Good evening, a warm welcome to our third quarter FY 2021 earnings call. I'm Nimish from the Sun Pharma Investor Relations team. We hope you received the Q3 financials and the press release that was sent out earlier in the day. These are also available on our website. We have with us Mr. Dilip Shanghvi, Managing Director, Mr. C.S. Muralidharan, CFO, Mr. Abhay Gandhi, CEO of North America, and Mr. Kirti Ganorkar, CEO of India Business.
Today, the team will discuss performance highlights, update on strategies, and respond to any questions that you may have. As is usual for the ease of discussion, we will look at consolidated financials. Just as a reminder, this call is being recorded and the replay will be available for the next few days. The call transcript will also be put up on our website shortly.
The discussion today might include certain forward-looking statements, and this must be viewed in conjunction with the risk that our business faces. You are requested to ask two questions in the initial round. If you have more questions, you are requested to rejoin the queue. I also request all of you to kindly send in your questions that may remain unanswered today. I will now hand over the call to Mr. Shanghvi.
Welcome and thank you for joining us for this earnings call after the announcement of financial results for the third quarter of FY 2021. I hope you and your family are safe and healthy. Let me discuss some of the key highlights. Consolidated sales for the quarter were at INR 8,782 crores, recording a growth of 9% year-on-year and 4% quarter-on-quarter.
Our Q3 performance reflects continued profitable business growth in a market that is gradually recovering from the impact of the global pandemic. Most of our businesses have done well over Q3 last year. Our India and U.S. businesses have also grown sequentially. We continue to focus on top-line growth, operational efficiencies, and business continuity. Let me now update you on our global specialty business. For Q3, our global specialty revenues was approximately $148 million across all markets.
Global ILUMYA sales for nine months ended December 2020 have already crossed last full year's sales. Specialty R&D accounted for approximately 27% of our total R&D spend for the quarter. We've recently initiated phase II clinical trial for SCD-044 in patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. The phase III clinical trials for ILUMYA for psoriatic arthritis indications are also ongoing. Abhay will give you more details on specialty business later. I will now hand over the call to Murali for discussions of Q3 financial performance.
Thank you, Mr. Shanghvi. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to all of you. Our Q3 financials are already with you. As usual, we look at key consolidated financials. Q3 sales are at INR 8,782 crores, up 9% over Q3 last year. This is the highest ever quarterly sales that the company has recorded. Material cost as a percentage of sales was 26.6%, lower than Q3 last year due to product mix and other efficiencies.
Other expenditure was at 27.9% of sales, lower than Q3 last year, mainly due to lower marketing and traveling spend in U.S., India, and other markets. As indicated in our past earnings call, these expenses will see an increasing trend in future once the market situation reaches full normalization. As a result of the above, EBITDA for Q3 was at INR 2,351 crores, up by 36% year-on-year with resulting EBITDA margins at 26.8%.
Reported net profit for the quarter was at INR 1,852 crores, up 103% over net profit of Q3 last year. The reported EPS for the quarter was INR 7.72 crores. Let me now discuss the key movements versus Q2 FY 2021. Our consolidated sales are up by 4% quarter-on-quarter, driven mainly by strong sequential growth in the U.S. and India business.
Material costs at 26.6% of sales are higher than Q2 due to product and geography mix and certain one-time charges at Taro. Other expenses at 27.9% of sales are marginally lower than Q2, mainly due to lower R&D spend. We had a ForEx gain of about INR 72 crores for Q3 as against ForEx loss of about INR 116 crores in Q2. As a result of the above, EBITDA for Q3 at INR 2,351 crores was higher by 12% compared to Q2.
Net profit for Q3 stands at INR 1,852 crores, was higher than the adjusted net profit of Q2 by about 16%, and was 2% higher compared to the reported net profit of Q2 FY 2021. Now we will discuss the nine-month performance. For the nine-month period, net sales were at INR 24,708 crores, a growth of 2% over nine-month last year.
As indicated in the past, the nine-month period of last year included contribution from a non-recurring special business in the U.S., and hence, the year-on-year sales numbers are not strictly comparable. Material cost as a percentage of the sales was 26.1%, which was lower than nine-month period last year, mainly due to product mix and efficiency initiatives. Staff costs at 24% of sales were higher than last year, mainly due to addition of field force in India and U.S. as well as the annual merit increase.
Other expenses were at 28.1% of sales, lower than nine months of last year, driven mainly by reduced marketing, selling and distribution and traveling expenses across markets. As a result of the above, the EBITDA for the nine month was at INR 6,176 crores, a growth of 18% over the nine month last year with resulting EBITDA margin of 25%.
Excluding the exceptional items, adjusted net profit for nine-month FY 2021 was at INR 4,589 crores, up 36% year-on-year with resulting net profit margin at 18.6%. Reported net profit for nine month FY 2021 was at INR 2,010 crores. The company has repaid debt of about $490 million in nine-month period of the current fiscal. Let me now briefly discuss Taro's performance. Taro posted Q3 FY 2021 sales of $140 million and net profit of $33 million, which was down by 2% and 27% respectively over Q2 FY 2021.
On a year-on-year basis, sales for Q3 FY 2021 were lower by 5%, while the net profit was lower by 51%. For the nine month, sales were at $401 million, down 14.7%, and adjusted net profit was at $107 million, down 43.6% over the nine month last year. I will now hand over to Kirti Ganorkar, who will share the performance of our India business.
Thank you, Murali. Let me take you through the performance of our India business. For Q3, the sales of branded formulation in India were INR 2,753 crores, a growth of 9% over Q3 last year. We have also recorded a 9% growth on quarter-on-quarter basis. India business accounted for about 31% of consolidated sales for Q3. Our growth for Q3 was led mainly by chronic portfolio.
For most of our therapeutic segments, we have either outperformed or our growth in line with the segment growth. As reported by AIOCD AWACS , our overall market share in the domestic market has also recovered to 8.0% in Q3 compared to 7.78% in Q2. The growth in semi-chronic and acute portfolio has started recurring. The acute segment is still facing some challenges due to lower incidence of infection and less patient flow to the doctor's clinic.
Our medical representatives are fully operational on the field and are visiting doctors for promoting our products. About 90%-95% of specialty doctors have restarted their practices, but the patient footfall is not yet fully normalized and is at about 70%-75%. The doctor call rates are improving and are near to normal.
For Q3, we launched 27 new products in the Indian market. Sun Pharma is the largest pharmaceutical company in India and holds approximately 8.2% market share in over INR 145,000 crore pharmaceutical market as per December 2020 AIOCD AWACS MAT report. We also continue to remain the partner of choice for in-licensing of products given our strong number one position in many therapy areas. I will now hand over the call to Abhay.
Thank you, Kirti. I will briefly discuss the performance highlights of our U.S. business. For Q3, our overall sales in the U.S. grew by 7% over Q3 last year, the U.S. dollar $374 million, mainly driven by a ramp-up in sales of specialty products and the ex-Taro generic business. U.S. accounted for about 31% of consolidated sales for the quarter.
Our specialty revenues in the U.S. have increased significantly over Q2 and have crossed pre-COVID levels, driven by ILUMYA, CEQUA, and ABSORICA LD. Sales of LEVULAN KERASTICK have recovered compared to H1 but are yet to be fully normalized. ILUMYA sales in the U.S. for the nine months ended December 2020 have already crossed last full-year sales. We continue to improve our specialty revenues in the U.S., driven by a gradual increase in market share for key products.
The generic for ABSORICA is yet to enter the market. As of now, we do not have any visibility on the generic entry. Doctor clinics have been open during the quarter, although patient flow and access to industry is yet to fully normalize. Let me now update you on our U.S. generics business. As you have seen, the U.S. generic business continues to be competitive.
The Sun ex-Taro generics business has recorded year-on-year growth driven by a combination of market share gains, better supply chain management, and incremental upsides from shortages of competing products. As of December 2020, generic prescriptions for Sun portfolio have reached close to pre-COVID levels. I will now hand over the call to Mr. Shanghvi.
Thank you, Abhay. I will briefly discuss the performance highlights of our other businesses as well as give you an update on our R&D initiatives. Our sales in emerging markets were at $204 million for Q3, up by 5% year-on-year. The underlying growth in constant currency terms was higher at about 11%. Emerging markets accounted for about 17% of the total sales in Q3.
Formulation sales in rest-of-the-world markets, excluding U.S. and emerging markets, were $173 million in Q3, up by 12% over the Q3 last year. This was mainly driven by all-round growth in multiple markets like Japan and Europe and coupled with growth in Taro's rest-of-the-world business. ROW markets accounted for approximately 15% of consolidated Q3 revenues. API sales for Q3 were at INR 460 crores, down about 10% over Q3 last year. We continue to invest in R&D for enhancing our specialty and differentiated generic pipeline.
Consolidated R&D investments for Q3 were at INR 560 crores, accounting for 6.4% of sales. Our current generic pipeline for the U.S. market includes 90 ANDAs and eight NDAs awaiting approval with the U.S. FDA. Board of Directors today decided to issue an interim dividend of 550% or INR 5.50 crores per share. With this, I would like to leave the floor open for questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove on the question queue may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen we will wait for a moment while the question queue assemble. The first question is from the line of Saion Mukherjee from Nomura. Please go ahead. Saion Mukherjee, your line is in talk mode. Kindly go ahead with your question, please.
Hello, are you able to hear me? Hello.
Yeah, we can hear you.
Bunching up of launches or any new thought process that you have on product launches in India, are the number of launches going to be a lot higher going forward? Can you just throw some light here?
Yeah, I think I could not hear the earlier part, but you are asking about new product launches in India.
Yes.
I think if I see last three quarters consistently, we are launching somewhere between 20 to 25 products in India, which include the line extension and new products. I think this will continue going forward also.
Sir, the next question on specialty. Is there any material contributions from launch in Japan of ILUMYA, or is it largely driven by the U.S. ramp-up?
I think we have recently launched ILUMYA in Japan, and in the COVID restrictions, I understand that the product has been very well received. As we are able to reach the hospitals which allow medical representatives to visit, we are seeing good acceptance of the product. We remain very optimistic about the potential of the product and expect it to become an important medicine for treating psoriasis patients in Japan.
Okay, sir. Thank you. I'll join back.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prakash Agarwal from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Good evening to all. Sir, first question on the cost side. Both on R&D, last time we mentioned, and this time also, that there are additional indications for ILUMYA. The thought was that incrementally R&D would inch up. It actually inch down. What's the thought there going forward? And also on the SG&A, I think Kirti said that India, we are seeing both marketing and promotions coming back, field force coming back. We thought that the cost would also increase QoQ ex R&D. Any thoughts there?
I think some of the R&D expenses for clinical studies, I think are also relatively slow because the patient enrollment is slow because of the COVID in many geographies. However, I think when things start becoming normal, we will see that increase. Kirti, maybe you can respond about the cost of operations.
Sure, sir. As you know, Q1 and Q2, as an example, the travel expenses both for field and head office were very less. As the economy is opening up and things are normalizing, and as I said, almost 90%-95% of the doctors are practicing, and we are reaching almost our call average to pre-COVID levels. Our traveling cost has gone up, and it will continue to go up in next quarter also.
There will be some of the savings on promotional materials, that also would catch up as we go forward. As I see, like in quarter three and quarter four, these expenses will keep on increasing because now we are coming to almost like a pre-COVID level in terms of activities with the doctors. Still, some of the physical conferences and other activities have not started in big way, but small conferences of 10, 15 doctors have started happening in December and January.
I understand that, we are still down 4% QoQ on the SG&A ex R&D. I was just trying to understand that if Murali sir can help.
I have specifically mentioned that as reiterated in the past earnings call, the selling and promotion, marketing and traveling spend will continue to see an increasing trend in the future as we are achieving the market normalization, which Kirti just mentioned, and this is going to be across geographies. That's what we are reinforcing. Not only in India, but other markets also, the expenses will increase as the market position normalizes.
I understand that, my question is, it's coming down by 4% QoQ despite that statement. What is leading to? Is it expenses related to specialty in the U.S., which is still low or is down, or what are the other elements to the lower cost?
Sir, there are many moving parts, so would not like to get into specific of any particular segment. Abhay, maybe you can respond if there are specific things in the U.S. that you can think of.
Yes, some color would be helpful. Thank you.
Specifically, I think travel in the U.S. is still not back to normal. Everybody on this call knows that U.S. is reporting high number of COVID cases. I think the last seven-day average is close to 160,000 new cases a day. Travel is restricted. To that extent, I think our travel and related costs are continuing to be lower than what we had factored in.
Okay. Just last part on the R&D side, what's the outlook here for next year, sir?
Next year, I think we will give our guidance about the R&D spend at the end of our fourth quarter call. I see that the R&D spend for specialty product, looking at the number of studies that we've initiated, is likely to grow over the current base.
Okay, perfect. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anubhav Aggarwal from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Actually, continuing with the previous question, if I look at an absolute basis, the other expense that we report on a quarterly basis, the run rate is roughly about INR 200 crore lower when we compare to pre-COVID level. My question is that, Dilip Shanghvi, how much of this do you think can be permanently saved here? I'm assuming like to like. I'm not talking about launching more products therefore this as a growing company will increase. Roughly INR 50 crore a quarter can be saved here, roughly? You think everything will come back in a quarter or two?
I hope that we can save. My interaction with all the country leadership teams have essentially meant that once things come back to normal, they don't expect any significant long-term reduction in the marketing expenses. Excepting some of the expenses which they currently feel do not produce any significant value, but they may divert those resources on some other, more productive investments. Steady state, we will see a better growth and also possibly increased costs.
Okay. That's helpful, Dilip Shanghvi. Second question is for Abhay. This question is on ABSORICA LD. I just want to check with Abhay that IQVIA still reports low conversion, but your sales does not suggest that. Is it that the IQVIA is under-reporting your conversion of ABSORICA LD? The number from last quarter, 20%, would have significantly gone up now? Hello?
Yeah. Abhay, did you hear the question?
Oh, I heard the question. Sorry, I started answering on mute. Yeah, sorry about that. What I was saying is our conversion still is at around 20%. I don't think that number has gone up significantly. Yes, every week that we get extra of being in the market, we are trying to consider the conversion rate improves.
What's the hurdle here, Abhay? My doubt is this, that product is good here. I saw the formulary coverage for between Absorica and ABSORICA LD is a little bit better only for ABSORICA LD. That's not the question here. I don't know what is the activity level. Is activity level of reps visiting doctor is less than 50% in the U.S.? Why is this product not picking up despite all the positives of the new formulation.
Two major reasons. We launched it literally a month before COVID hit us and the footfall at the dermatology clinics even today is nowhere back to normal. That has been a big contributing factor towards another slow ramp-up. The second reason is you also understand that in the U.S., whenever you launch a new product, there are many payers and PBMs who take nearly six months to start covering your product.
You have a new-to-market block. When you combine these two factors, that you have a COVID environment and a new-to-market block for six months, it always slows down the uptake. The second, we knew we would face. The first, nobody anticipated. I think both factors put together, I think is the reason why the ramp-up is slower than what we would have expected.
If I can just ask a clarity on that, what is the level of field force activity in the U.S. right now when Kirti in the India.
Your voice is breaking. Sometimes maybe to a certain extent gets in your sentences.
I'm sorry.
Is it possible to.
Yeah. I'll speak little louder. I was saying that what is the field force activity in the U.S. right now when in India it's 90%, 95%? What's the activity level in the U.S. right now for the brand business?
It is little different across therapy, but if I have to still generalize, I think face-to-face interactions are at 40%-50% of where we would like it to be in a normal circumstance. The rest is being tried to make up, the reps trying to make it up by making virtual calls. Yeah, and both put together, we would be like 80% of where we would like to be. It's much different from what Kirti spoke about India. I can only envy those India kind of call numbers, but we are not there as yet.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Neha Manpuria from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you so much. Abhay, on CEQUA, now that Kala is launching their acute dry eye product, do you expect a slowdown in momentum in the product?
I don't think so, because the Kala product is essentially for acute treatment, like you rightly said. To my understanding, doctors will be able to find usage for both the products. We are actually quite bullish on CEQUA and how we think we should be doing with the product.
Okay. You don't see the traction in the Kala product impacting our ability to scale up CEQUA?
I don't think so. I think we will continue to try and grow our product.
Understood. My second question is on ILUMYA. Given the long-term data that you've seen, and now I'm assuming you would have shared that data with the doctors. Are we seeing improved traction from doctors based on the long-term data? I mean, are you seeing a repeat prescription from these doctors based on the data that we've got, the long-term data?
Q3 performance, as we said, is much better than Q2 and difficult to isolate only one reason for it. Yes, we have been using the five-year long-term data with doctors, and that would have contributed. The whole marketing and promotion exercise is not just one thing. There are multiple things that we do, and to be able to isolate just one reason and say, "That's the reason for the sales for the quarter," is always difficult. Yes, we are excited about this data, and customers we have spoken to are very enthused about this data. There would be a contribution, that's for sure.
Understood. Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Damayanti Kerai from HSBC Securities and Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity, congratulations on a great pick-up on the specialty side. My first question is regarding the phase III study for psoriatic arthritis indication. How many patients you are aiming to recruit for this study? What will be the cost allocated here? On same line, what are your plans for study for the gastro indication?
I think our study is adequately powered so that we can highlight the strength of the product for psoriatic arthritis. We are conducting two studies. We do not share study specific costs. It's included in our, what I would call, specialty R&D cost, and it would be amongst the larger component of those costs. As to gastro indication, I think we have to seriously evaluate because clearly we will be last to the market because all other products are way ahead of us in terms of clinical studies.
In terms of enrollment of patients, when we are talking to specialists, we see that even the existing studies are suffering in terms of getting adequate number of patients. We've not taken a decision finally whether we will be developing ILUMYA for gastroenterological indication or not, but we are seriously evaluating the possibility. Once we decide, then we will share that with you.
Sure. Thanks for that. My second question is on the DTC spend for ILUMYA and CEQUA. Compared to initial phase of launch, how are these costs looking right now? What are your plans ahead? Like, it will see better ramp-up or these kind of spend level are sufficient to continue the momentum which we have seen recently?
I'm not sure if I heard the word correctly. Did you say detailed expenditure or did you say?
DTC, direct-to-market spend for ILUMYA.
Got it.
CEQUA, yeah.
Yeah. I think ILUMYA we have more or less optimized in the last maybe two quarters to where we need to be and looking at what we need to do. I'm pretty comfortable with our strategy for ILUMYA. CEQUA, actually, we are now starting the DTC campaign, not using television of course, but we are using various other media and the campaign has been rolled out in the last couple of weeks. Of course, the spend will not be as high as what we had for ILUMYA. I think it's a campaign which has hit the market. Initial response is very good. We are getting pretty good coverage with that and I think you will also be seeing that somewhere or the other in the public domain now. It's also on the website.
Okay. We should not be expecting these promotional spend to spike up significantly from here. Like you mentioned, DTC, we are broadly optimized now, and CEQUA spend will be much lesser than what we had spent for ILUMYA.
For Q4, I have clear visibility, but of course for next year, we are in the process of our budgeting cycle, so we have to see what it looks like. We will be prudent, at the same time, cognizant of what the market needs for the product to be successful.
Sure. Thanks for your response. That's all from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Sameer from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Congrats on a great quarter. Sir, is there any update on Halol remediation?
No, there's no update that we can share beyond what we shared in the last quarter, that we've addressed all the deficiencies, updated the agency, and we continue to be in the dialogue with the FDA about having the site re-inspected.
Sir, any idea based on what FDA is doing there, could it be first half calendar 2021, second half for FDA to come down for inspection?
No, I don't think I have any clarity on that. I don't think they've shared this with us, either as a company or even as an association, what is their plan about restarting international audits.
Okay. On ILUMYA, good performance, sir. What's helping you over here in ILUMYA ramp-up? More specifically, have you found your niche in the market and you're doubling down on that. Is that the way to think about it, or are you on the main street and fighting out as hard as you can?
In a competitive market, I think fighting out is the only way out. At the same time, we are now clear of what we need to do, whether you call it a niche or specific customers we need to focus on and specific strategies that we need to do. I think it's developing comfort with the market now and being clear of what we need to do to make it successful. I think, I must give also credit to the team for the execution that they have done of these strategies. It's a combination of all these.
Which means therefore that there is now a good growth runway over next one, two, or three years as we move forward.
I'm sorry, a little bit of a garbled sound, so if you can come closer to the microphone, please.
Is it better? Let me speak a bit louder.
Yeah. Thank you.
Does that mean that you have identified what needs to be done and therefore there is a growth visibility of this product over the next one to three years as you go forward?
I think let me take it here on here. We are confident we will continue to do well, and then that's the ask and that's the task.
Okay, great. Sir, one more on CEQUA. I just wanted to understand the USP of both Xiidra and CEQUA is early onset of action, two weeks and 12 weeks, if I'm not wrong, versus RESTASIS. Even after four years of Xiidra launch, its market share I think is just about 25%, and we are satisfied. It seems that this proposition has not been so well received by ophthalmic. Is this the way we should think about it? I mean, there's some growth, you can mine some more share, but not an incredible lot. Especially once RESTASIS generics come in, whenever they do.
I'm trying to really understand the question, and I'm not sure I have understood it correctly. Can you rephrase it for me?
Yeah, sure.
It helps me understand what you are asking for a little better.
Yeah, sure. Absolutely. RESTASIS, as you know, its onset of action is 24 weeks, and the proposition by CEQUA is at 12 weeks, and by Xiidra is two weeks, actually. Xiidra has been in the market for the last four years. Even after that, with such uniqueness of two weeks, it's just got 25% market share. Therefore, putting this in context, has this benefit of early onset of action been well received by doctors? I mean, it doesn't look like, and therefore, how much you can go further with CEQUA may be very limited.
In my view, the early onset of action, and I can only speak for CEQUA, I'm not going to be speaking about Xiidra on this call. The early onset of action is just one of the things that we have been focusing on. I think it is, again, looking at the product, the patients who have not done well on the competing products, when they have used CEQUA, have gotten good results. I think that is the other thing that we have focused on. That has also helped us, and doctors who have used the product have seen that the product works and works very well. That has, I think, helped us. We haven't really focused only on one aspect, but we have tried to promote it as a package of benefits to our doctors, which they can use on their patients and see the results for themselves.
Okay, great. Thanks. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kunal Dhamesha from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on good set of numbers. This question relates to the molecule SCD-044, which you have in license from SPARC. What is the thought process in terms of selecting moderate to severe plaque psoriasis as an indication? I know there will be clinical consideration and then there will be commercial consideration. Given you already have one product in this category, and also this entire moderate to severe plaque psoriasis is kind of moving more towards biologics. Why not go for a mild to moderate psoriasis, which is still dominated by 30-year-old molecules such as methotrexate or cyclosporine?
No, I think it's a good question. Challenge is that for mild to moderate subset of patients, I am not very sure as to what would be the openness of the various formularies to accept a high-priced differentiated product when large number of generics are available. At the same point of time, I believe that while there is an increasing acceptance of biologics for treatment of moderate to severe psoriasis, there is a clearly differentiated and a different market for oral agents.
If you have a relatively safe oral agent, which does well and produces good overall outcome, I see a continued opportunity for that. If I see, that was the view shared by Amgen when they bought the product, which they bought from Celgene. Also BMS when they prioritized their TYK2 inhibitor for psoriasis over other indications. I think this market will continue to increase.
Okay. As far as kind of I understood, Amgen bought this product and now they are currently planning to go for mild to moderate psoriasis as a further seed product.
No, I think I agree with you, and even if you don't have mild to moderate psoriasis in your label, there's nothing preventing a doctor from using it from mild patients. I think the question is how do you prove your product for difficult patients so that you can develop the confidence of the doctor about the overall efficacy of your product. If something works for moderate to severe, it's also going to work for mild patients. You don't want to be classified as a drug which can be used only for mild patients in the beginning.
Okay, first basically we'll go for moderate to severe and relatively once we have established.
Yeah. It is okay to talk about mild to moderate.
Okay. Thank you for that. The second question, it may sound repetitive, but I believe our spend in U.S. specialties, especially towards ILUMYA, as we have optimized on many fronts, including DTC campaign or maybe targeting the doctors that we want. Don't you think that some of the savings which we have kind of as a maybe side effect of COVID, we have realized that these things were not important from the growth perspective. We are growing, and we didn't make that investment, but still we are growing. Will the spend for, let's say, ILUMYA or specialty will continue at this level in the U.S. market? How do you think about that? Let's say travel expenses could come back, but let's say DTC expenses will not come back.
No, I think Murali in his readout indicated, no? That many of the expenses, as this life comes back to normal, will continue to rise for all markets. That's what I think he said.
Yes, sir.
I don't think that our expenses today are only reduced because there are many other expenses, including multiple conferences by doctors, our participation in various what you call global meets. All of these we are not able to currently invest on, which we will once the life becomes normal. Abhay, maybe you can add.
Nothing to add to what I said earlier and what you are explaining now. We have to see how the situation evolves, and like you said, when life gets back to normal, a lot of the expenses which you are bearing will probably return back to where it used to be.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Krish Mehta from Enam Holdings. Please go ahead.
Hi. Yeah. Congratulations on a great set of numbers. Thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. The first one was about EBITDA margins. Many people have asked already about costs being sustainable or going up. Would you then agree that the EBITDA margins in this quarter is a one-off or do you think it's sustainable going forward as promotions, marketing costs, R&D all go up?
I think generally we don't guide for EBITDA numbers or profitability numbers. At the same point of time, I think I have even in the previous calls said that our focus would be to find a way to increase our EBITDA, increase our return on investment and on return on capital. I think if you see as a result of our focus on cash flow generation, we are now down to around $250 million of net debt. In the same way as we will focus on improving all of this, I am expecting a improvement. As you rightly analyzed, I think there are expenses which are going to go up. Hopefully, our sales growth will make up for that, but our focus on improving profitability will continue.
Okay. The other question I had was about ex-Taro consolidated debt. Could you just give the figure for what it is as of today for ex-Taro?
Yeah.
Yeah. ex-Taro consolidated net debt is around $ 250 million. That's what Shanghvi just said. ex-Taro.
It's $ 250 million or $ 150 million?
$250 million net debt.
Net debt. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vishal Manchanda from Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. On traveling and promotion cost, could you share at what percentage would we be compared to last year? Say, if we had 100% spend on last year, are we at 50% or are we at 25%?
Can you just repeat the question, please? It was not clear.
On traveling and promotion spend, where are we today in terms of percentage? Compared to last year, are we at 25% or we are at 50%?
The overall other expenses constitutes many moving parts. It would be very difficult for us to pinpoint percentage of any particular nature of expenses to disclose at that level.
Okay. Second one on ABSORICA. Once generics enter in ABSORICA, would you still continue promoting that product? Why I'm asking so is, will the kind of quantum of sales around that product allow you to spend on sales force?
LD we will clearly continue to promote because it is a different product. We will continue to promote LD. Of course, we will be making changes to see that the spend is such that we are able to continue to work with the sales force that we have and be able to grow the brand.
Okay. Just last one on CEQUA. Are majority of the patients who are on CEQUA would be kind of fair to say are non-responders to RESTASIS? Any sense you would have on whether for those non-responders do respond to CEQUA? Non-responders to RESTASIS responding to CEQUA.
Really speaking, that kind of granular data, I do not have to be able to very clearly answer your question. Yes, in the initial phase for the first few months, we actually got the warehouse patients of non-responders. As more and more doctors have used the product and seen that the product is good on its own merit, we are getting fresh starts also. Exact proportion and how much of it is fresh and how much is non-responder, I would not really have the breakup.
Okay. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shyam Srinivasan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is on the non-Taro U.S. revenues. They are up quite a lot sequentially, 22%. I know you don't disaggregate into specialty and generic revenues there, but just wanted to get a sense of how the generic piece is performing in terms of at least the direction. I think in the opening remarks, you also talked about shortages. Is it related to generics again?
I think in a market which is very competitive, I said in my readout as well that the generic business have actually shown growth, whether you look at quarter-on-quarter or you look at nine-month over nine months. I think they have done well. It's a combination of gaining market shares of products that we felt we had scope to grow it.
A lot of credit goes also to the team back in India in operations and quality and supply chain. In a difficult environment, they have been able to keep the supply chain very functional, and that has helped us to make the most of some of the market opportunities which came during the last nine months. I think it's good execution by the team on multiple fronts, which has helped the business to grow.
Abhay, in terms of pricing environment, are you seeing what we saw in 2020 kind of remain relatively benign? Relatively is the word I'm using. You think as things are opening up again, you're starting to see price erosion also come back?
I wish I could give you better news, but I would not say it's relatively benign. It's always product specific. There are certain products where it is relatively benign. On certain products, nothing much has changed. It's a combination of it. Overall, directionally, we still continue to see pressure.
Got it. My last question is on the India business. Grew 9%, and I think the opening remarks talked about chronic growth. I'm assuming it's growing faster given where acute demand is. Just want to understand how the price and the volume dynamics are. Recollect last few years, we had a challenge growing volume growth. I'm talking about industry here. Just want to get a sense of how your domestic chronic business is panning out.
As I said earlier, this is Kirti. Amongst three businesses, what we have chronic, subchronic, and acute portfolio. Chronic has done relatively well, and it has not impacted much by the pandemic. We are continuously growing both in terms of units as well as in terms of value. That is also helping us to gain a market share.
The issue is with the two other businesses where subchronic is now started showing a rebound, and in quarter three it is already showing a good rebound. In quarter four also it will improve. Acute business will take some more time to come back to a normal situation or pre-COVID levels. Overall, to answer your question, yes, we are growing both by volume as well as by value in chronic segment.
Yeah, but is there a disproportionate or a higher than usual contribution from price you think, Kirti, or how should we think about it?
No. All this will be in public domain. If you look at AWACS and IMS data, there is no disproportionate growth from a value. What we are growing is almost in line with market in terms of both volume and value. Our entire focus of India business for last one and a half, two years, we are focusing only on unit growth.
All our efforts, all our communications, everything towards field is more focusing on how do we grow on units, and how do we generate more prescriptions, new prescription from the doctors. There's a lot of emphasis on unit growth. If you want to gain a market share, then we have to grow faster in units. That's what we are tracking.
Got it. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nitin Agarwal from DAM Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question, sir. Just quick question on the generic business that we discussed. Sir, we've been still spending a fair bit of R&D spends on generics. That's a lion's share of our R&D spend. The business essentially has not grown much in the past because of various competitive pressures in the market. As a flow, overall, qualitatively, how are we viewing this business in terms of is this still a focused business for us? Is there some change in the way we're looking at growing this business incrementally going forward? What kind of opportunities do we see here in the business?
First important information you need to keep in perspective is that when we say generic, it's not only U.S. It's U.S., Europe, rest of the world and India. All of these R&D expenses are captured in the generic heading. What you're looking for is only growth out of our U.S. business. If I see return on investment for R&D, our overall growth and investment is justified in terms of continued investment. I think while we will continue to invest in the R&D for generic and find a way to grow faster than the market in each of the geography, we will also ramp up gradually the spend on innovative R&D, and hopefully, as we continue to ramp up our innovative product sales, it will justify that investment.
Sir, generic as a business, does it still remain a U.S. generic, right sir? Does it still remain attractive business for us?
It is an attractive business.
Okay. Thank you, and best of luck.
Thank you.
Welcome.
The next question is from the line of Nithya from Bernstein Research. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you. I just had one question on brand building in the U.S. There is of course the cost of building out a sales force versus just setting up a brand. In terms of marketing spends, including B2C spends, how should we think about it? Is this something that's likely to sustain through the life of the brand, or is this something that will come down after two, three years because you've achieved a minimum level of awareness? How does it typically work for a brand?
Typically, when you launch a product, you have disproportionate expenses to try and get quick access. I'm answering this question very broadly, because your question also is a broad one. Once you have a certain foothold in the market and a certain decent share of the market, then that pulse that you see in the initial phase always stabilizes to a certain extent, and you're able to then, as a proportion of sales or expenditure, or the percentage of sales or expenditure will start coming down as a percentage of sales.
No. Sorry, if I might just clarify. I think as the revenue ramps up, I'm sure you're driving operating leverage. At an absolute level, do the spends actually come down because, let's say, you've done your television, you've achieved some basic level of awareness that you wanted. Would you actually stop spending on television? Would your spend then normally come down? On an absolute level, it's expected to continue to grow a little bit.
As I said, we're still working out on the budgets for next year. At an absolute level, directionally, I don't think it will come down significantly. It may not go up significantly, but it will not come down significantly as well.
That's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anubhav Aggarwal from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Just one question. One clarity on the U.S. specialty, actually two global specialty sales. The $40 million increase that we've seen sequentially, is there any restocking benefit there? Because some of our areas are ophthalmic, dermatology, et cetera. Is there any restocking benefit there, or this is a new normal, we'll only grow over the sales from now?
December month does see a little bit of a buying, but it is not an extraordinary level. Remember, in the context of the market, we are much smaller as a total business. The buying will not be as high as for some of the major brands. December always sees some buying, not just for the specialty business, but to a certain extent, even for the generic part of the business. That's not something which is so high that I would start really fearing the next quarter. I hope that answers your question.
Sure. Thank you. It does.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I now hand the conference over to Mr. Nimish Desai for closing comments.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you everybody for taking time out for this call. We know it's been a busy day with multiple pharma companies announcing results. Thanks for joining this call. If any of your questions have remained unanswered, please do send them across and we will have them answered. Thank you.