Good day. Welcome to the Ipca Laboratories Q3 FY 2023 Conference Call hosted by DAM Capital Advisors Limited. As a reminder, all participants will be in the listen-only mode, and there'll be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Nitin Agarwal. Thank you. Over to you, sir. Thanks, Mike. Hi, good afternoon, everyone, and a very warm welcome to Ipca Labs' Q3 FY23 Earnings Call hosted by DAM Capital Advisors. On the call today representing Ipca Labs management, Mr. AK Jain, Managing Director, and Mr. Harish Kamath, Corporate Counsel and Company Secretary. I will hand over the call to the Ipca management team to make the opening comments, and we'll open the floor for questions. Please go ahead, sir. Good afternoon. Thanks, Nitin and DAM Capital for organizing this call. Good afternoon to all participants, and thanks for taking out time and joining us for Q3 FY23 earning call. Today's earning call and discussions and answer given may include some forward-looking statement based on the current business expectations that must be viewed in conjunction with the risks the pharmaceutical industry business faces. Our actual or future financial performance may differ with what is projected and perceived. You may take your own judgment on information given during the call. Domestic formulation business has delivered 9% growth for the quarter from INR 645 crore to INR 702 crore. First nine months of the year, the domestic business has delivered a growth of around 10%. In segment, both rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis continue to lead the business with 15% growth for the quarter. Cardiovasculars and antidiabetic segment growth has been lower at around 2% for the quarter. Antimalarials, continuously in last three quarters continued its decline. Even in this quarter it has declined by almost around 36%, antimalarial domestic business. Overall for the all three quarters, this business is declining by almost around 37%. In spite of all that, we have continued to improve our market share in Indian pharma market. In last five years, in 2018, our market share was around 1.85%. 2019, it became 1.61%. 2020, it became 1.76%. 2021, it became around 1.77%. 2022, it has become 1.86%. On continuous basis, we are improving, not only improving our market share, we are also improving our rank. We were 21st company, now we are 17th company as per the IQVIA's numbers. We have five brands in top 300 brands, and all five brands in current year has improved its further ranking. Zerodol -SP is 17th ranked brand now with nine rank jump over last financial year. Last calendar year. Your Zerodol-P is 57th rank with six rank jump over last year. Hydroxychloroquine is almost around 132 rank with 14 rank jump over last year. Zerodol-TH is 264th rank with 38th rank jump over last year. Folitrax is 284th rank with 33 rank jump over last year. All five top brands has jumped the rank in the current financial year overall. These numbers are based on a IQVIA trade audits, met December 2022. We are consistently out placed our industry growth in last four years with highest growth in top 30 companies. With three rank gain over previous year, Ipca is ranked now 13th in acute therapies and one rank gain over the chronic segment. Now we are ranked 18th in chronic segment. In net December 2022, we have outplaced the industry in both acute and chronic growth as per the IQVIA numbers. With addition of almost around 1,500 reps in the current year, we hope that we'll continue to improve our penetrations in the market and further improve our market share in domestic market. Most of the product where the NLEM pricing was to announce is already announced and published now. We expect almost around 15% reduction in the control segment scheduled product pricing in the whatever. We have almost around 104th SKUs on which the prices was to be announced, and everything is announced now. The price reduction is in the range of around 15%. With almost around 12% price rise, which will happen in April, overly probably for next financial year, the overall reduction in scheduled formulation prices would be almost around 3%-3.5% in between. By and large, the impact of these price reductions will happen only for the maybe around three to four months in the month of February, March, then April is going to be the major. By the time the new prices will come from May onwards of, I think overall reduction may come down too. Q4 impact will be full. Overall our the scheduled formulations, your contribution to the overall business has gone down significantly now because one is antimalarials, which are mostly scheduled formulations that has declined, and also because of this reduction in pricing and all. Overall your scheduled formulations are now contributing only 17% of our business. Rest of our product portfolio is not covered under schedule. It's all non-scheduled formulations. On export branded formulation market this quarter we have delivered growth of around 17% from INR 109 crore to around INR 125 crore. For first nine months, the business growth has been around 11%. I think for whole of the year, we should be in the growing in excess of around 17%-18%. The Q4 growth will be further significant in your promotional market segment. Market like Latin America, Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia has delivered better growth for the quarter. CIS has delivered around 11% growth for the quarter. The generic export business, including institutions, has delivered 14% growth. Excluding institutions, the growth in generic business has been around 6% for the quarter. After first two quarters of decline, because of various issues which we're facing, industry was facing lower demand of API, price reduction, Nitrosamine impurity, Azide impurities, all these issues. Therefore, business of active pharma ingredients has declined in first two quarters. API business this quarter has delivered around 4% growth from INR 310 crore to INR 322 crore. For the first nine months of the current year, the business has declined by around 7% from INR 1,084 crore to around INR 1,004 crore. Most of these declines will get covered in the Q4 of the current financial year. We hope that probably there may not be any decline in the API business in the current year. There may not be a growth also. It's going to be a marginal cycle. All the ongoing issues like Nitrosamine impurities or azide impurities and all the on which the regulators were facing, all those issues are now things of past. There are no issues left as such right now. This quarter, material cost to total income ratio has come to around 34.13% as against 32.46% in Q3 in last financial year, an increase of almost around 1.67%. Largely input cost rise was there mostly in the solvents or maybe aluminum foil. Ongoing China COVID issues and higher input got converted at lower API prices. Higher cost inputs got converted at lower API prices. That has resulted. KSM price trends are also towards decline, whatever KSMs we are holding, because of the price reduction, this impact is there. We don't foresee that our gross margin, in time to come, we will be able to go back. Gross margin is not a concern for us. It's a short-term issue. For our first nine months of current year, material cost ratio is around 33.88%, marginally higher than 33% in last financial year. The price softening trend, we hope to improve our gross margin in coming quarters. The other expenses includes your Forex loss of almost around INR 16 crore for the quarter as compared to gain of around INR 10 crore in last financial year. Apart from maybe above, your other expenditures has largely gone up because of higher promotional cost in the post-COVID era. Large addition of medical representative additions of almost around 1,500 is also contributing to the higher cost. With their becoming productive in next financial year, we hope that this ratio will also get corrected. Our Q4 growth is expected to be almost around 10%-12% range, we expect that much better growth will come from branded promotional market. Generic formulations and API business, all three will contribute better growth. EBITDA margin for the Q4 may get further impacted due to the change in the scheduled pricing and price reductions, which will get some impact during the Q4 as well. We are confident that in next financial year our margins will certainly improve. Having given the broad numbers and guidelines, I request now participants to ask questions. Thank you. We will now begin the question answer session. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star one on your touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have the first question on line of Kunal Dhamesha from Macquarie. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you for taking my question, sir. The first question is on the MR addition. I think the last quarter we were at 1,200. Now we have said we were at 1,500. Are we done with that addition? Is the incremental cost already baked into Q3 number? Yeah, that number is done now. Almost around 1,500 people are added. There are certain vacancies, but broadly it's done now. Sir, if that is done, why we are not able to see the jump in the employee expenses? Because I believe the fixed salaries will be part of employee expenses, right? The allowances will be part of other expenses. Financial year, last financial year, our business growth in domestic was significant higher, almost around 28%-29%. Therefore, our incentive payment last year was very high. It was much above the normal incentive because on incremental sales, the people get much higher incentive. This year the overall growth numbers are lower. Therefore incentive payments are also lower. That is offsetting the, your, this. Increase. Increase in the cost. Overall it's appearing that overall manpower cost has gone up by 13%. In fact, excluding incentive, it's on higher side. Okay. Perfect. Thank you for that clarity. Secondly, if I look at on a nine-month basis, you know, our margins have kind of compressed by around 650 basis point. You know, that excludes any Forex loss or gain from both the years. Can you kind of, you know, provide some kind of clarity in terms of what are the major drivers, one being the MR cost, but how much impact that has already baked in into this nine months? Let's say, power and fuel cost increase. You know, which are the major drivers of this 650 basis and which of them you see, you know, reversing over the next year? Thank you. Number one was material cost. Practically it's around 1%, it has gone up from 0.89%. Second head has been the personal costs, which has moved by 0.72%. The major increase has come in the your manufacturing other expenses, which is almost around 4%. That is major increase. Material cost front we are not worried now because overall there is a softening trend and mile mask, the all the old KSM inventories which were held in more particular in API does not pass through. Particularly also the certain inventories which got stuck up because of nitrosamine, which was at their procurement price of KSM was much, much higher compared to the current prices. Practically it 70%, 80% higher prices. That has also not only increased the material cost, it has also depressed the margins because KSM prices has come down. That has happened in many, in fact, KSM price. KSM prices are soft. Overall material cost ratios are going to be soft. I think overall margins will improve. Personal cost is higher because the numbers has moved up in current year, and that has resulted 0.72% kind of overall increase in personal cost. As far as manufacturing and your other expenditures are concerned, one lies on manufacturing side is against our growth of, let's say around 10%, 9%, 10%. Your overall increase is around 13 to. 13% is the increase in manufacturing side. Largely the power tariffs were not increasing for last two years during COVID time, so most of state boards has increased the power tariffs. Energy costs continue to remain very high. I think overall energy cost number increase is almost around 45% for the current year. That has been very high because all the coal and your other fuel, furnace oil and all that, we buy for energy, that has been on at a very, very high level. Analytical cost has also moved significantly because now a lot of batches need to be tested for nitrosamine tests and so many other tests are introduced in the year. Testing costs has significantly plus, this year also a lot of work has been done to reestablish the methods, but more particularly for all those kind of in, yeah, testing. Since a lot of work has come at the same time, a lot of work also need to be given outside because everything cannot be done in-house as a company. Even that cost has been high. Travel cost mostly doubled. That's another cost. Shipping cost in first two quarters was very, very high, but from Q3 onwards the shipping cost has started coming down. It's a promotional cost. The major impact during the year has been the promotional cost. Practically that has moved up by almost around 50% in the current year. That is a major impact. It's also addition of the people and also various activities which we wanted to do as a company on various therapy areas and all that. Those activity was not there in last two, three years. Lot of those activities was done. Because of that, the promotional cost is on a higher side. That is the major contributing factor for this. With the productivity additions, with people becoming productive, these costs will come down. Energy costs, we are not seeing much of trend in further reduction. If petroleum product cost comes down little bit, then probably that cost may come down. Overall, there'll be reduction in the cost because of higher productivity additions and also material costs softening and all that. With that, the margins will improve. Would you be comfortable providing any, you know, broad range, in terms of EBITDA margin improvement from next year? I think it could be remain in the range of around 21%, yeah. Okay, thank you. I'll join the next person. Thank you. We have the next question on the line of Cyndrella Carvalho from JM Financial. Please go ahead. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, in terms of the NLEM impact that you mentioned, have we taken it in this quarter already or some of it will flow in Q4 as well? I think most of the impact is going to come in Q4 because price announcement started late in late December. I would say that December impact is very marginal. It's most prices have started getting announced in early December, and then I think it has now completed. I think so we have almost 104 SKUs which are in price control. All product prices are announced. 10, 12 prices are announced yesterday only. All those price announcement, I will say I can give the number now. We have worked the number. It's around INR 70 crore reductions on annual basis as far as NLEM portfolio price reductions is there. It's working out to be around 15% of the NLEM product sales. Out of this, let's say 12%, as I have already said, around 12% we will get the wholesale price increase. Overall impact will be 3.5%, not more than that. That too it will remain for three to four months because we are now keeping very low inventories of products, so hopefully we will be able to do a faster implementation. It's only going to be said, January, February, March and April. These are the four months in which the impact would be there. Thereafter, our NLEM contribution has also come down. Now it's only 17%. Because largely anti-malarials are in big way in price control and anti-malarial business has gone down. With that, overall, your NLEM contributions to the overall business is only at around 17% now, as on January end. Overall 83% of our portfolio is out of price control, I would say. It's that those impacts are going to be marginal now. In Q4 we'll see some impact on the overall gross margin because of this? Yeah. Q4 will be the highest impact because Q4 will be, all 15% kind of impact on NLEM products would be there. Right. We're not building any volume benefits because of the price cut in the INR 70 crore number that we are seeing, right? That INR 70 crore is for full year. I'm taking full year basis. I mean, Q4 the impact maybe little more also because on the trade inventories in the market also trade will ask for trade notes, and we will have to give them trade notes. We are in process of verifying as and when the prices are announcing, all the fields are verifying all the stockist inventories and other things. All those trade note business will also be there in the Q4. Q4 impact would be greater for industry. Right. Right, sir. Noted. Sir, if we look at our India domestic business, our Zerodol franchise continues to do well. Are there any other segments or specific therapies which are kind of impacting our overall growth? The cardiovascular business, which we want to grow faster. In fact, as far as industry numbers are concerned, by looking at that, we in fact, in chronic segment we are having a jump of one rank. Our overall growth in cardiovascular segment in current nine months is only around 4%. It's a low number. It should be, we expect it to grow much faster. That number is lower. Anti-malarials has declined by around 37%. Our other segments like an antibacterial this year has declined because last year we had almost around 100% growth because of COVID issues and others. On that, there is a very marginal decline. Say on anti-malarial in first nine months antibacterials in first nine months we did a business of INR 134 crore as against INR 143 crore. Around INR 10 crore decline. It's not a, it's not significant as far as in spite of 100% growth in last financial year. In fact, that is building base for our future growth also in antibacterials. Our CNS business is growing by around 18%. Cough and cold, in spite last year's significant business, we have growth of around 10%. Derma is growing by around 18%. Neuro is growing by around 13%. Ophthalmology portfolio is around 17% kind of growth. By and large, yeah, these newer therapies are also doing very well for us. Sir, on the cardio diabetic, even the segment is also now growing and highlighting. How. Yeah. What is our strategies here? What are we trying to create to gain higher share and faster growth? As far as this segment is concerned, now we have very good recognition in the marketplace, with whatever work we have done in last few years on CTD range and other range. We have added two more divisions in cardiovasculars in current financial year. In fact, the one of the reason for little lower growth is also because of the addition of people there because doctor-product relationships and all get disturbed and all that. That is also one reason for lower growth that have grown 4%. With the addition of these two big marketing divisions in cardiovascular, we and addition of products, we will certainly have a much higher growth in time to come in cardiovascular. Thank you. We have the next question on the line of Dheeresh Pathak from WhiteOak Capital. Please go ahead. Thank you. For the domestic business, the cardio and diabetes and the anti-malaria portfolio has not done well. What would be the for the full year last year, FY 2022, what would have been the sales in the domestic business for these two therapies? I'll give you the numbers. Yeah, Dheeresh, anti-malaria last year was 5% of my domestic business. Mm. The cardiovascular and anti-diabetes was 17%. Both put together around 22%. Okay. Out of that 17% portfolio is growing at 4%. Only that 5% portfolio of anti-malaria, they are degrowing at around 35%. Okay. Okay. You think X of this, the balance 80, you know, 78% of the portfolio is growing at mid-teens, right? You said pain and rheumatoid is growing at 14%-15% and the new listed opthal, neuro, derma, everything growing at mid to high-teens. 18%. Yeah. Other therapies are growing, definitely anywhere between 12%-20%. What are we doing to increase the growth? Because cardio and diabetes, the covered market would not have grown at 4%, right? Have we lost market share? What is the reason? In fact, we have increased. In fact, our rank has jumped in cardiovasculars. That's what I said in opening remarks. As per that our your chronic segment overall, our rank is also jumped. It has now become eighteenth company in chronic segment. We were seventh, nineteenth earlier year earlier. Compared to market, we have done better. Compared to. Is the market only growing at 4% in those molecules? It's only because of your business actions in current year. The certain lower-end products, because product reshuffle has happened. With that, All those markets get disturbed. Whenever there is a realignment in business and all that, some disturbance happens. This is the year where we have added two more cardiac divisions and reshuffled the products and all that. There is a suffering on that account, yeah. No, no. You have anyways grown better than the market. I'm saying why is the market in those cardio and diabetic portfolio is not growing more than 4%? Something to do with them internally, right? What has happened to the market overall? Market overall, let's say, in chronic segment, people were keeping on higher stocks. The people buying, because of COVID times and all, six months stock, one year stock, many people were buying that way. Those demands has now normalized. Now buying is on a normal pattern. That could be 1 factor. Second factor also could be that a lot of the people who were in old age and all that and taking so many medicines, they have also disappeared from the market. That's also maybe one factor, which lot of old people have died, which were using lot of cardiovascular drugs, significant amount of cardiovascular drugs. Post-COVID also that also may be one of the impact could be there in this market. We have never seen this kind of growth in cardiovasculars and anti-diabetics for last 15, 20 years. This market has been significantly moving up. It's only in the current year that your market itself has not done that well. Which are the main molecules that you're presenting in cardio and diabetes? We have present, let's say on diabetes, all the main kind of molecule, like say we have sulfonylurea, we have your, the, all these newer drugs Metformin. The newer ones also you have? SGLT or DPPs? Metformin we're not marketing as a discrete single drugs. we have these newer product portfolios and Gliclazide we have, glimepiride we have. Vildagliptin. Vildagliptin we have. Yeah. Okay. In cardio? On cardio side, we are on beta blockers, and we are also there on clopidogrel. Now the newer molecules, whatever has come in the market, we have introduced, yeah, same time. Okay. last question, did you say a 21% EBITDA margin for FY 2024? Yeah, that's what I told, yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. We have the next question on the line of Amit Kadam from Canara Robeco Mutual Fund. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. I have two questions. One thing in your opening comment you mentioned that your it's because of API prices, my gross margin had impact. Just wanted to understand ex-API, our gross margins would have done better or has it done better in the at least sequentially? If you exclude API business, definitely yes. Okay. Just wanted to understand how the like now the prices are for the overall API basket, how our export numbers are looking forward, especially like the regions like UK, the ROW. Just your early commentary on the how we need to look at the tender business going forward in FY 2024. That's it. Thanks. Yes, I would only say that your ROW markets we are doing well. I think for first nine months we had 11% growth. This quarter we had delivered 17% growth. Q4 is going to be much better. Overall, I think the branded promotion market for the whole of the year would be growing around, the Q4 is going to be significant. It, the growth may come to around 15%-16% for the whole of the year for in the branded promotion market. Most market we are doing better now. All these issues of whatever COVID-related issues and all that are not there. As far as your institutional business is concerned, probably it's going to be in the range of INR 300 crore to something plus. We expect one more product approval that could have a scope of almost around INR 50 crores-INR 60 crores addition in the business. With that addition, I think the institutions may reduce the buying of your Artemether-Lumefantrine. That's what we are looking at. The overall institutional business, I'm not giving much bigger number. I think overall may remain between INR 325 crore- INR 350 crores. That's the kind of number could be there in your institutional category. Sir, on the API part, has that drawdown stopped? Yeah. Sir, in the API business, has the drawdown in terms of like the price coming like going down, has that stopped? Prices now there is no drop. As such dropping has already happened because whatever KSM we have trend has gone down. That is with that we will price. Prices drop already happened there. We are not seeing now further decrease in overall in the prices. We are also not seeing the further KSM prices further going down. With that only now let's say with the demand picking up, KSM prices will also start moving in next year little bit, and API prices will also move in line with that. Okay. How the market has behaved in last few months just to understand where it's getting settled? Most I think API players had poor businesses in first two quarter. We also had a decline in the API business in first two quarter. This quarter, we have done better around 4% growth. In Q4 we are looking at much better growth. Overall, I think we will have some recovery in the API business in Q4. Currently we are at around 7%-8% kind of decline in API business. I think that may entirely get covered in Q4. That's what I know we are looking for. Probably there may not be a growth. We may be at last year we did almost around INR 1,300 crores, INR 1,311 crore kind of business. We may be more or less at the same number, more or less in API businesses. Good ground will be getting covered. All those issues which are, what regulators were looking for azido, Nitrosamine impurity in all those products, every product that needed to be tested for all that and revised method needs to be worked out to test every product and all that. These all filings in various markets on that. All those works are now done. There are no those disturbing factors. All those excess inventories in the market, because developed markets were definitely carrying higher inventories of API and higher inventories also of the generic. Those also inventories are now getting depleted and all that. Probably API business will also have a good recovery in the next financial year. Okay. Next year in the FY 2024 on this particular base with any new product launches and new geographies will be because we have an expanded capacity available. On that, can we see that organic growth to kick in? Expanded capacity by and large now what's happening we have I think lined up almost around 11 to 12 product validations at Dewas. Each product validations take almost around two or three months time. The most of the time will be going in filing. I think filings will start somewhere in I think in early next year beginning filings would start. Thereafter the inspection should happen of that plant. Because for filing you need to have six months stability and then your dossier compilations and then filings. Some of the regulators may come early, some regulators may come late. Hopefully next year some at least a few inspections should start happening from of that site and we should start getting approvals. Post that the business would increase. Right now I know we are not in our positions, we are not increasing doing any kind of, Your business increase coming from Dewas plant because all the, some of those kind of production may happen and we may sell in domestic markets and all because there you will not need any kind of approvals. All those approvals are already in place, licenses and other things. Even GMPs are in place, that's not an issue at all. Your developed market business will only start after the inspection of the plant. Okay, thanks. Thank you. We have the next question online from Surya Patra from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for this opportunity. Sir, if you can give us an understanding whether the high cost inventory is likely to sustain for what more period. Whether it will be depleted in the coming quarter or it will take few more quarter to deplete. That some sense on the margin front that we'll have. I think most of the inventories are now depleted. It's only a matter of, let's say, Q4, I think we'll some more will go. Except one particular KSM where of anti-malaria where the I think compared to the market, I think current pricing, my overall, your procurement average price may be around $30-$40 higher. Because we were the only one to do the tie-up. Since the procurements and did not happen, prices have. It's more particularly for Artemisinin that prices have dropped to around $140 or so. My average holding may be at around $180. So that's only the KSM where the it may have some impact for the next six, eight months, but not six months, I would say. All others they have normalized. Okay. They normalized in this quarter. Yeah, next quarter. Okay. Sir, if you can give some sense about the promotional spend during this nine-month period? Directionally, how much that it would have gone up versus last year? I think, almost it's around 40, 45% that has moved up compared to last year. Okay. More or less these numbers would remain at same level in next year. With increase in the business, the promotional cost will not go up. Sure. Okay. That will add to the margins now. Lot of these people added, there also this marketing cost or promotional costs have gone up. Whereas it has not added to the productivity to that an extent. That will also help in shaping the margin. Yeah. Sir, about the revised or the new process about the sartans after the impurities issues that you had filed. Any update on that? Have you started seeing some recovery? No, we are back on normal business, both valsartan as well as losartan. There are no pending issues, Surya. All approvals are in place. Everything is in place. There is no issue. Okay. Sir, you have provided some update about the Dewas. Means, since some time we have not heard about the Nagpur site, which was expected to be a kind of KSM or intermediate site. If you can give some sense about it. Nagpur, let's say, I think, two months back we have got the final clearance from the government on. Environment. Environment side because. Okay. They had put earlier one condition that you need to get a forest department approval. It took almost around 1.5 years time to represent and see to it that the forest clearance is not required for this site. Which finally the, your Environment Ministry in Delhi has accepted the Maharashtra government's recommendation that this site doesn't need any kind of forest clearance because there are certain parameters defined that it has to be in depth that much kilometers from all these wildlife and everything. It doesn't fall in that category. It has taken almost around very long time because forest is a multi-layer kind of approval. It's the most stringent approval. It took a long time, and finally we got. We are working on some kind of flow chemistry projects, which will be put at Nagpur. Because of this delay, one particular product which we were to transfer to Nagpur that we are putting it at Aurangabad. That plant is already ordered, so that is not going at your Nagpur, it's going at Aurangabad. Probably it's only in the next financial year something would happen on that. Right now, we are only at your basically drawing board stage, not on it's not finalized any kind of CapEx on that front right now. Sure, sir. Just last one question, sir. This taxes, tax rate that we have guided. I think we are currently at a much higher level than the indicated tax rate levels for the current year. How should we be building that for next year? Since the tax rate now from 18 has moved to 25, because our opting for the that method. Now because of all these judgment of Supreme Court and also last budget revision bar for disallowance of all the promotional costs. That is adding almost around 3%-4% kind of additional tax. Tax rate is likely to be in the range of around 29%-30% kind of range. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Sure, sir. Thank you. Wish you all the best. Thank you. We have the next question on the line of Kunal R from Nuvama. Please go ahead. Hi. Good evening, sir. This testing cost, you know, of the API that you spoke of, is it restricted to sartans or other products also? Is it an ongoing expense? it is not only for sartans, most of the other APIs also, and more or less, that cost is now already, I don't think, going forward, there would be anything of that nature. You see, nitrosamine is one kind of thing which is to be tested for all APIs. All. All APIs, including our antimalarials and everything, all generics, all your formulations and all APIs, everything need to be tested. It's in parts per billion. Somewhere it's, maybe around, 30 parts per billion, somewhere 15 parts per billion. Everything has to be done. It can come from anywhere. It may not be there in your product, but it may come from water, it may come from anywhere. It can come from any kind of excipient which is being used. A lot of validations need to be done and, see to it and, all these numbers has to be filed with regulators. It's a huge amount of work industry has done in last financial year. On API, intermediates, formulations, excipients, everywhere it need to be tested because all the new standards are set. That was a very tough work which industry has done in last year. It's a big. Exactly, sir. Sir, you know, if it, let's say, comes from water also, that means it has to be an ongoing thing, right? Because, I mean. Yes. Testings are going to be ongoing. No, initial testing, method validation, development, that takes lot of time and lot of money. Lot of money and energy. Routine, once it becomes a routine part of your process of testing, then there is not much issue. When you establish, you have to so many components you need to test. Once your final product, finally everything is okay, then only your final product testing. Suppose there are 10 components, then all 10 component need to be tested. From, suppose in final product, let's say it's coming, in the range or lower than that range. It. Subsequently it's only one test. Sure, sir. Sir, maybe, you know, maybe some aspirational guidance. Validation, both are very big subject. Establishing the method of testing, method of, is a very big subject, and then validating that. Right. I assume if all the manufacturers would be going through stringent testing. Yeah, yeah. Everybody has done that. Everybody, every formulation, that's. It's a big exercise. Yeah. Got it. Got it. Sir, maybe some slight, on a slightly longer term, maybe on a two or a three-year kind of a, you know, outlook, maybe some aspirational guidance for generic export and API you would like to share? Like I said, as we have already talked that, we are already talking that from here onwards our API business should double. Formulations we are continuously doing very well in the market. We are growing around 1.5x the market growth. With that, and domestic because with the addition of people and all, we should continuously add to the market share. In last four years we have added significant market share from 1.58%- 1.86%. We will continue to do that. The first time I think in current year we will be crossing I think, ROW market business of around INR 500 crore. At that level we should continue to grow around 15%- 17% on ROW market business. Overall, the growth in time to come is going to be good. Overall we will give the guidelines when our overall budget for the current financial year is finalized and maybe at around the time Q1 results and all our annual results. Around that time we will give the guidance for the next financial year. Understood, sir. Just one follow-up to this. If you talk of API doubling, what would be the main driver? Maybe would it be new products or do you believe there is a lot of headroom for existing ones? Even in the existing products there is lot of headroom. It will be both new product as well as volume growth in the existing products. Plus capacity additions, and new products. Got it, sir. Got it. I assume demand is not a concern for you, it's just some other thing. It is not a concern, no. Got it. Perfect, sir. Thank you and all the best. Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Nikhil from Centrum. Please go ahead. Hello? Hello? Yes, Nikhil. Yes. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. Two questions. sir, like, last quarter, and this was an industry phenomena in API, that the KSM prices were high, but the API prices has fallen. As a result, the profitability in API business has been impacted. Now, during the call you mentioned that the API prices have fallen, but they are not falling anymore. The KSM prices have also fallen, but not falling too much. That is right. Yeah. If we look at the profitability of the API business, Based on the correction in the KSM prices and everything, are we back to the normal profitability or is it the profitability? No, no. Not in the Q3. See what has happened actually, whatever, KSM we purchased at higher prices, they got converted into API, which got sold at a lower price. Yeah. That was going on for last two to three quarters. Maybe some pain will be there in the Q4, but from the next financial year, Q1 onwards, everything should be back to normal. Okay. the net profitability on API should be back to what it was in. I mean, the gross margin on API business will improve. Okay, fine. This the 12% price increase on the NLEM, which we mentioned, is the WPI price increase, which the whole industry will take. Yes. Last question, sir. Like, if we look at last 1.5 years for Ipca, the cost pressures were too significant. Prior to like in around 2021, second half of 2021 and all, we were close to a 24%-25% kind of a EBITDA margin. Then there was a high freight cost and then the API cost increases and the testing increases. All of that had impacted very badly and this quarter was a worst quarter. Do you think from here on, with the cost pressures and everything, getting normalizing on freight and power costs and everything, can we come back to what we were doing at around 24%-25% on a longer period? Not in next 2-3 years, but is the business still able to maintain that 24-25, or do you think it would be a difficult task? The last two years there were also benefit of COVID business, correct? Yeah. Because of that, margins were very good. Having said this, now Mr. Jain has already explained that this year there is a unusual, one is increase in the people. Yeah. Expenses, energy costs, as well as, increase in the material cost. Correct? Correct. These two things are taking away around 5%-6% of my margin. As we progress, our business will grow because of addition of the people. This material cost, whatever 1.5%, 2% negative is there, it will become positive going forward. As the people will become productive, even the other expenses portion where we are today, 4% increase is there, that will also become normalized. Going forward, definitely margin should improve. Yes. Currently, even Dewas plant, let's say all costs are debited to P&L account. There are no business. All costs only because till the time we start filing and getting approval, it's, you know, depreciations and all your people costs, testing costs, all the energy everything is debited to P&L account and there are no top line coming from direct plant. It's only validation mode. It's a one year, one and a half year that pain is there in pharma industry everywhere. Yeah. That is also getting debited to P&L. It's not only people cost, it's also the plant side capacity cost is also adding to the. Overheads, yeah. Overheads, yeah. Okay. Last thing, what would be CapEx guidance for next year, 2024, 2025? Any large CapEx or we would just look at improving the utilization? INR 200 crore is our depreciation, and maybe INR 400 crore-INR 500 crore level will be the total CapEx, including routine maintenance CapEx. Okay. Only new project we have is biotech project, which is coming up in MP, where we have around INR 150 crore kind of investment. That will be commissioned next year because we have almost around five product in pipeline now. Two are on RM, so clinical stage now. We are building the capacity for biotech project. This 500 was cumulative for two years? Yeah, yeah. No, no. It is each year. Okay. Annually. Okay. Thanks. Annually. Thanks. I'll come back. Thank you. We have the next question on line of Prashant M. from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Sir, just extending this discussion on this biotech. What sort of products are you working on? On which kind of. Sorry, sir. Prashar M., your audio is not very clear. If you'd go off the speakerphone or come closer to the mic. Is it better? Kind of. It only muffled. Is it better now? Lot of disturbance, sir. Yeah. I'll come back in the queue maybe. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. We have the next question on line of Dheeresh Pathak from WhiteOak Capital. Please go ahead. Mr. Dheeresh Pathak, can you hear us? Hello, am I audible? Yes, you are now. Please go ahead. Sorry about that. Yeah. Sir, on this Forex loss and gain that you show, what is the underlying nature of the, you know, underlying reason for this? Can you just explain, like which currency is it linked to and which market is this opportunity linked to probably? By and large all these forward contracts, let's say we have today, not much of Forex liability, but we have assets in terms of bills outstanding and all that. Your realizations at lower prices and forwards readjustment is all debited to P&L. If you look at current year. We have realized losses around INR 6.68 crore. Unrealized loss booked in account is around INR 35.22 crore. Overall net loss because of Forex is around INR 41.9 crore. If you look at further breakup of that INR 41.9 crore, there's around INR 10.73 crore is on account of packing credits outstanding which were repriced in the books. Foreign currency loans, your ECB is around INR 10.3 crore. INR 21 crore is on account of loan. INR 20.86 crore is on account of your this balance is, let's say, against the import of materials on outstanding payments. Mm-hmm. Better realization from this. On forward side there is a loss of INR 48 point crore and INR 40 crore is higher realization. Overall INR 20 crore on trade. INR 21 crore on trade account and around INR 21 crore is broadly on loans account. That's more breakup. Sir, on the asset side also we'll be benefiting, right? Because the realization we'll book at the at the higher exchange rate in the revenue line item, right? As I said, the realization higher is INR 40 crore and forward gain loss is INR 48.84 crore. On import side there are around INR 10 crore loss. Overall it's around INR 21 crore is on account of your business transaction and around INR 21 crore is more or less around same level is on account of outstanding loans. Mm-hmm. Okay. Realized loss is INR 6.68 crore. Unrealized loss booked in books is around INR 35.22 crore. we don't create a reserve kind of things that when the contract get me your, contract gets mature and we debit instantly to the P&L account of that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Understood. On this artemisinin did you say that, you will still have loss on the. For last two, three quarters we've been having this, right? Why is it not running? Why is it not rolling over? Because how much inventory do you carry of the KSM then for artemisinin? Artemisinin normally it's a seasonal product. Normally you don't carry the inventory, but you sign contracts. It's a seasonal. Mm-hmm. It comes in the every season you need to do the contract for entire year. Your contracts are at higher price, not that you are carrying inventory at higher price. Those contracts you have to honor. Achha. It's not that you are keeping every inventory in pipeline, because when your agri output comes, around that time you need to do the contract. So that. This particular product, as you know, the price varies. It is agricultural commodity. History is $140-$800. Just imagine. Mm-hmm. The fluctuation in the price of this commodity. This year because of tenders and there was lower procurement from the authority, prices has gone down. There are only three, four manufacturers, and your contract has to be with only with them. Because they are all WHO pre-qualified again, suppliers of artemisinin. Everything comes from China. 95% of that comes from China. Only three, four manufacturers. No, sir, if everybody is having the same higher cost. I am the largest consumer, no? That is the issue. Unless I. What happens that, suppose your procurement price and now open market prices has gone down. Opportunity to procure at a lower level is, you know, suppose you are selling APIs, your, the market would be pricing those API sales at the current artemisinin price. It doesn't happen, doesn't matter as far as your intermediate. Formulation Formulation business is concerned. When you do the API business, yes, it matters because you will do the pricing based on the not my procurement price, but market price and then same pricing. Otherwise you will not be able to sell API. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. Sir, if apart from Artemisinin, the other KSM you carry for like three months? No, no, there are no other KSM. No KSM. No, like you said now, you're explaining that we are carrying higher price KSM and the API price has come down. That is affecting our API gross margin. No, no. That is what happened till Q3 end. As we speak now, there are not many KSM left out now. See from procurement to utilization, there is a time gap, no? Because every stage you have to carry inventory. We are backward integrated. Right from intermediate we manufacture API. That is why our inventory of KSM in few material is higher than average. These all, certain inventories were stuck up, which was at much, much higher price. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. CN was current price. CF $9, it was double the rate earlier. My procurement of those which because of six, eight months, all these issues, approvals and all that, so lot of those inventories are now getting disposed of. Okay. Understood. Thank you so much for clearing. That's the major issue. Okay. Understood. Thank you. Thank you. We have the next question from Saion Mukherjee from Nomura Securities. Please go ahead. Thanks for taking my question. Sir, on EBITDA margin, there has been a lot of volatility in the past. I mean, before the US FDA issues happened, you know, we were at early 20s. Of course it went up last year and now it has come down and you're guiding for 21% next year. What's your assessment from a, let's say 3-5-year perspective, where do you see as the business normalizes, you know, the EBITDA margin you think would sort of settle at? I think, from next year onwards, from next three years, I would see that not significant expansion will happen in field force size and therefore end businesses will improve. Overall margin from that level will further keep on rising, maybe around 1% every year or so. Understood. Okay. Sir, you know, you made a comment around the NLEM 100 odd SKUs which have come under price control or the prices were revised, right? Since the revisions just happened and there's annual impact of INR 70 crores, these WPI increases would be allowed in these products within few months? I mean, this will get negated. I mean, is there a visibility on that? For Sub India. Okay. There's visibility on that. Okay. Yeah, yeah. There's a visibility for that. Yeah. Whatever price on 31st March, whichever product you can increase to that extent, it is simple. Okay. There is no ambiguity. Okay, great. No, there is no ambiguity. Okay. Okay. Okay. sir, on US FDA, we haven't heard much, so I'm just wondering if you, if you have any interactions and why, you know, I mean, where are we on the remediation and, you know, any progress there and why we have not seen much progress on that? From our side, remediation work, everything is complete. We are just awaiting inspection and we are in dialogue with. The office of your GMP inspections. GMP has given in writing that we are nothing. We don't need anything further from you. It's. We have responded into the inspection team. Inspection, when they schedule, it's another team which we are regularly taking, but they don't tell that when they will come for inspection. They have their own priorities and such things. We are certainly in the. Because now there is absolutely nothing is asked by FDA as far as or they don't need anything from our side as far as remediation part and all those issues are things of past. It's only they need to now schedule the inspection, that's all. Okay. That's not done by the GMP department. That's done by the inspection department. We are in touch with them, but we don't know when they will come. They don't tell that when they will schedule. We are sending another reminders to them. When was the last set of queries you had, from the GMP department? I think a year back. A year back. Okay. Final clearance has come six months back. Okay. They don't need anything further from us. Yeah. Okay, understood. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sir, can you also give us, you know, you mentioned about this biotech project, some CapEx you're doing. If you can give some details, what are the products? What is your overall, you know, thought process on this project? I think it's too early. We will not like to talk of products right now. Yeah. These are biosimilar products? What are. Biosimilar. They're all biosimilars. Yeah. You want to do it for the Indian market? Do you have a CDMO plan or? We have taken the developed markets, your consultation from the regulators, and all your clinical trials and everything is going to be in line with that. Indian market, we cannot make money because it has to be for global market. Yeah. You know, typically the costs are very high. If you have to run clinical trials, will that mean, there would be significant increase in R&D investments over the next three, four years as these projects, you know, come to clinics? Each clinical trials may cost around INR 15-20 crore. We have five candidates in pipeline. Overall costs would be going up in time to come. In current year also our spend on biotech will be almost around INR 20-25 crore higher. Mm-hmm. This is R&D expense, INR 20-25 crore? Yeah, R&D expense. Okay. Okay. sorry. Finally, if I can ask, you know, any update you can give on your key subsidiaries, how they're doing, and any, you know, material update there you want to share on the subsidiaries? On subsidiary side, let's say, we have one company called Onyx in UK. They are doing well in UK. It's a good profitable company. This year, there was a significant expansion there on their side. Because of that, I think, their profitability has little come down, but they are profitable company overall. We expect that they should, current year they should be doing almost around GBP 14-15 million one kind of business with around 27% kind of overall EBITDA margins in current year. There is another company which we have is Tropic Wellness. It's a nutraceutical marketing kind of company where we have almost around 55% stake. That company is also doing well. They are also profitable. As far as your the Onyx business extension further in US, we have one small API manufacturing and contract research kind of company in US, small company, at called Cisca. Mm-hmm. Because of this COVID issues and all, our UK team could not do much on that, so. Mm-hmm. we have started getting now projects there and this year they have reduced their losses also significantly. Hopefully in time to come, they should do better. Only concern we have is US market is Dewas, which is front line. We are awaiting that once our FDA gets clear and they get to market our products. Till such time there are because they are right now procuring products from third parties and then selling. That company has losses. Mm-hmm. As far as the, your, another subsidiary, another company, associate company called Krebs, at Nellore and Vizag, they have reduced their losses and I hope, I think, next year that company will come in profit. That's the current developments what we have on our product mix and all currently going on. These are the broad number of subsidiaries what we have. Ramdev is basically it was for again for FDA approved site and that site anyway we are merging with our Prashant Panchal. There are a lot of RCAs, APIs are now under filing from that site. Mm-hmm. That will be another site which is we have a FDA approved site and from there we will then once our formulation facility gets cleared, that also will be sourcing API from that site also. Okay. Okay, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Prakash Agarwal from Axis Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. I'm just trying to understand the margin bridge. I know you talked about it a little, but you are currently at 16%, guiding for 21%. I understand top line will improve marginally. Raw material is something you've been saying that it's not under your control. Those things come from China, et cetera. How do you think, you know, you'll regain to that 20%, 21%, which was pre-COVID levels? I'd say cost, overall gross margins will improve, because my most of the portfolios are outside the price control. It's not 83% of portfolios are price control. More or less there'll be no increase in the promotional cost next year. It will remain more or less at the same kind of your business with promotional costs not going up. It will also add to almost around 2% to the overall margin levels in the business. Gross margin levels itself will improve by around 1%, 1.5% on that. Because KSM prices are soft and this was an very unusual situation in current year. Because of that the cost is higher. The. Your overall your capacity utilization with businesses going up will also increase to the overall operating performance and margins. Your once in the middle of the year, I think overall Dewas, if things start on commercial side, at least some recovery of expenditure will start because currently today all costs are getting debited to P&L account and there are no revenue coming right now because of all validation exercise and filing is currently going on. That will also contribute to the margins. All those factors and there are no more additions of peoples next year, so it's only going to be a wage inflation, whatever addition. With and with the people's productivity increase and all that will also contribute towards the better sales. It will also add to the overall margin. All those factors will add, will go back to that around 21% kind of income margin. If I understood it correct, you are saying that 150 basis points from gross margin coming back to 65% and top line being early teens and then operating leverage cost being lower than early teens, we will see 20%, 21% margin. Is that correct understanding, sir? Yeah, yeah. More or less, yeah. Okay. Secondly, if I see your, you know, emerging market business, ROW, Generics as well as, you know, the export formulation overall, there in the last two, three years, there were a lot of, you know, inventory stocking, et cetera, and that's why the growth has been little volatile, not only for you, but across the pharma companies. Do you think, you know, the inventories and the demand, et cetera, have been normalized and, company like yourself, could come back to at least early teens, if not high teens in both in the overall export formulation market? Yeah, even, let's say even current year, I think my European business is growing by around 20%. It's only the UK business because of. Yes. UK business will also grow from next year because that base will not be there of that, a year back of this also. UK will also grow very well. Other markets are also growing good. This, we should be able to... ROW market will grow faster. APIs, sir? High margin. API, we say that around, next year till the time this, your those capacities from Dewas are available and approvals, only thereafter the business will start moving faster. It should have around 10% kind of growth. Okay. That high base of that sartan, et cetera, is all behind us now. We, on this base we can grow 10%. There are no now those kind of issues on all the, all the impurities and everything else. Whatever work is, was required to be done has been done. Okay. Early teens is good to model in or we should look at mid-teen to high teens as overall growth for the company? I think it should be almost around 13% kind of, 12%-13% kind of overall growth. Right, sir. Okay, lovely. Thank you and all the best, sir. Thank you. That was the last question. I would now like to hand it over to the management for closing comments. Hi. There is nothing further to add unless there are questions. I think we can close this con call. Thank you. Thank you everyone, for participating, in our, Q3 FY 2023 con call. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of DAM Capital Advisors Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Yeah. Thank you.