ago. You will start seeing that flow through immediately.
Okay. So Q2 onwards, you see that benefit, right?
Yes.
Okay. Understood. Understood. And just one last question was on the how is the sort of RFQ, RFP flow-through from clients, especially for more late-stage assets? I remember from earlier traction, we had indicated that we are seeing good client requests for late-stage molecules as well. So how is that traction going for us?
It's healthy, so I think it's pretty healthy by design.
Sorry, sorry. Can we hear you?
Pretty healthy in terms of what we're seeing in terms of RFPs coming in.
You want me to repeat the question? Sorry, I couldn't hear you.
I was just saying it's pretty healthy in terms of what we're seeing.
It's pretty healthy. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Got it. Got it. Okay. Perfect. Great. Thank you. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nikhil Mathur from HDFC Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening, all. Many congratulations to the management for such great numbers. So my first question is slightly higher level. Sai Life Sciences is doing phenomenally well. We are seeing it last quite a few quarters now. Also, we are seeing the industry overall, many of the companies also doing pretty well in terms of new customer base, and that is starting to get reflected in numbers as well. So just wanted to revisit the broader thoughts on the industry. What's happening? Is it really China Plus One that is kind of starting to play out, or Indian industry itself has gone to an extent, or they've built capabilities over the years that, irrespective of China Plus One or not, the companies are starting to win more contracts and are able to demonstrate better visibility in the global CDMO space?
Okay. I think to be very candid, right now, I think China is still significantly ahead of India. I don't think India is KSM-wise yet caught up with China, both in scale or technology. That's just an honest fact, I think. But the reality in China Plus One or not, I think diversification is real. The one issue which has come up in China, which is actually moving customers away, is IP issues that have come up in China, primarily because China has become a competitor for them on the discovery side. So all the China deals, if you follow the news, that the number of biotech deals China is doing has gone up. So I think at least what we're hearing more and more is that the fear in China is the IP aspect of it. So I think the Indian industry is set to benefit.
I think pharma is taking a long view that we will build these partnerships, and it's going to take years for us, at least reasonable amount of time to build partnerships. They're going step by step to ensure that they have a reliable supply chain outside of China. They don't want to be too dependent on one country. I think this broad trend will continue because customers are investing in us, and the companies with whom we are proactively working with them are set to benefit more. That's the honest answer I can give you on this one.
Okay. So the current road that your company is kind of on, the path on which your company is on, were you always fully confident, let's say, two, three years back, that this growth will eliminate, or something has changed in the last 12 months, which is kind of accelerating this growth?
We've always been very confident. If you look at our investments we made, it was in 2018, 2019, when we really changed our focus to really become a science-driven, high-end manufacturing and services company, and that piece has played out well for us, and if you look at the reason I think we're winning business today is because we've made investments ahead of time based on what we saw customers were looking for based on their existing partners, and as the market has opened up, we're probably a little bit ahead of the curve in terms of the depth of the team we have built, the way we're thinking about it, the systems we've built. I think that forward-looking approach has given us that little bit of an edge in terms of able to scale up from here.
Okay. Got it. Slightly more micro questions now. I missed the capacity enhancement program. So are you doubling the overall capacity, including manufacturing and research by FY27, FY28, or you mentioned that research is doubling and CDMO will go up in steps?
No, actually, research is doubling, and we're adding, obviously, formulation services, early phase formulation, all the peptide capability in the research building, which we've already started working on, and manufacturing itself, we're adding two new blocks, which are double capacity. I think both of them will probably the R&D is going to come up a little sooner, but end of next year, all this capacity should be online.
So let's say till now or in the past, like you mentioned that you have been trying to invest ahead of the curve so as to win orders. Can it be assumed that now your utilizations will be more matching the order book in the sense that given that you are at a particular scale or there is visibility with multiple clients, so now the capacity buildup is more in anticipation of the orders that you might see over the next 12-24 months?
We definitely have a lot more visibility than when we built from the past because the past investments also were kind of changing our technology platforms. But now I think what we're seeing is with much more visibility, and I think we're much more confident about utilization levels going forward.
Got it. And one final question. On the new modalities, the four new modalities that you talked about in your presentation, I mean, I would imagine that most of these work for you is in a discovery stage or maybe some bit of on the development stage. I'm not sure. How far are we from first project or two projects that can be commercial in these new modalities? Is this two years out, three years out? When can be that inflection point for the company in terms of new modalities on the manufacturing side?
There are four key modalities, right, if you talk about. So I think as far as oligonucleotides and those, we are close to commercial. We are fairly far ahead than a lot of people on the oligonucleotide side. ADCs, we are working on late-phase assets today, which are actually commercial. We're all becoming a second source of support. So these both are close to commercial. Now, ADCs in terms of at least the linker payload piece, we're not talking about the conjugation piece. Those are very close. Peptides are still very early. I think peptides will probably be very early in the clinical stage. ADCs, again, we talk about ADCs in terms of the last modality, which is the fourth one we're talking about. Yeah, lipids, we have been supplying lipids for a long period of time. So we have the capabilities. We have a lot of clinical assets.
When they go commercial, we don't know, but lipids, we've been working on the last seven, eight years. So except for, I would say, pure ADC conjugation and peptides, which are relatively early right now in the chain, I think most are commercial right now or in the next probably a few quarters.
Okay. And whatever projects that you foresee going into commercial from your end, would the revenue per project be much higher than what a typical run rate is for small molecules that you have been doing till now?
Hard to say. Every product has a different cycle in terms of volume. So you can have the greatest modality, but if the volume is low, you cannot put a modality and volume together. It really depends on the product class and the target you're going after.
Okay. Understood. Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Binay from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, team. Just two questions. One on the broader side. We've seen this new flow on most favored nation policy letters going to like 17 big pharma. So in that context, what will be your read-through on R&D spend on outsourcing? Do you think it'll be neutral for Indian CDMOs, or it'll be positive because cost-cutting moves to low-cost location, or negative because some of the research project gets pushed out? So any initial thoughts on how big pharma and their plans and where India fits in into that?
Look, it's almost impossible right now to figure out the year for the angle of what that means from a revenue standpoint for pharma, but purely from a CDMO standpoint, the fact of the matter is R&D is really going to be in Asia. I don't think there's any pressure to do R&D in Asia or in the U.S. or that kind. It's really about products, and if you really look at the net target for the U.S. administration, it is to put whatever facilities which are in Ireland or Switzerland or other parts of Europe in the U.S. So just like pharma is manufacturing, using us as a supplier into their European facilities, my anticipation is we'll be supplying to the U.S. facilities, so I don't think the fundamental dynamics will change in terms of the customer demand or what they will do.
The geographies we supply to might change, and how that is affected, what it is, is too early to comment at this point, early days. But I don't think the basic reshoring to the U.S. of pharma is going to make a significant difference in terms of the supply chain into their best point. And R&D itself, I think, is still going to be overseas. So I think there will be short-term bump, but long-term, in this time cycle, I'm still fairly positive that there won't be a fundamental shakeup in what we've seen in that time.
Thanks. Thanks. And secondly, just on the financials, we had talked about interest cost coming down in the coming quarters. And we know this year, it seems like CapEx versus FCF, CapEx versus operating cash flow, there will be sort of a negative gap. So is it fair to assume that interest cost decline that we were talking about has largely now happened and is reflected in this quarter?
Yes.
Okay. Great. Great. Thanks.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Karan Gupta from ACMIIL. Please go ahead.
Okay. So again, the question on the CRO side, what kind of growth we are expecting for the next two, three years in the CRO space? And if you can just highlight the margin side for the CRO and CDMO side if you can?
What's the CRO side?
Karan, can you repeat your question? Sorry, the voice is a little unclear if you can repeat.
So my question regarding the CRO, what kind of growth we are expecting from CRO side for the next two, three, four years?
Karan, can you repeat it a little louder?
Yeah. Now it's clear?
Much better. Please continue.
Yeah. So my question regarding the CRO side, what kind of growth we are expecting from the CRO side for the next two, three years? We can notice from FY2023, 2025, it is close to around 15%-17% as the CDMO is growing. But in the last five years, we can see 35% you've mentioned. So what kind of growth we can expect for the CRO side for the next two, three years? Is it in line with the CDMO, or it will grow much faster than that?
So what we have presented and what we have told over the last couple of months, and I'll reiterate that, I think we're not presenting a separate growth number for CRO versus the CDMO. What we are presenting is a three- to five-year 15% average growth rate. That's really what we are presenting. That's what we are focusing on. We're not presenting a separate data at this time, Karan.
Okay. Because the thing is, the CDMO is very lumpy in nature. So it's really hard to think about, as you're seeing, 15%-16%. Okay. So margin side, if you can give the split between two?
No, not really. I think our fundamental belief is at a steady state. Maybe the CRO side will have a few bits more than the CDMO side on a steady state, but that's just the general model of working. We are not presenting the splits in the numbers yet.
Okay. So I mean, a few bits will be higher for the CDMO side, CRO side.
Yes.
You're saying. Okay. Okay. And any new projects that you've not mentioned in the CDMO side on the late stage three, stage three or commercial stage? No? Not mentioning this thing also?
We don't provide any molecule details of phase III or anything.
Okay. Okay. And just one last question. How you're seeing the CRO space going forward? Just talk about the CRO research side. What's the entry barrier in this space in India and domestically? What are the players? How many players are in this space? If you can just give some color on that to understand this space.
Karan, I think we don't generally comment about other businesses. I think there is enough data available in the public space for you to figure out who does the CRO business. I would only want to say that we have a very strong traction in the CRO business. Our revenue growths are what we have presented, and we continue to believe that that business will grow. But I would stop short of commenting on others.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahul Jeewani from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for taking my question, sir. So on the CDMO manufacturing capacity expansion, last quarter, let's say we were at 600 kiloliters, which this quarter we have added around 90 kiloliters. And on top of that, we have announced another 100, oh, sorry, another 200 kiloliters by third quarter of FY27. So that would imply, let's say, a 50% kind of an increase versus FY25 capacity. So is that understanding correct? And why I'm asking this is because at one point in time, you also indicated that the CDMO capacities actually are going to increase by 80% by FY27.
So I think what we meant, Rahul, is we are working on two production blocks with a total capacity of closer around 450, 450 KL. So if you take that from the capacity at the end of last year, which was around 600 KL, and then you add 550, it'll be close to even it'll be more than 80%, close to 90% capacity addition. That's what we meant.
Okay. So it's around 450 KL addition on this 600 KL base of last year?
No, it's 550 plus 600.
Okay. Sure, and let's say on this 550 incremental, you have talked about plans for, let's say, 100 KL got commissioned. You are working on another 200 KL. So the rest, when do you, let's say, plan to start the commissioning?
We expect the 450 KL to be commissioned around the second half of fiscal 2027, with some gap between each other, but 450 KL will get commissioned by the end of fiscal 2027, the second half.
Okay. Sure, sir. Sir, on this CDMO pipeline, phase III pipeline where we have six molecules now, if I remember the numbers correctly, this number used to be 8-10 phase III projects, let's say, last quarter or end of FY25. So have a couple of projects gone into commercialization?
Couple have gone into commercialization. Couple have dropped out.
Okay. So the number was 10, which has come down to six, or was it eight, which has come down to six?
It is 10. I think, Rahul, there is a few movement in, few movement out. So essentially, net net, we've moved a couple to commercial. There are a couple of entries, and I can give you a detailed summary separately, but it's a list of addition and deletion.
Okay. Sure, sir. And sir, you pointed out that the CDMO business obviously has this quarterly volatility. So just to get some color around the fact that this quarter, we saw very significant growth on the CDMO business. So was there any inventory stocking related to, let's say, some of these early commercial projects which might taper off going forward? Or let's say we can work with this Q1 CDMO revenue as the base for growth going forward?
So as I mentioned earlier, there is no one-off which includes any one-time launch-related stocking.
Okay. Okay. Sure.
I won't comment on how you do the modeling for based in Q1. You're understanding?
Sure. So thank you and just last one from my end. You indicated that you have onboarded 250 scientists during the quarter, so if you can call out the total number of scientists across both the CDMO and the CRO businesses? Thank you.
I don't have that data. Rahul, we can add that and send it out separately.
Okay. Sure. So I will join back with you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anandha Padmanabhan from PGIM AMC. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. Congratulations on a good set of numbers. Sir, I had two questions. One was on the capacity utilization. What is the capacity utilization at the end of Q1? And second thing, I have wanted to have clarity on the 550 KL additional capacity that you mentioned in the earlier question. So in the presentation, you have given that 200 KL will be coming by Q3, FY27. And in the earlier statement, you said that 400 would be coming in the second half of FY27. Just wanted to understand, get a better clarity on this aspect.
Yeah. So I think what we are saying is that the second production block, the first production block will come on stream by Q3, FY27. The other one will come towards the end of fiscal 2027. That's why we said 450 will come towards second half of the new year. That's really why we said what we said.
Okay. One will come in Q3. Other will come probably towards the end of Q4. That's the one should understand this. Okay. Fair enough.
On your question, the first question on capacity utilization, our capacity utilization for the last quarter was around 77%.
What is the peak capacity that you can typically go up to?
So see, we brought 100 KL capacity end of Q1, so it's because it was not completely utilized. But I think 77%-80% is probably full capacity. And the question, the reason why I'm giving you a slightly roundabout answer, Anandha , is that it all depends on the mix of projects, whether it's commercial development. So 70%-75% is a decently fully utilized fact.
Okay. So with this 91 KL coming online at the end of Q1, the next capacity that will be coming would only be in the second half of FY27. So in the interim, is there a chance that you would have some issues of capacity in case you get better projects or higher growth visibility? How prepared would the company be to address that?
So there are plans in place to kind of bridge that period. We're working through our internal capacity. We're using certain external agencies to kind of do some work that will kind of help us get through any shortages in capacity. At this point in time, we don't believe that will be an impediment till the next capacity comes on.
Okay. And the 700 CapEx that you have mentioned is for the entire 550 KL new capacity that is going to come online, or that includes only the 91 plus 200-odd or 200 KL that you said that will come by FY27?
It'll be portions of whatever. It's accounting-wise, whatever gets accrued for the particular year. It's not only that. We are working on a discovery capacity addition. We're working on process R&D capacity addition. We're adding peptides development capability. A lot of them spread over more than one financial year and also more than one physical 12-month period. It is a combination of everything over a period.
Okay. So the 700 CapEx is for this year, or 700 CapEx would be for this entire capacity addition that could spread over two years?
700 CapEx for this year.
Okay, and you could have a similar number next year as well?
We haven't put a number down, but there would be CapEx for the next year.
Okay. And typically, on the manufacturing side, when you're working on new capacities, what is the typical asset turns that you typically work with when it reaches peak utilization?
Not distinguishing new versus old or incremental versus existing, but the way we look at it is our belief is that we'll be able to do on a net basis between 1.2 to 1.4. That's broadly our internal metrics that we use to track ourselves.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. That's all from my end. Thank you for answering my questions.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Madhav from Fidelity. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the follow-up. Sir, a couple of more questions. One on the questionnaire where you said that the capacity announcement happening in the U.S. is more shift from Europe to U.S. Is my understanding right that the kind of work that happens at these facilities is anyway more, let's say, finished work or the last-step formulations kind of work, and where the Indian companies, including SAI, we come in more at the intermediates and probably at the API stage? Is that a fair understanding of how the supply chain works, so even if there's more capacity expansion in the U.S., it doesn't really impact the kind of work that we do? Is that a fair way to think?
That's a fair assumption.
Okay. So even if big pharma announces capacity in the U.S., I don't think they're going to be planning to do these advanced intermediates per se, right? I don't think that's in their CapEx program. I know there's no specific right answer, but is there a big picture as well?
As far as we have our thoughts so far, every large pharma we've talked to has no intention of doing intermediates in-house. I think they're just focusing on either late-stage GMP stages. Generally, if you look at most new products, they used to be candidate anywhere from 15 stages, 30 stages. I think they're probably focusing on the last four, five stages at best, and so it's intermediate outside. And the final formulation, they will do in the U.S.
Correct. Correct. Exactly. So our time.
That's the end so far.
So in that sense, our time is not really impacted, right? That's what we just wanted to clarify.
Our CapEx right now doesn't look like being impacted. It's just a way we shift to change.
Yeah. Exactly. Got it. And the second question was, we're doing a fairly large CapEx this year, INR 700 crores. Just wanted to understand that when we decide to take a large capital allocation decision like this, is it with some visibility from the clients or, let's say, a late-stage project or late-stage projects which could come in the next few years? Is that when we sort of decide to announce CapEx? It could be obviously two, three years out, but is that how it usually works?
This is a combination of two factors. There's a combination of existing products which we see the volume build-up, which we have, and in terms of our late-stage pipeline, this is based on our forecast, plus the number of clinical inquiries and the number of programs we're doing in development with the larger pharma collaborations, and what we see they're going to need going forward as well. So I would say right now, at least visibility is strong at this point. I don't know if it's always going to be the case, but this investment is based on a better visibility than we had done in the past.
Understood. Understood. Great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vivek Agarwal from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the question, sir. Congrats on the exceptional quarter. If you look at your earlier commentary, right, you indicated that a couple of products have moved into the commercial stage, right? So is it the growth in this quarter has been driven by some impact of some of the products moving into the commercial stage, or is it that existing molecules that have helped you?