Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q2 FY2027 earnings conference call of Alivus Life Sciences Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Soumi Rao from Alivus Life Sciences. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Soumi Rao: Good morning, everyone. I welcome you all to earnings call of Alivus Life Sciences Limited for the quarter ended 30 September 2026. From Alivus Life Sciences, we have with us Dr. Yasir Rawjee, our MD and CEO, and Mr. Tushar Mistry, our CFO. Our board has approved the results for the quarter ended 30 September 2026. We have released it to the stock exchanges and updated the website. Please note that the recording and the transcript of this call will be available on the website of the company. Now, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that some of the information shared as part of this call, especially information with respect to our plans and strategies, may contain certain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.
Soumi Rao: These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risk, which could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements depending upon economic conditions, government policies, and other incidental factors. Such statements should not be regarded by recipients as substitute of their own judgment. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement. Our actual results may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by these forward-looking statements. With that, I invite Dr. Yasir Rawjee to say a few words. Thank you, and over to you, doctor.
Yasir Rawjee: Thank you, Soumi. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q2 earnings call. Let me begin by extending our warm wishes for the upcoming festivities. Turning to our performance, we are pleased to report another quarter of healthy execution, reflecting the strength of our underlying business and a significant improvement in profitability. During Q2, revenue from operations stood at INR 682 crores, up 16% year-on-year, driven by new product launches and a healthy demand across our existing portfolio. Our non-GPL business grew 20.8% year-on-year and now contributes 79% of our overall revenues. Performance remains healthy across Europe, Japan, North America, LATAM, and ROW markets. Recently launched products continue to gain traction across geographies, further diversifying our revenue base. GPL revenues recorded marginal growth of 1% year-on-year.
Yasir Rawjee: For FY2027, we expect the business to follow its historical trend with a stronger contribution in H2 and expect full-year revenues to be around INR 700 to 750 crores. Our generic API business grew 11% year-on-year in Q2, supported by healthy demand across regulated and emerging markets. The broader product portfolio continues to strengthen our presence across these markets. Our CDMO business delivered a robust performance during the quarter, with revenue climbing to INR 50 crores, up 32.3% quarter-on-quarter, and nearly 80% year-on-year. This was driven by improved traction across existing projects and was complemented by new projects. We continue to see CDMO as an important growth opportunity as our project portfolio progresses. More importantly, we are seeing a clear improvement in the quality of our portfolio that is impacting our earnings.
Yasir Rawjee: A better revenue mix and improved operating efficiencies are translating into stronger underlying profitability. Coming to our expansion plans, the Solapur facility continues to progress as planned, and phase 1 is expected to become operational in Q3 of FY2027. Construction of our R&D center at Taloja is also progressing well, and we hope to be on schedule early next year. Our pipeline remains robust, with over 630 DMF and CEP filings globally as of 30 September 2026. Our high-potent API portfolio continues to advance, with 30 new products in the active grid, representing a total addressable market of $86 billion. Of these, 14 products have been validated, seven are in advanced stages of development, and the remaining nine products are progressing through lab development. As we move into the second half of FY2027, we remain mindful of the evolving external environment.
Yasir Rawjee: At the same time, the continuing momentum in our core business, progress across CDMO, and the depth of our development pipeline provide us with confidence in our growth outlook. Accordingly, we reiterate our FY2027 revenue growth guidance of 10% to 12%. We are confident of delivering EBITDA margins in the 35% to 36% range in FY2027. Overall, our priorities remain clear, executing on our growth strategy, scaling our portfolio, and strengthening our presence across key global markets. We believe that these initiatives provide a solid foundation for sustainable growth in the future. With this, I now turn the floor to our CFO, Mr. Tushar Mistry, who will walk you through our financial performance for the quarter in depth. Over to you, Tushar.
Tushar Mistry: Thank you, Dr. Yasir. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Q2 FY2027 earnings call. I would like to take a moment to highlight the key performance updates for the quarter and H1 ended 30 September 2026. For Q2 FY2027, revenue from operations stood at INR 682 crores, a growth of 16% YoY. Gross profit for the quarter was INR 439 crores, up 29.5% YoY. Gross margins for the quarter stood at 64.4%, up 420 basis points QOQ and 670 basis points YoY. This was on account of favorable product mix and recent launches. EBITDA for the quarter was at INR 285 crores, up 47% YoY. EBITDA margins for the quarter were at 41.8%, up 520 basis points QOQ and 880 basis points YoY.
Tushar Mistry: Excluding the one-time income, adjusted EBITDA margin was approximately 39.5%, reflecting improved operating efficiencies. PAT for the quarter stood at INR 197 crores, with PAT margins at 28.9%, up 390 basis points QOQ and 680 basis points YoY. For H1 FY2027, revenue from operations stood at INR 1,322 crores, a growth of 11.1% YoY. Gross profit for H1 was at INR 825 crores, up 22.9% YoY. Gross margins for H1 stood at 62.3%, up 590 basis points YoY. EBITDA for H1 was at INR 519 crores, up 38.4% YoY. EBITDA margin for H1 was 39.3%, up 780 basis points YoY. PAT for H1 stood at INR 357 crores, with PAT margins at 27%, up 590 basis points YoY.
Tushar Mistry: Looking at the therapeutic mix, CVS and CNS continued to lead the growth during the quarter, with both therapies contributing 50% to the top line. Chronic therapies contributed 67% to the top line in Q2 FY2027. R&D expenditure for Q2 FY2027 was INR 27 crores, which was 4% of our sales. For H1 FY2027, it was INR 51 crores, at 3.9% of our sales. On balance sheet and cash flow movement, CapEx for the quarter was INR 105 crores, and for H1, it was INR 190 crores. We continue to remain a net debt-free company, and we have generated a strong free cash flow of INR 270 crores, leading to cash and cash equivalents, including short-term investments, of INR 1,012 crores as of 30 September 2026.
Tushar Mistry: Looking ahead, healthy demand trends and enhanced visibility for H2 FY2027 provide us with confidence in sustaining our growth trajectory through the remainder of the year. With that, let us open the floor for Q&A.
Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets when asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Ahmed Madha with Unifi Capital. Please go ahead.
Ahmed Madha: Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on a very good set of numbers, Dr. Rao Chennupati. Firstly, just to understand the nature of one-off we mentioned, can you explain it? I believe the calculation says about 24, 25 crores. Can you explain the nature of the one-off income?
Yasir Rawjee: There are two components here. There is a validation supply of a complex product, okay, that had very high margins, okay, and contributed to it. Plus-
Tushar Mistry: Plus, there was some income accrual which was done in this quarter, which is a one-of-a-kind from one of the customers that we would be getting, which is one-off in nature.
Ahmed Madha: Got it. Understood. Is it fair to assume that this gross margin still should sustain above 60%, which we have also executed last 2 quarters? Obviously, current quarter was 64% plus. Is that fair way to look at it?
Yasir Rawjee: Yeah, we should expect it around that going forward.
Ahmed Madha: Just can you give some more sense on, we've been mentioning about new product launches contributing to higher margins, and the margins range, if I look at excluding other income, which was close to 30%, has moved to almost 34% to 35%. And you continue to guide that should sustain more or less. More clarity in terms of just more sort of nuances in terms of how should one look at it in terms of new launches which have contributed margins. A little bit of explanation that can help us sort of triangulate what things we have achieved in terms of getting margins which are probably close to industry leading.
Yasir Rawjee: See, certainly it's the new products, the launches that we've had, that is contributing to higher margins. And when we say new products, it's not just what we launched this year. There have been launches of last year that have been sustaining the momentum, not only in terms of growth, but also in terms of margin profile. As we keep moving ahead, I mean, we kind of building it up with the new pipeline. That's why even after we take away this one time, we are seeing much improved margins. I won't be able to give you which products, because frankly, we don't get into a product-wise discussion. But we can say this much, that the quality of our portfolio is steadily improving in terms of more complex, more higher-end molecules. That helps to the overall growth as well as the margins.
Ahmed Madha: I understand you cannot disclose product names, but let me put it other way. Sometimes what we see in the industry is when there are new launches, the margins are extremely high, and then as the formulation partner sells the product and then they face a price erosion probably a year or 2 later, the margins for API player as well as the formulation partner will erode. Is this kind of a nature of the new launches we have had, where because of the ramp in the initial ramp-up, the pricing you are getting is much higher, same will be the case with your customer, and then as things move forward, margins will normalize? Or this is sort of a case where there is certain step jump in the margins because of the quality of your incremental portfolio?
Yasir Rawjee: See, margins on newly launched products have a sort of shelf life, should I say, right, of maybe 18 to 24 months, and then it starts normalizing. But then if we keep enhancing the portfolio with newer launches, then it should sustain. We do not see a challenge there.
Ahmed Madha: And any-
Operator: Sorry to interrupt, Ahmed. I would request you to rejoin the queue. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Yog Rajani with Omega Portfolio Advisors. Please go ahead.
Yog Rajani: Hi. Thank you for taking my question, and once again, great numbers, sir. My question is regarding the H2 of the year. H2 we normally see higher GPL contribution, which, as you have highlighted earlier, is a lower margin business than our non-GPL and CDMO business. How do you see the margins being affected for the H2?
Yasir Rawjee: We
Tushar Mistry: Yeah, you are right. FY, I mean, the H2 of the year, GPL generally picks up the volumes, and that is what we are expecting in H2 as well. While we have been maintaining that it is a comparatively, the non-GPL business is a better margin business, but GPL business is not very low-margin business. It is a good stable margin business, and we should see that kind of margin for H2 as well. That is why we are confident of the guidance that Dr. Yasir Rauji mentioned in his commentary of about 35% to 36% EBITDA margin for the overall financial year.
Yog Rajani: All right. Thank you. My second question is regarding the CDMO business. We have recently seen a huge growth in our CDMO business, YoY as well as QOQ. Could you give us some more insights into what is happening in the CDMO business, and how can we see the growth going from here?
Yasir Rawjee: We have not added new projects. We are still driving the CDMO business with these five projects, but we have seen an uptick in demand across these projects. Certainly, the newer projects that we have added last year are contributing quite substantially. That is what led to that improvement.
Yog Rajani: And would we see further improvements? As we said, we have a lot of potential clients that we are talking to, and we have new facilities that are also coming up in the H2 of this year. Is there any guidance in terms of how we would be scaling up the CDMO business? Even qualitative is all right. I understand we can't get into
Yasir Rawjee: Yeah, that's what. We have a number of projects that we are in discussions, and hopefully we should close in the H1 of next year on a couple, but certainly one more project will get added. Okay? They are in advanced stages, and that should keep driving the momentum, the new projects. But we have quite a few that we are in discussions.
Yog Rajani: All right. Thank you.
Yasir Rawjee: Sure.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Ankit Minocha with Adezi Family Office. Please go ahead.
Ankit Minocha: Hi. Good morning, and congratulations on the excellent set of numbers. My first question is with regard to, I mean, now that we have settled new promoters on board and you have all of these new launches and, say, a reasonable margin trajectory also going ahead, should we recalibrate maybe our growth expectations from the company? I mean, I believe in earlier concalls, we've also always mentioned at profitable growth. I mean, profitable growth currently looks probable. I mean, can we move to a higher double-digit growth range over the next 2 or 3 years as a company? Do we think so?
Yasir Rawjee: See, Ankit, we have grown our non-GPL business almost 21% this quarter. Okay? So, in that sense, we are already there at double digit. Now, you know this, if you've been following us, that the GPL contribution has remained relatively flat, and it's quite substantial. So, as a result of that, when we add it all together, we want to be clear that it's a good business, like Tushar Mistry said. We'll keep that going. But when you put it together, then we are in this 10% to 12% range in terms of the growth.
Ankit Minocha: Okay, sure. Thanks. And in terms of margins, I mean, this quarter, obviously, there was some one-off, but there are significant higher margins because of new product launches. You're talking about 35% to 37% for this entire year. How should we look at FY28? I mean, do we think of maintenance of that kind of margin profile could be feasible, and what's the kind of EBITDA in that as well?
Yasir Rawjee: We should be aiming for that, right? But as a floor, right? As a floor, let's say nothing works out, we'll still be between the 30% to 32% range. I mean, we have reasonable visibility for next year, and like I said, we will aim to achieve similar margins as what we are guiding to FY2027. But just to keep it balanced, I think, if nothing works out, we'll still be at 30% to 32%. Okay? But the way things are going, we see that there is enough launch momentum from launch products, and so we should continue. Plus, there's the global situation, right? I mean, so far, we've been able to manage it reasonably well because we've taken good calls on inventory, and that has helped us as well. So, it's not only the new launches, but also the way we've managed the whole cost escalation, right?
Yasir Rawjee: By having judicious sort of inventory interventions.
Ankit Minocha: Understood. Finally, in terms of the pricing environment, how does it look like for the company, the different molecules, and overall for the sector in your view?
Yasir Rawjee: Could you come back again? The pricing environment, you said?
Ankit Minocha: Yeah, the pricing environment that you are currently seeing. Is there pricing pressure, or is pricing doing well?
Yasir Rawjee: I mean, the generic business does have that, right? We do factor in some level of erosion. I must say that the erosion has been a little less this H1, okay? But it is reasonable because we are in regulated markets, and there is a fair understanding of what the customers are also able to do at the front end. So, it is not unreasonable. It is kind of regular on the erosion. So, the pricing environment, I would say, is quite stable.
Ankit Minocha: Right. Thank you so much, and wish you and the team all the best for Q3 results.
Yasir Rawjee: Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Nitin Agarwal with DAM Capital. Please go ahead.
Nitin Agarwal: All right. Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations, team, for a brilliant set of numbers. Dr. Yasir Rauji, two things. One is, on the input cost inflation that you talked about, which is coming through over the last few quarters, has it been easy for you to pass it on to your customers?
Yasir Rawjee: Yeah, it has. We have been able to pass, Nitin, we have had price inflation on our raw materials, okay? But largely speaking, we have been able to pass it on to the customers.
Nitin Agarwal: Okay, that is good. Secondly, with the Solapur facility coming on stream in the first phase, in the H2 of the year, as you mentioned, strategically, what kind of impact does it have on the business, both on the generic and the CDMO side, right? Not from near term, but even take a two, three-year view, with the large capacity which was not there for us available at any point in time from our fresh greenfield capacity capabilities. What kind of tailwind does it bring to the business possibly, to your assessment?
Yasir Rawjee: Well, it is going to be a big contributor in two to three years' time, because it is a large facility. We have a good runway for bringing in newer products that will be coming in. Ankleshwar today contributes almost 65% to our revenue, okay? So, it would be nice to have a similar facility of this size. It also helps us on the CDMO side because we can offer these kind of capacities to potential customers, okay, for larger volume APIs and maybe even high-value intermediates. So, Solapur, we are looking at Solapur as a pretty, in the two to three-year timeframe, as a pretty big growth driver.
Nitin Agarwal: Does that Just trying to understand there, the fact that we were a bit of capacity constrained in the last few quarters, rather we were operating at optimized capacity, has it really led to any sort of supply misses also for us? Business we had to forego because capacities were not there?
Yasir Rawjee: Fortunately not, because where we did have some crunch was on the intermediate side. Pharma capacity was quite We managed that quite reasonably. We have not lost any kind of business or had to postpone orders or anything of that sort.
Nitin Agarwal: Secondly, on the new product launches, I think you have got a largish So the two things. One is, A, of the DMFs that we filed in the US, how many are yet to be commercialized? And two are sort of high-value, complex DMFs around HP, high-potency APIs, and iron sucrose. Over what frame do you see these getting commercialized?
Yasir Rawjee: So, of the 160-odd DMFs that we have in the US, we are working on the Commercially, we have around 90 to 100, is what is contributing commercially. Another 60 still have to come off patent, okay? So, we have that runway that should fructify in the next three to five-year period. Some may go even beyond that, but most of them should start giving us commercial benefit in a three to five-year timeframe. Coming to the high-potent portfolio, Nitin, most of our portfolio essentially starts coming off from late FY28 to around FY33, FY34. So, it is a five to six-year window in which we expect to commercialize most of these high-potent molecules. And then there is another element here. We are seeing that a lot of these onco products did not get filed. The patents did not get filed in many ROW markets.
Yasir Rawjee: That is an early entry opportunity that we are also looking at with our customers in those markets.
Nitin Agarwal: Right. Just pushing on that point, there are a lot of companies, typically high-potent oncology has been an area that a lot of companies have been focusing on over the last few years, even from an India ecosystem perspective. What gives us an edge? What is the right to win versus the peer set here?
Yasir Rawjee: See, so far, the tie-ups that we have had across geographies have been pretty reasonable. Once we get those tie-ups in place, then at launch, we know we would have customers, and we would be entering those markets.
Nitin Agarwal: If we are getting the last one, on the formulation in Seattle that we acquired last quarter, if you can give us some color on how you are looking at this business over a next 2, 3-year perspective? This segment.
Yasir Rawjee: We will be building. We have already identified a portfolio of around 25, 30 dossiers that would be developed in the next three years. And have a reasonably close commercialization window. We expect to start seeing that portfolio coming in about three to four years' time. And the momentum with that will continue at the rate of around 10 to 12 filings every year. And these will be across markets, not just focused on North America and Europe.
Nitin Agarwal: Okay. Thank you so much. Best of luck.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Alankar Garude with Kotak Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Alankar Garude: Hi, good morning, everyone. Sir, can you take us through the technology platforms that you have been working on over the past few years? You have spoken about flow chemistry in the past, and how some of these initiatives have been helping improve the quality of the portfolio, as you mentioned, and hence that repercussion on EBITDA margins.
Yasir Rawjee: Alankar, see, I would sort of break it up into one is that we went quite aggressively on the oncology side. We got started just 4 years ago, but we built up a pretty solid portfolio. Of course, it hasn't seen the light of day, and as I explained just in my last response, that we expect that from late FY28 to around FY33, FY34, we should see that commercialization. Flow chemistry, we have already commercialized one project, and it's amazing how we've been able to knock down the COGS to less than half of what we had. It was a product that we already had and had a number of customers, but with flow chemistry, we've been able to knock down the COGS to less than half of what we were doing with the batch processing.
Yasir Rawjee: Flow is definitely going to play a big role going forward because we have 5 projects right now that we should execute commercially in flow in about 18 to 24 months. Then, of course, there's the filing and so on. That has certainly led to will be a good addition to our overall, on the platform side. Then, of course, we have the IQGenX platform that, again, I just mentioned what we are planning to do with that. Another area that we've developed internally is pellets. We have currently 15 pellet products that we have already developed, and we are going to validate them within this next year to be able to launch those as well.
Alankar Garude: That's very helpful, sir. Yeah, sorry. Carry on, sir.
Yasir Rawjee: No, I mean, that pretty much sums up what we've been doing in the last. Of course, there's the complex products that we've been talking about, and on the iron complexes, and that is coming along pretty well. We've already got 4 products that we are developing in various stages of development.
Alankar Garude: Understood, sir. Just a follow-up on the formulations part. From a manufacturing standpoint, where do you stand? Broadly, if you could break it up between oncology and non-oncology, what is going to be our strategy on the manufacturing front?
Yasir Rawjee: Like I said, we will be building up a portfolio for around 25 products in the next three years. There is a strong inclination within the company to have our own manufacturing facility. We have not taken a call yet to do it for sure, because there are third-party manufacturers that we can tap, at least in the short term. We feel that to protect intellectual property and to keep a good handle on quality, we might be better off if we build our own facility, which could take about 18 to 24 months. We would be well-timed in terms of being able to manufacture our own products that could see approval in about three to four years' time.
Yasir Rawjee: That said, coming to the onco, what is interesting about most of the onco portfolio that we have, and we do intend to go aggressively with the oncology portfolio for the front end. When I say front end, I mean, our business will remain a B2B, and we will stay in the out-licensing space, okay, with that. The good part about most of the onco portfolio that we have is that it is an oral solids. The larger chunk of the business in this will come from oral solids rather than on injectables. This is the newer portfolio that we are working on. If you look back, earlier, oncology therapies were largely driven by injectable therapies. Here again, there is a good synergy if we build a facility here, right?
Yasir Rawjee: We would not initially go for an injectables facility because most of the onco portfolio would also be an orals portfolio.
Alankar Garude: Understood, sir. The second question is again on margins. If we adjust the margins for the two one-offs, the EBITDA margins are still expanded by almost 650, 700 basis points in the H1. Broadly, what would be the contribution of the stable pricing environment that you mentioned, lesser erosion in the H1, to this margin expansion in the H1?
Yasir Rawjee: I would say around 2.5%.
Alankar Garude: Understood. Broadly, you expect that to continue over the foreseeable future?
Yasir Rawjee: Let's see. I mean, it's also driven by the mix, right? If we maintain this mix, we should be able to keep it going. Let's see. Then there is the GPL element that Mr. Tushar Mistry just spoke about some time back, right? With the higher GPL revenue coming in, we should see that going down a bit. We will see. It's a little difficult to predict at this point.
Alankar Garude: Got it. That is helpful, sir. That is it from my side. Thank you.
Yasir Rawjee: Sure. Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of H.S. Lakhani with Unifi AMC. Please go ahead.
Aejas Lakhani: Dr. Avji, firstly, congratulations to you and the team for really very steadfast and very good set of numbers. Great job, sir. Sir, my query is on the non-GPL business, which is now inched up in the current range. Do you expect this number to kind of sustain for the next couple of quarters in the same INR 500 crore kind of a range?
Yasir Rawjee: Yeah, we expect that to happen.
Aejas Lakhani: Understood. Doctor, are there any headwinds on account of, I don't know, container shortages or, sorry, headwinds on account of any container shortages or any costs which you are able to see as headwinds that you are facing in the near term?
Yasir Rawjee: Yeah. So see, this global situation that is getting impacted by the Middle East conflict, okay, has the potential to, I mean, freight is one issue, but really freight doesn't, even if freight has gone up, but it hasn't significantly impacted us. We are paying more for freight, but it's a small component, so we can kind of manage that. Where there are headwinds is on the prices of solvents that are driven by crude. So here, like I was explaining, we've taken inventory positions at the right time and managed that in the last three quarters, okay? Going forward, we hope to continue to do that. But you never know. I mean, if crude, let's say, touches $200 a barrel, I mean, solvent prices accordingly would get impacted.
Yasir Rawjee: That is probably the only headwind that we see based on our experience of these last eight, nine months, right, that could come and get us. But apart from that-
Aejas Lakhani: On the near term,
Yasir Rawjee: we have managed on the raw materials. Even on operations, our operation costs have been fairly stable because we moved away from gas. Gas prices are going crazy, and that is impacting operational costs as well. But we went for bio-briquettes for our fuel, for running the boilers. Here again, that has benefited us from an operational cost perspective. So we are okay, but like I said, crude prices could impact solvents, and that will have quite a significant impact on our cost structure.
Aejas Lakhani: Understood. Doctor, solvent costs as a percentage of our basket would be, could you call out a range?
Yasir Rawjee: Yeah, on the overall basket, maybe it is around 10% to 12% on our raw material cost. So on the COGS, it would be more like 7% to 8%.
Aejas Lakhani: Understood. Doctor, just on the R&D, you spoke about flow chemistry and particle engineering and all these capabilities that you are trying to build out. From a team perspective and R&D perspective, is that team build-out completed, or are there additions of people on that side that can continue to take place?
Yasir Rawjee: No, we are pretty For all these platforms that I mentioned earlier to Alankar’s question, we have got those specialized teams working on all these projects.
Aejas Lakhani: Understood, Doctor. Thanks a lot, sir.
Yasir Rawjee: I mean, we have a turnover there, right? But I mean, overall, the teams are pretty stable in R&D.
Aejas Lakhani: Got it, doctor. Thank you and all the best.
Yasir Rawjee: Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Prateek with Unique PMS. Please go ahead.
Pratik Kothari: Hi, good morning, sir. Sir, one question on the CDMO. Is capacity constraint in any ways kind of not helping us win more projects?
Yasir Rawjee: See, there are large CDMO projects in terms of volume, and many times they relate to intermediates. Now here, we've not entertained any of that because we really didn't have the capacity. But now with Solapur coming, we can open that door. My own personal experience in this space is that many times, large pharma companies would start off with an intermediate and then migrate us to the API. So certainly, with Solapur coming up, that window or rather that opportunity also can be tapped with a high level of confidence.
Pratik Kothari: For the five projects that you have, they still remain to be in that 5 million to 7 million per molecule range?
Yasir Rawjee: Yeah. I mean, I think that's what we are seeing in terms of the ticket size.
Pratik Kothari: Even for projects that would be in quite an advancement or close call, would be a similar size that we are currently targeting?
Yasir Rawjee: It's a range, Prateek. I mean, I won't say that it's exactly between 5 to 7, because see, there's also a relationship element that we have to factor in. If we are bringing in innovators who have a deep pipeline, they do want to test the waters with us, right, with smaller projects in the beginning. We are okay to entertain those projects. We don't want to be too picky. As long as we can deliver within the capacity and we don't have to make significant investments, we are entertaining even smaller projects.
Pratik Kothari: All right. Perfect. Thank you and all the best. Thank you.
Yasir Rawjee: Sure.
Operator: A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question comes from the line of Siddharth Negandhi with CWC. Please go ahead.
Sidharth Negandhi: Hi, congratulations, Dr. Narayanan, Tushar, and the team for a great set of numbers. I have three questions. First up, considering your guidance of the upper end of your guidance of 12% growth with 35% margins, right. 35%, 36% margins. Both on the upper end leaves us with about 13% growth and 33% margins for the H2. Considering how the H1 has panned out and the expected GPL growth in the H2, do you believe that the overall FY2027 guidance has an upside potential? That's question one. Question two, you spoke about bio-briquettes. Considering how the year has panned out on crops, right. There is bio-briquettes from maize, which is likely now to have ethanol usage. Do you see supply being a challenge, and is the gas and briquette fungible to that extent as fuel source? That's question two.
Sidharth Negandhi: Question 3 was on CDMO, right? That business is clearly lumpy, right? Therefore, on a sustained basis from where we are this quarter, do we continue to bung in these kind of numbers? Should we see some lumpiness quarter-on-quarter, therefore, on an annual basis, what kind of CDMO growth are you targeting?
Yasir Rawjee: I will take the last two. Tushar will take the first one. Tushar, you want to go ahead on the upside potential?
Tushar Mistry: Yeah, Siddharth, your calculation on the full year or the H2 numbers is right. If you had to do that kind of numbers, that is the growth and that is the margin that we have assumed, considering two factors. One is, of course, the GPL business will take up or take off in H2, which we have mentioned is reasonable margin, but not as good a margin as the non-GPL business. So that will have its own impact from margin perspective. On the growth side, the non-GPL business generally sees the Q4 a bit subdued compared to the other quarters, and that would also result in this kind of growth in the H2.
Tushar Mistry: I mean, while non-GPL business will pick up, the GPL business will pick up, the non-GPL business will be kind of flattish or slightly lower than the current quarters that you are seeing.
Sidharth Negandhi: Got it. That's helpful.
Yasir Rawjee: Okay, coming to the bio-briquette situation, there is a number of inputs, okay, in terms of bio-briquettes. It is corn, it is sugarcane, groundnuts. But basically, it comes from the waste, okay, which essentially has a reasonably high calorific value and really is at the end of the life cycle in terms of that product. So when you ask about ethanol, yeah, ethanol is produced with corn. But after all that is done, you will still have a solid waste with a fairly high calorific value. So this gets then converted to briquettes. We are not limited to corn here. Like I said, we have sugarcane, groundnut, and so many other crops. India is a large agricultural country, so we do not see any problem there. In these last few months, we have seen very little escalation really in terms of the bio-briquette cost also.
Yasir Rawjee: So, we are not seeing much challenge.
Sidharth Negandhi: Got it.
Yasir Rawjee: On bio-briquettes. CDMO, I agree with you, it is not a quarter-on-quarter thing, so one should not assume that we will just keep hammering away, okay? But it is basically driven by the number of projects that we have that they are able to deliver. And we look at it at least on a yearly basis. So, we expect it to perform much better than last year, okay? And we have enough indication that it will. But I will not put a number yet on it, right, in terms of giving you that, okay, we will close the year with X or Y or whatever. You can make your conclusions.
Sidharth Negandhi: Sure. What I wanted to know was more a longer-term, three-year understanding what growth you would target on the CDMO business rather than just, okay, what is the rest of FY2027 going to look like?
Yasir Rawjee: Okay, then it is a different answer here. Because see, basically, the whole idea of adding new platforms, right, to the API platform and getting into an API plus mode basically broadens the scope of what we can offer, okay? And then we can go after a very different set of customers, right, that are looking for not just API, but even more. So, that is how we are going forward. The IQGenX platform, for instance, is not only going to work for producing dossiers, but we are also going to be able to offer that along with the API development platform to customers who are looking for a formulation as well, right? And then, of course, there are pre-formulated products like pellets and granules and so on that we not could, but we will be offering to our CDMO potential customers.
Yasir Rawjee: So that then has a very different sort of expansion mindset in two to three years, okay? We will be bringing in those, and IQGenX is not the only platform that we are bringing in. There will be a few more of this kind that we would bring in to sort of have a more comprehensive offering to the CDMO customers.
Sidharth Negandhi: Got it. One last one on the intermediates. You called out the constraint in intermediates, which while there was no constraint in terms of overall capacity, there was a constraint on intermediates, which I assume would have meant that you would have purchased those. So with Solapur coming up, does that mean that over a period of time there could be more insourcing of intermediates, which improves margins? Considering Solapur comes up obviously initially at a lower capacity utilization, I am assuming, what sort of margin impact do we see on that? On Solapur, can we get to the same three asset turns that we were historically at over, say, two to three years?
Yasir Rawjee: See, we have started off, we, Solapur, to start off as a BI site, because like we had explained earlier that we have certain technologies developed already. So certainly on certain large products where we see a benefit in insourcing, those technologies would be put in place in Solapur, and we would start buying from We would start making it ourselves. That is certainly the plan. It will have an impact on margins, okay? But longer term, Solapur will be both an intermediates and an API site, because we do have a plan that once it starts off, then we will trigger, if not US FDA within a year, then at least a European EU GMP inspection so that we can start catering to the API market as well.
Yasir Rawjee: Having said that, we expect that in two to three years, our asset turns in Solapur should be pretty good, more in line with what we have today. But in the short term, that is not likely to happen, okay? We can't get to those level of asset turns, partly because of the BI, and then also, we can't cater to reg markets for API supply from Solapur.
Sidharth Negandhi: Got it. Very useful. Thank you so much, and wish the team all the best.
Yasir Rawjee: Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Nitin Agarwal with DAM Capital. Please go ahead.
Nitin Agarwal: Thanks for taking my question again. Doctor, you mentioned something about the pellets, the product that you are working. So can you just give us some more color on the opportunity that you see here?
Yasir Rawjee: Yeah. I mean, see, the thing is that there is a pretty significant interest in our portfolio, in our API portfolio, not as API, but as pellets. Because there are quite a few companies that are, for instance, in the OTC space, okay, that would like a more ready product for them to quickly sort of fill into a capsule and then pack and sell. So, there is quite a good overlap with what we have in our API portfolio. So here, we got into this development about a year back, and we are seeing a number of opportunities that we can tap. Now, on the regulatory side also, there is a benefit here because we essentially can file a drug DMF rather than get into any kind of dossier filing for driving this business. So, it is coming together.
Yasir Rawjee: The only thing is that we have got to ensure that we find a good manufacturing partner initially before we make our own facility, which should take about 18 to 24 months. So, the filing element, and then the approval, and then be able to sell, that should be about a year from now.
Nitin Agarwal: So this is going to be what? A replacement value-added product to the API offering, or it will be incremental market that we will be creating for ourselves?
Yasir Rawjee: It is both. It is a value add to the API, and we open up to other customers as well who would not typically buy API.
Nitin Agarwal: Got it. Thank you so much.
Yasir Rawjee: Sure.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Prasenjit Paul with Paul Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Prasenjit Paul: Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity. First of all, congratulations for the great set of numbers. Sir, we have a strong cash in our balance sheet, and every quarter we are generating strong cash flow, which is great. My question is, with this amount of cash, we can grow organically, inorganically. We have lot of options. Do you have any long-term vision, like let's say 4 or 5 years or by 2030, we wish to reach at that level? And what would be that growth part? Organic growth, inorganic growth, or like CDMO-led growth? Just want to focus on the long-term vision with the growth acceleration, cash balance, and all.
Yasir Rawjee: Yeah. We certainly are looking in a few directions to grow, and we have looked at a number of inorganic opportunities in the last 15 months or so. The clear sort of the clarity that we have with respect to what we want to get is basically something that will enhance the platform, the API platform that we have built. So, it would need to have a good level of synergy with the API platform because then we can sort of continue to add more value to what we already do. Like I answered the last question on the pellets, right? It's a value add, plus we open up to a whole new set of customers. So, that's the thought process. We are continuing to make the investments on the organic side.
Yasir Rawjee: Like I said, very likely that we'll take a call soon to build a formulations, a oral solids facility, and we should get that done in about 18 to 24 months. But it's not just that. I mean, we'll be looking at other things as well on the CDMO side also to see what more we can do to create more value with this API portfolio that we have. So yeah, we are open to both. Organically, it's simpler because we just sort of make the plans, build a portfolio, and then keep filing, and then we go ahead. So, that's a relatively straightforward pathway. On the inorganic side, we have to be careful, okay, in terms of making sure that there is a clear synergy build when we go for something inorganic. So, that's all I can say at this point.
Yasir Rawjee: But clearly, we want to be able to create more value and add more value to what we have already done.
Prasenjit Paul: Okay. So, any long-term ballpark figure or aspiration in your mind, okay, by 2030, we wish to reach there, or CDMO should be that much of our overall revenue? Any such thing?
Yasir Rawjee: You mean in terms of a financial target?
Prasenjit Paul: Yeah.
Yasir Rawjee: Yeah, they are there, but I mean, the thing is that, see, what's more important is the underlying sort of philosophy in the company that whatever we do, we've got to do a good job at it and make sure that it's a quality business that we build. Okay? As long as we stay with that kind of fundamental thinking in terms of building a quality business and both in terms of margins, but also in terms of longer-term sustainability, that will lead to its own numbers. I can't tell you what we
Tushar Mistry: Except the fact that on CDMO, we have been guiding that we will double the business from where it is today in next three to four years' time, which would effectively contribute to about between 12% to 15% of the overall revenues, is how we are looking at the CDMO business. Others, we do not want to give a number, but then there are, as Dr. Yasir Rawjee explained, there are good amount of initiatives that are there which we are working on and should lead to that kind of organic as well as inorganic growth opportunities.
Prasenjit Paul: Okay. Thank you so much for the answer, and wishing you all the very best.
Tushar Mistry: Thank you.
Yasir Rawjee: Thank you.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions from the participants, on behalf of Alivus Life Sciences Limited, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.
