Torrent Pharmaceuticals Limited (500420) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q3 FY '24 Earnings Conference Call of Torrent Pharma. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sudhir Menon, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director, Finance. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for the third quarter earnings call for FY '24. This quarter highlights a sustained performance in the branded segment, which accounted for 72% this quarter, steady increase in revenues quarter-on-quarter in Germany on the back of incremental tender wins we've had, some of them starting in the next fiscal as well and a stable U.S.-based business. We should see new launches in the U.S. starting from quarter 1 of the next fiscal, which will further help in enhancing the overall company's performance from next year. Our efforts to enhance cost efficiencies are playing out well in the margin improvement. Our operating EBITDA margin, at 31.8%, looks to be the new sustainable base going from here. During the quarter, the exceptional items of INR 88 crores related to the net gain from the sale of liquid facility in the U.S., which was impaired during the earlier years. In terms of key financial performance indicators for quarter 3, revenues were INR 2,732 crores, up by 10% Y-o-Y. Operating EBITDA for the quarter is INR 869 crores, up by 20% Y-o-Y. Operating EBITDA margin stood at 31.8%. Other income includes ForEx translation losses of INR 35 crores likely to get reversed in the coming quarters. The Board has approved an interim dividend of INR 22 per equity share. The overall leverage, which is net debt to EBITDA now stands at 0.88x. I'll now hand over the call to Aman for India business.

Thanks, Sudhir. India revenue at INR 1,415 crores, registered a growth of 12%. As per the AIOCD data set, IPM growth for the quarter was at 9%. Our growth was driven by new launches, performance of top brands and focused therapies and positive traction of the Consumer Health business. The Curatio business is now fully in the base, as the acquisition was done in October 2022. Torrent remains #1 amongst the generic players in the Sitagliptin market, clocking over INR 100 crores sales on a MAT basis as per this quarter. The Consumer Health division is progressing well, aided by new channel activations and increase in distribution into new accounts. We continue to see robust growth in our flagship brand, Shelcal-500, supported by the impact of the national media campaign initiated towards the end of the last quarter. We would also want to point out that brands that have switched to the consumer division, such as Shelcal and Tedibar, may not be fully reflected in the AIOCD data set because they have a different distribution channel, hence the actual growth may be higher than what is reflected in the data. At the end of the quarter, Torrent has 20 brands in the top 500 of the IPM, with 16 brands more than INR 100 crores sales as of MAT December 2023. Field force strength at the end of the quarter stands at 5,700. We expect the India business to continue outperforming the market growth. Our focus during the rest of the year will continue to improve our market share in focused therapies, improving new launch performance, improving field force productivity in the expanded divisions and regions and continue to scale up of the Consumer Health portfolio. I'll now hand over to Sanjay Gupta for the international business.

Thanks, Aman. Let's begin with Brazil. In Q3, constant currency revenue was BRL 185 million, registering a 17% year-on-year growth. Growth is supported by new launch momentum and a robust pricing environment. We've had a consistent pace of launches. 4 brands were launched in '21, 4 in '22 and 3 again in calendar year '23. Going forward, we intend to maintain 3 to 5 branded launches per year. As per IQVIA, market growth is at 6.5% for Q3 and Torrent's growth is at 11.6%. Expansion of field force in CNS has been completed. In Brazil, now we have 3 sales teams, 2 in CNS and 1 in cardio, diabetes. Total number of reps is 318. This will enable us to expand our reach and support new product launches. In Q3, our generic business in Brazil has continued to deliver and represents about 14% of overall revenue. We sell 24 molecules and are seeking to add between 5 to 10 each year. Currently, we have 15 products awaiting ANVISA approval. Moving on to Germany. Our German business has registered a constant currency revenue of EUR 30 million, up by 5% (sic) [ 6% ]. During the quarter, we won incremental new tenders, which will start delivering incremental sales in Q2 of '24-'25. Since 3 quarters, we had an overall increase in the value of wins. This results in a large part due to our cost-optimization efforts. We are also experiencing better conversion of existing tenders, that is our share in 3-player wins has increased. Year-to-date, we have launched 7 products -- 7 molecules. Next few years, we will continue to launch 10 or more products a year. Our overall share in the German generic market has reached a new 2-year high of 5.7% in Q3. In the U.S., we registered constant currency revenues of USD 33 million, down by 7%. Sequentially, we have seen a 10% growth in revenues backed by new contracts. New product launches, as mentioned by Sudhir, will start from Q1 of FY '25, and this should fuel the growth going forward. We expect about 7 to 8 launches in the next fiscal years. To conclude, our focus will remain on deepening our presence in branded generic market, while continuing to grow in Germany and returning to profitable growth in the U.S. Michelle, we can open the call to questions now, please.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Tushar Manudhane from Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

Now am I audible?

Please proceed.

Sir, just on the gross margin front, sequentially, where the India sales has been pretty stable, even Brazil sales have improved, but the gross margin has dipped. So any particular reason you would want to call out?

So Tushar, it's actually the U.S. sales has gone up by almost 3 million, I would say. So what's played out is although there is this gross margin going down by 0.5%, it's actually led to an improvement in the operating leverage and thereby improving the overall EBITDA margins, I would say. So it's basically the mix, which has caused the dip by 0.5%.

Got it. In Brazil, at least the last 2 years, fourth quarter has been much stronger than the earlier 3 quarters. So would that be a similar phenomenon this time as well?

Tushar, I would guide you to what IQVIA is showing us right now is that the market is at about 6.5%, and Torrent is about 12%. I think that's a much better indicator than primary sales on a quarter-to-quarter basis because in Brazil sales vary -- invoice sales vary on a quarterly basis. So I would say that we are looking at double-digit growth in Brazil, and we'll see what it gives in Q4.

So double-digit growth on a year-on-year basis, right, on the Q4...

Correct, correct. In line with what you we see in IQVIA.

Okay. And even on Germany side, the tenders which we had won in the past, where the revenue was supposed to be coming in the fourth quarter. So from that perspective, Germany also would be looking better in the coming quarter?

So this quarter, we touched 30. And generally, we should keep seeing a trend upwards direction in the next 3 quarters.

And just one last on any regulatory update on Indrad?

No, we are still pending inspection.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Damayanti from HSBC.

Sir, when you said 31% kind of margin looks a sustainable base going ahead, so can you talk about the headroom improvement which might be available for Curatio. Are you broadly done with the improvement margin, which you are targeting, that's why like we might be looking more at the sustainable margins? Or like you have more room to improve there?

Yes. I think Curatio margins have improved versus the last quarter, I would say. So there is an improvement, which is continuing for Curatio portfolio. But I think what I can guide you from here is look at India business as one portfolio. And the 2 levers, which I keep on talking about plays out every year, which is the margin improvement because of price increase and operating leverage because of the incremental growth coming in. That should continue playing out for the next year as well.

Okay. And any expectation or any assumption about the volume part of the market, which you might be building in right now for next year or so?

So talking about the India market, the quarter data was, for the market, about 9% growth. This, I'm talking AIOCD, which was 1% volume, rest was new products and price. As against the 1% volume growth, we have done 3.5% volume growth and 4.1% of new products. So new products maybe should start tapering down over the next few quarters, but that would then start converting to the volume growth. We sense that this similar level of growth should continue in the next coming quarters.

Okay. Somewhere like 3% to 4% kind of volume growth, you are comfortable?

That's right.

Okay. And my second question is on like status of supply ramp-up from Dahej. So although like we have seen a sequential improvement, like minor improvement in the U.S. sales, but like how are supplies picking up from Dahej? And what are you focusing on?

So I think Dahej capacity is kind of -- we worked on realigning the capacity to bring in more cost efficiency, I would say. So it's some balancing which we have done in terms of picking up some high-volume products out of Dahej and taking it to CMO, so that's something which has happened. And the capacities now, which are available at Dahej, are good enough to take care of the new launches and the products which are shifting from Indrad to Dahej, I would say.

So in coming quarters, it should definitely move up from this 33 million sales, which we have seen for the quarter?

So what we said is quarter 1 of next year, we should start seeing the new products coming in and then we should see an uptick happening from here.

Okay. So first quarter next? Okay. My next question is on Brazil business. So generic now, you said, moved up to 14% of total segment sales. So can you talk a bit about like your launch plan for both the branded generic part as well as the generic part? And what will be your priorities for Brazil segment in next, say, 2 years or so?

No, it's 14%. Yes, not -- so 1-4.

14, yes.

Yes, yes, correct. So essentially, we think both businesses present a good opportunity for Torrent. On the BG side, so far, we are limited to CNS, cardio and diabetes. And we are 3 teams, so our goal is to launch about 6 products -- ideally 5 to 6 products a year because brand launch requires heavy lifting. So a good rhythm is 1 brand per team every 6 months. So that would be the focus and it would be the focus in our current therapeutic areas. And over a period of time, we're looking at adding additional therapeutic areas like dermatology, oncology. So we would add those in due course. We are in the process of building the portfolio to do that. So that would be the focus of the BG business. On the generic side, we are agnostic as to which therapeutic areas. So ideally, we should launch about 10 products a year. And currently, we are selling 24 molecules. And we think there is plenty of room -- headroom available for growth in the GG business also. We don't need to expand the team further. So we have sales team of about 12 people for generics, and I think that's good enough for us for quite a while. So there is, I would say, room for operating leverage in the GG business and we would be looking to expand our portfolio and increase our share in the molecules which we sell.

Okay. One just last point on Brazil business. So right now, you have the BG portfolio, GS portfolio and do you have presence in tender market also? Or it's not there anymore?

No, we've discontinued that business a few quarters ago.

The next question is from the line of Neha Manpuria from the BoFA Securities.

On the India business, Aman, how much would be trade generic and the consumer health care piece be of the total India business? I'm just trying to understand how much growth we're seeing in the actual branded generic business versus these new areas that we have been trying to grow over the last few years?

So trade generics would be maybe 2%, 3%, I think, total of the base, which is growing at about 25% to 30% depending on the quarter of seasonality. That kind of growth -- that level of growth in trade generics, we see, to be continuing for the next 1 or 2 years, and we aim to kind of make this a meaningful business over a 3- to 5-year period with reasonable profitability. So the focus has been on selecting products, which are higher gross margin compared to the more commoditized products. So that's why, though there are many more SKUs that can be launched, we'd rather focus on ramping up profitably. In terms of consumer, it's -- we're not looking at it separately because the brands are also part of the subscription business. But just to recap, we only have 4 brands that are in the consumer channel right now, which is Shelcal-500, Tedibar, Unienzyme and Ahaglow. So the reflection will be in the prescription portfolio, but the investments in marketing will be on the consumer side business.

Okay. Got it. So basically to have more national ads, et cetera, like you had for Shelcal?

That's right. That's right.

Got it. And we are seeing a lot of our peers obviously trying to expand into the chronic segment, it's much talked about by everyone, particularly in markets that Torrent is very strong in. In that context, how do we see ourselves trying to maintain our market share or even maintain this 3% to 4% volume growth that you have talked about? How do I balance the fact that there is increased competition, there are new players trying to get in as well as Torrent trying to protect its market share and at the same time, maintaining margins?

So a number of factors would be at play here. One is obviously focusing as much as possible on new launch performance, which our track record over the last 2 years has been very strong and above the IPM growth of new products. So if you can get that right in as many products as you can, it kind of makes up for any volume loss in a product that's maybe going on a decline. So our focus has been to ensure that new product launch performance is the maximum possible. That may be by way of field force expansion or further divisionalization. And our focus therapies, they will remain the same in which we are currently looking at, which is diabetes, cardiac, gastro, VMN and pain. So in these segments, we remain fairly confident that our pipeline is robust and field force expansion, which has now been ongoing for the last 18 to 24 months, does give us enough headroom to continue the above market volume growth for the foreseeable coming quarters.

So you don't see the need to add more MR to the 5,500 number that we have in place to keep the growth momentum in the India business?

No. So we have already added a significant number of MRs in the last 1.5 years. Now it should be more incremental. We think maybe 200 to 300 reps per year could be kind of a base level. And depending on any new product that comes up, it could be slightly higher, but nothing as much as we've done in the past 2 years, for sure.

Understood. And I know you don't want to talk about Curatio separately. So if I were to just say the entire portfolio that we have acquired, the pediatric derma portfolio, initially, we were very strong in south and west. And the idea was to take -- make it's more pan-India. If you could give us some color in terms of what's the doctor coverage we've been able to achieve since it's been a year. How much more do you think there is to go in that? And now that you've moved Tedibar to the consumer health care, is there any other brands that we can look at or brand extensions that we can look at on the acquired portfolio?

So we have done both. We have also added doctor coverage in Curatio and also merged some divisions. So it's a factor of both. So that's how we've been able to get the lot of cost synergies in the last 1 year as well. So doctor coverage, I would say, has increased by maybe 20%, 25% for pediatricians and dermatologists. And it's still not 100%. So we will be planning to increase it in the next year or so. In terms of the regional growth, we have been able to further strengthen the strength areas, which is the south and part of west regions. So we are seeing accelerated growth in almost all the top brands here, led by Tedibar, followed by Atogla, which is a lotion, there is creams. So this basket of baby skin care products has kind of really accelerated in the strength regions. And the weaker areas, we're seeing some improvement, but still it's nowhere close to the growth that we're seeing in the south, for example. And we think that over time, this should gradually increase. So as of now, we would say that focus is on strengthening the core while gradually expanding in other regions. And efficiency has almost been achieved to an optimal level, I would say. So number of divisions have been reduced from 6 to 3. And now we'll gradually improve the number of MRs possibly in the next 6 to 9 months.

Got it. Last question, if I may. Sudhir, now that we are less than 1x net debt-to-EBITDA and a lot of the noise around M&A has gone away, should I think about Torrent looking at more deals like we have done in the past in the India business?

I really don't know -- I really don't know how to answer that, Neha. But I think as of now, there's nothing on the plate, I can tell you that.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Shyam Srinivasan from Goldman Sachs.

Just the first question on the overall India industry growth, right? It's -- if you look at any data source, it's been trending down, right? Like you said, your press release calls out about 9% growth for IPM, right? I know we're growing faster 200 to 300 bps like we've guided, but just want to understand -- and it seems to emanate more from volume growth, which you are better. So just trying to understand what's happening from an industry standpoint and what we are doing differently to increase our volumes?

The industry growth, you're right, there has been not very predictable in the data set that comes out. There's fluctuations both in -- in both the data sets. But I guess if you look at it on an annualized basis, it still might give a more accurate picture than a quarterly basis. We think that the market growth has more or less stabilized now. If you recall, earlier part of the year, there was acute season that was low, and that's why those reductions, but then that was made up subsequently. So our belief is that if we are growing at this 12% range, the market has to be in the range of at least 7% to 9%. And structurally, we don't see that changing any time in the near future. As to how our growth has been above the market growth in terms of volume, essentially just going back to new launch performance, particularly in the chronic space and the field force expansion that has been taken in the last 2 years.

Got it. Helpful. I don't know whether I got the MR number, right? It's 5,700, right? Or is it 5,500, sorry?

No, 5,700. We've added a few MRs, but also we've merged a few divisions, so net number is 5,700.

Got it. And on top of this, on an annual basis, you plan to add 200 MRs?

No concrete number yet, but you can expect that possibly by the end of the year, maybe 300 can be added.

Understood. And any commentary on the productivity of the field force? Where does it stand right now? And is there any aspirations of where we want to reach?

Yes. So pre-expansion and pre-Curatio, we had crossed the 10 lakh number. Right now, obviously, we have dropped because of the number of reps added. I think we are right now in the range of 8.5 to 9, somewhere in between that. And aspiration remains that we want to go back to the 10 lakh level as well, which should be possible by the growth in the business and now more stabilization in number of MRs.

Helpful. Second question is on the U.S. business. Just looking at the commentary that growth will start from 1Q, where are we on -- in terms of price erosion? Are we -- because of the lack of launches, are we still seeing higher side of price erosion?

I would say we are seeing a low single-digit price erosion right now.

Okay. And what is the prognosis here? Do we think that this remains? And once the launches start, you'll start seeing like high single-digit value growth you think, for next year? How should we look at U.S. business next year?

I will not make a sales forecast because honestly, we have about 7 to 8 launches in the next 12 months. But the sales, that will come, will depend upon the level of competition so -- of which I currently don't want to project as to how many players will show up at what time. So we'll see, but the momentum and the direction should be upward.

And I think in the opening remarks, there was a comment about profitable growth in the sense that in the U.S. So if we reach the kind of scale that you're talking about, when you in profitability, what are we referring to?

We are referring to positive operating profits before R&D, correct...

EBITDA before R&D -- yes, pre-R&D EBITDA? Okay. Understand. And where is that now? Like it's negative, I get it. But how far...

So it's kind of breakeven, I would say, at this point. So we need to start good things happening.

Got it. And last question on, again, sustainable margin. I thought it was not 31, right? 31.8 is the number for the quarter 3. So it's 32 then should be what we should assume as a base going forward?

Correct, correct, Shyam. That's what I meant, yes.

[Operator Instructions] We'll take the next question from the line of Rashmi Shetty from Dolat Capital.

Sir, what will be the R&D guidance now in FY '25-'26 since the U.S. business will be picking up?

I think it should be around 5 to 5.5 for the next year and maybe for FY '26, between 5.5 to 6, maybe, I think so.

Okay. And sir, just all the businesses on cash now, U.S., Brazil, Germany and even India and the base level is now -- of EBITDA margin is around 31.8%. Are we targeting that annually every year? We should improve at least your margin by 50 to 100 basis points?

That's right, yes.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Nitin Agarwal from DAM Capital.

I have a question on Brazil. Brazil, on the macro market growth, it seems to have picked up a bit. What do you sense, what has really driven the improvement in the underlying market growth? And what is the sense and how does it play out here from here on?

So I said multiple times, Brazil is, intrinsically, a market quite similar to India. There's a lot of unmet need, and it should be a double-digit growth market. And it is 2 factors -- I would say 3 factors. One is there's a high level of products going off patent. So that leads to volume growth in the branded generic segment because while the patent is on, the volumes are kind of muted. And as you take product off patent, the volumes tend to increase quite dramatically. Secondly, Brazil is a positive pricing country. Every year, we get price increases in April. Usually in the past year, it's between 5% and 10%. So I would expect like on average to be 5% price increases available to us. So volume growth, new product launches and pricing should give you a market, which grows high single digit, double digit. So that is the reason.

And in terms of our own plans for the market, apart from launches in the 3 categories we are -- therapies we present right now, I mean, is there a plan to add some more therapies as we go along?

Correct. So we're working on the portfolio. So because of the reps involved, you need, I would say, a decent sized basket before you start the promotional team in the new therapeutic area. So we are building that -- specifically, we've been building over the last couple of years in dermatology and some point we pull the trigger and start a derma field force.

Okay. And secondly, on the ROW market, as they are ex-Germany markets, which are there, anything -- you want to call out any markets where we made reasonable progress over the last few quarters and what is looking promising going forward?

So actually, we -- so there's 2 markets that we don't speak about where we have made decent progress. So one is on the generic generics, we've had good traction in the U.K. So U.K. is right now trending more like GBP 25 million a year. So it's a good momentum market. And from the base that we have, we see positive momentum. Secondly, we don't speak in the branded generic size about a market like Mexico. So Mexico currently for us is trending again in the same ballpark, about $22 million to $24 million a year, growing at roughly 30%. It's a specialty CNS company that we have. And next year, we will have about close to 70 sales reps in Mexico, and it should continue to do well. We are the second-largest Indian players in Mexico, and we should be attaining #1 down the line.

Sir, if I just go back to Brazil, in terms of size in Brazil, what is the size in the branded generics market in terms of size of the company which are there?

We are by far the largest Indian company. And if you rank all pharma companies in Brazil, Torrent's rank is #20.

This is including the innovators?

Yes, yes, yes. All.

And how has this changed over the last 3 years or so in terms of rank #20?

I think about -- like if I remember about 5 years ago, it was 27, 28. And then last year, it was 22. And now it's 20 -- currently running at 20.

Okay. And like the way we understood Indian market, I mean, this is a business where as long as the revenue growth coming in, it's business continues -- leads to continuous margin improvement as we go forward?

Mr. Menon will comment upon it. Is Brazil also market where it needs to continuous margin improvement...

Absolutely, Nitin. I think what's positively playing out for Brazil now is it's reached a particular scale, right? And the expansion, which we did some 18 months back with better growth coming in Brazil, the operating leverage will be much better than what we see in India, I would say, because the fixed costs are comparatively very high in Brazil compared to India. So that story is playing quite well, I would say.

Okay. So just taking off from there, Sudhir, you are saying there is a serious positive operating leverage in Brazil. And I guess, U.S. with the scale that we start to get, incrementally whatever growth we get, we should get some positive leverage coming from there also. Overall, these 2 should be further positive factors from a margin expansion perspective as you go forward?

Absolutely, absolutely. So at least U.S. is not going to be negative on the overall margin improvement story which continues every year. So I think more positive play is happening for the next year.

Perfect. And Aman, in terms of India, how are you looking at the new launch landscape for the next, say, 4 to 5 quarters? Are there some interesting opportunities which are there?

Yes. In the next 6 quarters, there are a few interesting opportunities. One is in the chronic space, one is in the sub-chronic space. This will be more like the day one patent expiration launch. So we expect number of players on the same day. But our recent track record gives us confidence that we should be in a leadership position in these launches. These are the 2 big ones. There will be some smaller kind of extensions and combination launches that we'll be also looking at in addition to this.

Since you mentioned that, on Sitagliptin, you referred that in your conversation, what has worked for us in your assessment in Sitagliptin? It's a reasonably competitive market.

Difficult to pinpoint 1 or 2 single factors, but I think overall, probably the expansion that we have undertaken because the biggest number of MRs that we added was in the chronic, cardio and diabetes divisions. That seems to have played out for us.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Tushar Manudhane from Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

Am I audible?

Yes.

Sir, just this breakup of this ROW and contract manufacturing sales, if you could share?

Yes. Tushar, I don't have it right now. Can I share you after the call?

Sure, sir. And secondly, just on the India market again, like the in-licensing of products, any thoughts on pursuing that as a strategy, given that we have such a strong presence on the chronic side?

Yes. So in the last 12 to 15 months, we already have signed 2 licensing deals, one was in November, which was the latest one. We continue to explore many opportunities mostly in the chronic space. So we do hope that this run rate of licensing deals should continue. It is becoming more and more of a kind of lower number of pipeline opportunities, but we still think there is a lot left in terms of newer treatments that are available. So we probably would think that one licensing deal per year in a chronic segment is something that we can target.

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Sanjay Gupta, Executive Director of International Business for closing comments. Over to you, sir.

Thank you, Michelle. Thank you for attending today's call. I think we can stop here. Thank you.

Thank you, members of the management. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Torrent Pharma, that concludes this conference. We thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.