Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Sai Life Sciences Limited Q2 FY26 Earnings Conference call. As a reminder, all participants' 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 this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero, or a touch-tone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Diwakar Pingle. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you so much. Good evening, good morning to all the participants on the call, depending on the geography you're logged in from. Before we proceed to the call, let me remind you that this session may contain forward-looking statements that may involve known or unknown-related uncertainties and other factors. It must be viewed in conjunction with our business risks that could cause future results, performance or achievements to differ significantly from what is expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Please note that we've mailed the results, and the same are available on our company's website. In case you don't have it, please 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 Mr. Krishna Kanumuri, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Siva Chittor, Whole Time Director and Chief Financial Officer. We will start the call with a prepared remark on the quarter one past and then conduct a Q&A session. With that said, I'll hand over the call to Krishna. Over to you, Krishna.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I am pleased to share that Sai Life Sciences has delivered another strong quarter, continuing the positive momentum across our discovery, development, and manufacturing businesses. This performance reflects the trust of our global innovator clients, the strength of our scientific teams, and our focus on consistent execution. At Sai, we have been on a journey to evolve into a truly integrated, innovator-led global CRDMO. Our goal is to be not just a reliable execution partner but a strategic collaborator for our clients, one that can enable faster, safer, and more sustainable development of new medicines. Our growth strategy continues to rest on three core pillars: scientific depth, technological differentiation, and global scale.
The macro environment, the overriding macroeconomic themes in recent times that we have consumed our mind space in the industry have been two. One is slowdown and biotech funding. I want to address both of these directly. Our experience based on multiple conversations that we've been having with pharma innovators is that the companies are definitely seeking to rebalance their global supply chain. Major events over the last few years have uncovered the risks associated with concentration in one single geography, and so the broader trend towards supply chain rebalancing is already underway. We believe that the new outsourcing business will be more geographically balanced, that ongoing geopolitical ups and downs are not likely to impact the fundamental trends. On biotech funding, there is a perceivable slowdown which is having an impact on the overall innovation pipeline flowing through the existing new biotech companies.
I'm pleased to say that we've been able to offset the impact of the biotech slowdown with pharma clients and their industry-leading growth. Large pharma innovators are still in the early stages of the India supply chain build-out, and this is a process expected to be a multi-year journey ahead. Biotech funding, too, has witnessed multiple ups and downs and will return sooner or later, adding to the overall upside. As a company, Sai Life Sciences has a strong presence in both customer segments while offering multiple entry points through onboard client programs. This, combined with our quality of clients, regulatory requirements overall, a stable, globally diverse management team well-positioned to drive this growth. Our conversations with companies are more about how we can be strategic partners, covering a bouquet of services over the medium and long term.
The case in point has been the extended number of early-stage development projects that we have secured recent months with dedicated FTE contracts with multiple pharma companies that will naturally scale up at Sai once the development stage is complete. It is bound to develop a robust pipeline of late-phase and commercial projects over the long run. During the quarter, we made meaningful progress in deepening our capability with new technologies and modalities, reflecting our readiness to support the next wave of complex therapeutics. In peptides, we are following the molecule, extending our work with large pharma partners from discovery into development and scale-up capability. In flow chemistry, we have successfully demonstrated commercial-scale capability with seed necessity, which ensures faster, safer, and more sustainable processes. In the ADC area, we have commenced work with a large pharma on a long-term collaboration involving liquid chemistry.
We are successfully completing bioconjugate work at discovery stage for another large pharma client. We are in the process of building OEB 6 labs to strengthen our capabilities in both discovery and CMC. We are validating the phosphoramidite-type process for commercial organic molecules, reflecting our strengths in supporting more complex emerging modalities. Beyond scientific advancement, we continue to invest in building capacity and infrastructure to meet rising client demand. The phase two expansion of our Vivarium at Hyderabad R&D Center is now complete, doubling our footprint and significantly enhancing our preclinical assay capability. This investment strengthens our ability to deliver integrated discovery programs and accelerate early development for global clients. Alongside our growth, we continue to uphold the highest standards of quality and compliance.
For the past 12 months, Sai has successfully completed 35 customer audits and three regulatory audits across its manufacturing R&D facilities with zero data integrity and zero Form- 483. This track record reflects a strong operational footprint and commitment to global regulatory excellence, a core reason clients continue to trust Sai with their most advanced programs. We are also expanding the adjacent growth areas. The launch of our dedicated veterinary API facility marks our strategic entry into the animal health segment, building on our long-standing foundation of chemistry and manufacturing. We have already partnered with three of the top five global animal health companies, and we see this as just the beginning for long-term growth opportunities where Sai can play a meaningful role in shaping the next phase of innovation in animal health.
Our recent collaboration in the U.K. further enhances Sai's ability to serve clients across the development value chain, from API development to drug product manufacturing and clinical trials. This reflects our broader commitment to provide integrated end-to-end solutions on a global scale. Each of these initiatives brings us closer to our long-term vision of being among the most trusted and science-led global CRDMOs. We are scaling our operations, strengthening our technology base, and expanding our reach to align with the evolving needs of innovators worldwide. We also continue to make progress in embedding sustainable practices across our operations, ensuring that growth remains responsible and environmentally sustainable.
In summary, Q2 FY26 was a strong and strategic significant quarter for Sai Life Sciences. We're exceeding well today while continuing to invest in science and infrastructure partnerships that will drive long-term profitable growth. With that, I would like to hand over the call to Mr. Siva Chittor, our CFO, who will provide an update on our financial performance.
Thanks, Krishna, and good evening, everyone. We continue to build on our momentum that we've built over the last couple of quarters to deliver solid growth across our business, keeping Sai Life Sciences firmly on track towards the long-term aspirations. Total revenue for H1 fiscal 26 stood at INR 1,034, a 53% increase over INR 675 in the corresponding H1 FY25, driven by healthy growth across both the CRO and the CDMO business. The CDMO business contributed 64% of the total revenue, recording INR 667. This is up 72% year-on-year. This is supported by a continuous scale-up of late-stage and commercial programs. The CRO business contributed 36% of the total revenue. Revenues for H1 fiscal 26 were INR 367, up 28% year-on-year, reflecting sustained engagement with both large pharma and biotech firms.
EBITDA for the period was INR 281, compared to INR 140 with H1 FY25. This represents a 101% increase. EBITDA margin improved by 650 basis points, 27%, driven by better utilization, operating leverage, and continued cost discipline. PAT for the period stood at INR 144. We incurred a CapEx of around INR 248 for the first half, against a plan of INR 700 for the entire fiscal 2026. This expenditure was primarily focused on expanding our R&D infrastructure, strengthening process development capabilities, and advancing investments in new modalities and technologies such as peptides, ADCs, and oligonucleotides. Looking ahead, our capacity expansion plans remain on track. We are currently in the process of scaling up our total installed capacity from approximately 700 KL- 1,150 KL by the end of fiscal 2027, which will further enhance our ability to serve growing client needs across clinical and commercial manufacturing.
Our CapEx strategy continues to focus on building scalable infrastructure and technology depth, not just for current programs, but also to stay ahead of future scientific and manufacturing needs. We will remain disciplined in our capital allocation and will balance growth investments with profitability and returns. The focus going forward will be on improving asset productivity, optimizing working capital, and continuing to strengthen our margin profile. We are working with global consulting firms in terms of future-proofing some of our productivity gains and also making sure that our cost structure remains in balance. In summary, it has been a strong quarter with consistent performance and steady progress on our long-term priorities. We are confident that our investments in capability, capacity, and technology will continue to position Sai Life Sciences for sustainable and profitable growth. With this, we will open the floor for 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 the 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 Binay Singh from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Binay, you're on the line.
Are you there?
Hi, team. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on the gross margin. We've seen gross margins expanding despite the share of discovery coming down. So could you share a little bit about factors that led to gross margin expansion and the outlook on the same?
I think there's an increase in gross margin on account of operational efficiencies that we've gained on certain commercial products between the period. That's the reason for the expansion in the gross margin. We're not giving a specific guidance on where the gross margins are, but what we've given guidance is the 28%-30% EBITDA, and we continue to remain focused on that.
So there is no one-off, right? So the understanding remains that discovery has higher gross margins. So there is nothing, no one-off sitting over here on the CMC side?
There are no one-offs in the gross margin. That is correct.
Then, secondly, just looking at the other expenses, we've seen a pretty sharp increase, almost 60% on a YOY basis. Could you talk a little bit about that also? What drove that?
Yeah. Broadly, I think if I look at the Q2 versus the Q2, I think we did around 14% or so in Q2 of FY25, probably around 16% or so in FY26. I think if I break it into actual dollar numbers, there's probably 50% plus of this number is primarily driven by the dollar and 6% by just the price and operation. What we've done as part of what I mentioned in my speech earlier, we're working with the top consulting firms to create kind of work on future-proofing and benchmarking ourselves with global CDMOs, both in terms of productivity and cost, and working on certain tech-related benchmarking. So we've incurred certain costs, which I would call one-off because it's a consulting firm fee that is included as part of this cost.
Right, right. Thankfully, lastly, just I missed the opening remarks. You said something about building pipeline. Because when I look at the presentation, the commercial and phase three looks unchanged versus last quarter. So that is something more you are expecting in the future quarter. Was that the comment that you made in the start opening?
I'm sorry, Binay, the line was not very clear. Can you repeat one more time?
In the opening remarks, I think you talked something about building pipeline of molecules. So I just wanted to see if there's any update because as per presentation, the data is largely the same between quarter one and quarter two.
No, true. I think there are a few that would get to the late phase. It just happened slightly at the end of the quarter, which is why the quarter number is also not mentioned. We also don't update the data on a quarter basis, but there have been some additions to the late-phase pipeline.
Okay, okay. Any number you would broadly add to that?
There are three products that have moved to the late-phase pipeline.
Okay. Great, great. Thanks, team. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amir from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my questions, and congrats to the management for good numbers. So the first question I have on the first half performance, the performance is struggling in terms of growth. The second half is also likely to be good, looking at the exports. In light of this, how should we see next year for commercial projects or CDMO? Do we have some visibility for next year which can help us lead this performance?
So Amir, good question. I think without getting into a specific guidance with respect to numbers, we feel good about the business. Additionally, second half has been always, from a Sai historical perspective, has been better than the first half. From a pipeline and into the next year, based on what we are seeing, we see trends looking very favorable without getting into a specific number. But we continue to remain confident of meeting the 15%-20% revenue growth over a three to five period. We continue to believe that's an achievable number that we have put out.
Sure. Got it. And on the CRO side, we are engaging with several partners, but the biotech funding still remains volatile. It's not showing any direction. In light of this, how much growth visibility or how much conservatively what we can guide for the CRO for our business?
So I think Krishna addressed this in his part of his speech. One of the things that has helped us, there are two factors that have helped us grow the CRO business. If you look at the last three years or so, against most indications, our revenues have continued to grow on the CRO business. And we attribute this to two factors. One is, I think, the ability to kind of deliver on integrated programs, which is something that we've been able to achieve along with the presence in the U.S. of a biology center.
The second one is our pharma presence over the last four, five years has significantly increased from a very negligible number in pharma. We today have a significant uptick in pharma. So whatever impact that potential biotech slowdown would have had has been more than compensated by increase in pharma clients and revenue. That's really what Krishna had also covered as part of his speech.
Sure. Just last thing, if I can squeeze in. We have mentioned the ADC in the presentation. If you can elaborate on that more as well as the oligonucleotide, if any conversations we have during the quarter. Thank you.
So on the oligonucleotide, we explained this in the past. We've been working on technology for a fairly long time. At this point in time, we are working on validating a commercial product for a large pharma. The validation, as we had mentioned, is in process. It will probably take us 15-18 months before it becomes commercial with a potential of another product that potentially is in phase three.
That's broadly what our oligo pipeline looks like. As far as ADC is concerned, most of our work that we're doing today, we have a collaboration with large pharma where we're working on the linker chemistry, and we've also done some work on bioconjugation at the discovery here. We've done some linkers and stuff on clinical manufacturing, but that's an area that Krishna mentioned last time that we are evaluating very seriously. Once we have some more data, we will come back and make an announcement.
Just one minute. I have a little context to this whole ADC and oligonucleotides. There's a lot of confusion in the market. Everybody says they're expert in ADC and bioconjugation, but the actual fact of the matter is that most large pharma companies are building their custom oligo platforms and custom ADC platforms. And we're involved with these companies in terms of working on the next generation modalities and technologies coming in. So we are very close to the pharma development pipeline. Just given the collaboration we have, we are not coming and saying, "Hey, we're an oligo company. We have these products, so we're making a payload."
We actually are building the pipeline where the companies are evolving. So we are actually working with our customers to grow the pipeline ground up rather than saying, "I'm providing you a piece of the puzzle." Our whole strategy is to be a much bigger piece of the overall pipe for our customers than just being a product service provider where a lot of other companies are focusing at this point.
So does it mean that we are building a portfolio for linkers, etc., where we can provide services to that platform to be renewable?
We are working with customers on what their proprietary linkers are, and most companies are building their proprietary linkers. So we are involved in what is going to their clinic in the next generation linkers and what we see today. So we're involved in working with proprietary linkers. We will not have a product by ourselves. As a rule, Sai will never have a standalone product by itself. We will only work with the customers on their custom projects. That's our specific strategy of how we operate. We are a product company with a services and strategic partner.
Sure, sure. Thank you so much for joining back.
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 Sajal Kapoor from Anti-Fragile Thinking. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations for sustaining a very strong execution in an uncertain environment. I have two questions. One, how does the organization maintain empathy and ethical behavior under high performance pressure, especially in process R&D and the scale of engineering?
That is the fundamental of the company. Our company is based on a foundation of trust and customers. So that's the ethical values we've built for the last 20 years. Our basic premise as a company is that when you do the foundation and basics right, then you are a successful company, and that's what customers value in us. And we take a lot of pride in terms of our integrity as a company, and that's non-negotiable for us.
That's probably the amount of time, most amount of time we spend with our employees on that. And that's the training that somebody will be when they join the company.
You have to understand the relationships are 10, 15 years old. People don't come build this relationship unless there's implicit trust of every interaction they have with us, be it somebody in the plant, somebody in the lab, or senior management. That is the reason why we have a strong relationship with our customers at this point.
Thank you. That's very reassuring. Second question is, how does management determine the optimal degree of spare capacity that balances near-term utilization efficiency with kind of long-term flexibility for capturing large and potentially high-value opportunities?
So generally, a 60%-65% is considered reasonably full if you're working on a CDMO environment and you're talking about the next one in a brownfield setup, probably a little earlier if it's a greenfield setup. That's the general trend and a benchmark that most companies tend to follow. That does not sacrifice operational efficiency while taking care and making sure that you're not losing such a bit. That's the broad cost problem.
I think there's a different way to look at it. There's one approach saying, "I'm going to build a large capacity," and guess what? Suddenly, there's a made-new large capacity product. I'm set for that. We don't build for that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We build more for a question of that higher certainty of filling the pipeline rather than the blockbuster coming. Yes, sometimes it feels bad when you lose a blockbuster, but for us, continuous supply and the progression of pipeline is more important than building the capacity for the few blockbusters that might happen. So you have to pick where you fit in that market, so to speak. So we're positioned differently than other companies you're talking to in this space.
Wonderful. Can I ask one more question if I've got time?
Sure.
Yes, yes. Thank you. So the number of AI-discovered molecules entering early human trials, i.e., phase one, is increasing quite significantly. So upwards of 60% growth annually, based on some reports. And that's all AI-discovered kind of. At this phase one success rate is materially higher, 80%-90% compared to the historical averages of anywhere from 40%-65% for phase one for traditionally manually discovered drugs. So this implies that AI is not only generating higher volume, i.e., more candidates, but AI is also helping, and that's early data, but it suggests that these candidates may be of higher quality, particularly regarding safety and early-stage progression. So AI is not just increasing the volume of molecules entering phase one, but it's also ensuring that the better quality, fitter molecules enter phase one.
The key question is, does this not suggest that there is or there will be at some point a critical juncture where the need for clinical development capacity, including the physical infrastructure and technical staff, will probably outpace the available and upcoming capacity? Can that scenario emerge, maybe not immediately, but two to three years out because AI will get better?
Unfortunately, I think at this point, we're way too early to make that determination. If you go back and research the data on the AI molecules, the majority of them have failed miserably in clinics. All the AI companies have actually suffered their drop significantly. We see AI as a tool, which is similar to what you have in terms of computational chemistry, in terms of high-throughput experimentation, etc. AI probably will enhance the quality of molecules coming in. I don't think that fundamentally changes the volume of pipeline in the immediate future. So I don't think there's a material impact yet in terms of pipeline of later-stage molecules yet, which have made an impact in AI. They might happen down the road, but it's very, very unlikely it's ever going to pace the capacity you have in development and clinical trials. That's a long shot at this point.
Sure. Thank you, Krishna. All the very best. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Madhav from FIL. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Thank you so much for your time once again. On the pipeline, I just wanted to understand that over the next, say, 18- 24 months, how many of our sort of phase three projects have a clinical readout lined up? If you could give some color there, that would be excellent.
Madhav, I don't have that data because a lot of things change in that, so we don't track that data as much. But there are at least a couple of them that are expected to kind of show up, but I don't have any exact data that I can share with you right now.
Okay. Okay. Wonderful. And any visibility into our CapEx for FY27? This year, obviously, we are investing a lot, almost INR 700 crores. Is there any build-up into next year as well? Thank you.
We will come back and provide that guidance. We're working through a few things at this time, but we will come back and provide that guidance.
Got it. Got it. And just one more question on the other expenses bit. I think you had clarified to a previous question that, I mean, the number went up a fair bit year over year, almost 60%. You said there were some consulting fees which were included as part of this. Could you clarify how much of that is that kind of fees sitting in the P&L?
So the way the number is, it's closer to double-digit crores is where that number is.
Just in one quarter, is it?
Yes.
Okay. So it's a substantial number then. I mean, it's a meaningful number for us. Okay.
It is a meaningful number, and it was part of the plan. This was part of something.
How long do these projects typically last? Like you said, it might be more of a one-off type of cost, obviously, but is it a one-year project or six months? Any visibility there?
Just to give you a perspective, I think the rate of change which we are going through in terms of setting the company for growth is going to challenge. We will have probably some of the more senior consultants available for a much shorter duration, but we might use some smaller-level consulting firms to kind of offset our resource constraints because we don't have internally. So the number won't be the same magnitude, but it's not going to say that we will not use some consulting firms to help execute some of the projects because of bandwidth our teams have internally. But it's not that we have another huge program planned right now. This is a three, four-month project we're in the middle of.
But once the strategy is set, we probably will use them more sporadically when needed at that point. But it is substantial undertaking. We're really trying to pivot the company more towards the best companies in the world globally and how they operate in those practices. So the value on it will be very different for us, which will come. We'll definitely intend to pull that into the bottom line on a year-to-year basis.
Got it. So the consulting firm, could you give some clarity?
I would request you to rejoin the queue for follow-up as there are many more participants left in the queue. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sanjay Kumar from ithought Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi. So thanks for the opportunity. First question on peptides. Just want to understand our capabilities. The discovery work that we're doing, is it for GLP-1 metabolism-related or for peptide drug conjugates? Because in one interview, Manish had spoken about peptide conjugates.
Look, I think peptides are doing across modalities. I think GLP-1 is only part of the peptide equation. Peptide as a modality has come up in a big way across disease areas. So we're very actively engaged with a lot of companies in peptides in the clinical side, but we're also discussing peptides with other companies which may be in GLP-1, maybe not be in GLP-1 space. But the peptide is basically expanding rapidly. The technology is actually changing. I think whatever you're seeing, first-generation of the technology is not what it's going to be. So I think we are basically involved. Look, I think there's nobody in the world not involved in GLP-1 in some form or fashion. We don't know who's going to win. GLP-1 will have a loser in that.
But we are using peptide as a much broader modality set of which conjugation is a part, but not all of it. There are several modalities that pure peptides which are non-GLP-1, to give you an idea. Just to be very honest, right, the three big blockbusters, it's just data. The three big blockbuster peptides coming out, if you have to look at data today, you have Merck PCSK9 coming out with the peptide. You have IL-23 from J&J coming with the peptide, which these are not all GLP-1. So peptides are coming back in a big way across modalities. So we have to take a very different lens to this than what you normally are taking so far.
Got it. Got it. So would you then look at it molecule by molecule, or would you want to go as a pitch as a platform player? So can you talk about what peptide length can we handle today? Are you using hybrid or continuous peptide synthesis? And how much of your peptide feedstock is imported? Do we do the amino acid production in-house, or do we buy resin-loaded amino acids? If you can talk about your capabilities within peptides.
I'm going back to a statement I made in the past. We are not a product company saying, "I'm going to make this product in this peptide." We are working with our customers to build the peptides which they're interested in. So we're building it based upon their pipeline rather than saying, "This is the peptide we have, and you come and do this with us." So our strategy is extremely different from what a typical product company is. Again, we're a strategic partner service company working with companies where every company, you like it or not, has their own technology they want to use. They have different somebody does flow, somebody does solution, somebody does crystallization, somebody does lyophilization.
But we work closely with customers to be a technology company which can take cross-modality. And some of them want us to make the amino acids, some of them want us to buy it. So we don't have a specific strategy. We have a broad range of technologies which can work with five, six different companies with five to six different approaches, so to speak. So it's really a technology platform supporting multiple customers at this point.
Got it. Again, on oligonucleotides, the commercial molecule that you spoke about, we're evaluating a phosphorylated process. Is it for DNA, RNA, or is it much advanced, like, say, LNP, or again, this also involves a bit of conjugation?
We're not going to comment about it this way. We're not at the liberty to say at this point.
Okay. Final question on ADC. We have completed bioconjugation. Does it involve antibody-drug conjugation, or is it the small molecule conjugation, which is just linker payload? If it's only small molecule, do you, sorry.
So far, we've done only in the discovery phase. That has been ADC conjugation. But we are actually looking at XDC with a much broader skill set, which basically would include peptides, PROTACs, and oligonucleotides. Those four things, we're looking at that as a much broader platform and just not ADC.
Okay. And do you plan to integrate, say, antibody?
I would request you to rejoin the queue.
Okay.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nirvana from Badrinath Holdings. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So just wanted to confirm to a previous participant, you said that even in this year, you're expecting H2 to be stronger than H1?
We said historically H2 has been stronger than H1. We said business remains good as ever. We are not without commenting on specifically how this year H2 will be is what I said.
Sure. And just one question on the CapEx. Just to get an indicative idea, I'm trying to figure out how the balance sheet might look like over the next two years when we are doing a lot of CapEx. So to reach 1,150 KL and double our process R&D, etc., by the end of FY27, how much CapEx do you think we need to do in excess of the 250 crores that we have already done in H1? And what is the peak debt that you think the balance sheet will carry over this process?
Just to be very honest, at this point, we have so many different opportunities that are at table right now which are coming down the pipe. Our CapEx plan is really evolving significantly because we are evaluating several opportunities with several of our customers. So we're not giving you numbers. It might look very different in two months from now from where we are today, but we have several different opportunities to evaluate that might change our CapEx plans, both in terms of type of CapEx as well as scale of CapEx. So we don't want to make any comment on that at this point.
Okay. One final question on the specific partnership that you have with Schrodinger. I know you don't like to talk about specific partnerships, but this is more a qualitative question. So you signed the partnership in 2023, and it's a five-year kind of deal. What I wanted to understand is what are the success metrics of this partnership? Is it the number of candidates that are going through to an IND level, or how do you define success here? In terms of that, how do you think we are doing? What is the likelihood of renewal, etc.?
We cannot talk about the specifics of that collaboration because that collaboration is proprietary to what they work with, and we cannot share that data.
Then, if you allow me one final question on ADCs, then. You've mentioned bioconjugation you've done at a discovery scale. Is this the bioconjugation with the monoclonal antibody?
Correct.
My understanding is that bioconjugation typically happens at the site where the MAB is manufactured, and the linker payload goes there, and then the conjugation happens at that site. Given that we are not a biologic company, is this a modality that we can hope to scale up in a large fashion in the future, given that we won't be manufacturing the MAB?
Look, at this point, we can't comment on where the market is moving. The preferred option always is to do the bioconjugation where you're doing the final fill/finish. But the fact of the matter is, right now, there are not that many sites globally where this happens. WuXi's got all the capacities. 90% of the capacity is there. Most of the companies right now are doing different sites. Some of them are doing some of large pharma are building internal capabilities down the road. So at this point, there are so many bits and pieces going on in this area. We don't know exactly how this will evolve down the road. It could be companies might put biocells in-house. India could be a backup site. So all I will say is that right now, anybody today tells you that, "I have a strategy for ADC.
I have a defined strategy for peptides. I have a defined oligonucleotides. You can park it because it's changing so quickly because the technology is shifting quickly. We have to be nimble enough to follow the customer. Right now, except for the existing peptide molecules which have launched, the rest of them are all pretty much ADCs are all in terms of new ways of working. The first generation have passed. The next generation are very different from the previous generation. So I think the jury is very well out in terms of who's going to succeed in this space.
People are taking different approaches, but I don't think there's any one person right now or any one company which has all the answers and the perfect solution for it. I think it's too hard to make a prediction at this point of who's going to win this race, to be honest. I'd love to come and tell you there's a magic answer, but there is none at this point because our customers themselves don't know the answer.
Okay. So thanks a lot, and all.
The next question is from the line of Dhawal Khut from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi sir. Thanks for taking my question. There is some product concentration building up for Sai in CDMO business, and several companies quite often go through a sudden inventory correction in large products. So what kind of conversations do we have with our customers, or what kind of arrangements do we have? Is it MSA, or is there some visibility that there won't be any sudden falloff of these top products, or some kind of arrangement that reduces such kind of risk for us? That's my first question. Second is on capacity. On the expanded capacity, I think by 2026, we plan about 1150 KL. So do we expect all of the expanded capacity to be ready with reactors, or some part of it will be a civil structure, and addition of reactors will be based on order visibility?
I think as far as product concentration, we've been very clear that we've diversified our supply chain significantly, that we don't have any based on the pipeline we have and everything. There's nothing which keeps us up at night saying there's one product which goes away and we're not going to. At this point, not too worried about that piece. And the only way you can there's nothing you can ever put in a contract saying, "I'm going to guarantee this volume because we have to understand that our customers are working on a forecast, and their forecast can be missing all the time." So I think that's something you cannot completely eliminate. You only can minimize it by increasing the number of products in the portfolio. And one year, you might have one product go south, another product will come in.
So I think you just have to go case by case on those aspects. And we are doing it by working with 18 of the top-rated companies and having a broad pipeline, having discovery, having development, having commercial. So we're not depending on any one; we're not a product-heavy company if you think about it, right? So we are three service lines, and so we've really diversified our risk across the board from that aspect. So I think you can never say that no product is going to go away. Nothing I put in writing saying that it's going to be dedicated. This is just the reality of the business, to be honest, in terms of inventory management and forecasting.
Dhaval, just to add on the product concentration, we'll release these numbers probably at the end of the year, but based on what we see, we have not significantly deviated or changed in terms of product concentration from what we gave you the data of last year. But we broadly remain within that same range. I don't see the data. I'm assuming you're looking at that past data from external sources. And as we've mentioned multiple times to you guys, that is really not true and matches revenue and immediate revenue. We don't see a product concentration we are seeing.
Got it. Just to follow up on that, so for the upcoming year, is it by March, early April, do we get the clarity that all of the top products, what kind of sourcing we would be looking at into the upcoming year? Is that the right timeline, and do the conversations start to begin from November onwards?
I wish I had the magic answer for that. Typically, I think you will generally have from November onwards. Typically, anyway, they might say there's an indication you might not get a PO for it. They might give you ranges for it, what they're looking at. Or they might say that we have a, look, we will probably start getting fills for it, but probably POs timings can change.
But it's very hard for us to say in November this is our pipeline or March this is our pipeline, and suddenly you might have a left-field product which is accelerated clinically, which comes in, so it's still, in fact, the best thing for you is to ask a pharma guy if he can give you a pipeline glimpse; we'll get nowhere. We're basically dealing with a very, what do you call it, unplanned business to a great extent.
So I think I can't give you a direct answer, but I think you have a general sense of what you will at least see for the next year. Like January end, we get a. General sense of where the business is going. And on a commercial, you'll get an idea of where it is. And that's really how we start doing our plan.
We're not trying to be invasive, but I'm just trying to be. We're not being unrealistic also in terms of what the market is.
Very helpful, sir, that answer, and on the capacity, you think you'll put up all the reactors for the expanded capacity, or some part of it will be more about civil structure?
As of now, we're going to put up all the reactors because we think we have a reasonable confidence that we're going to need that capacity as of now.
We will evaluate it. We will keep evaluating this, as I told you, right? We do this every quarter. We will continue to evaluate it until we get to understand. This is the process that we continuously do.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ankush Mahajan from Sanctum Wealth. Please go ahead.
Sir, thanks for the opportunity. Most of us are innovators. Companies are investing in the U.S. So any impact on our business related to it?
Explicitly, the answer is no because I've talked to almost all the customers. They only want to do the final two stages in the U.S. and formulation. They say advanced integrated RSMs, no impact. At least multiple customers told us that should not change our trajectory. If there's some APIs we're making, we might be supplying to other countries. But generally, U.S. will buy the advanced integrated. Instead of supplying integrated to the European sites, we will supply the U.S. sites. So I don't see any material impact on that side.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit from Clearview Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Sorry. Thanks. My question has already been asked and answered. Thank you so much.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you all for the questions. I think we are learning too as part of this process, and we continue to remain confident on the business, and as we said, we need improvements in terms of how we manage this. Thanks once again for all the participants in the call.
Thank you, everyone. Really appreciate you taking the time to ask the questions. And definitely, we're learning from every call as well. And we'll do the best we can to keep performing.
On behalf of Sai Life Sciences Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.