Aurobindo eyes acquisitions, targets $2 bn revenue

City based-drug maker Aurobindo Pharma Ltd is eyeing overseas and domestic acquisitions to achieve a $2 billion turnover by 2014, a top executive of the company said.

Aurobindo Pharma Chairman P V Ramaparasad Reddy said the company may lose $40 million in revenues due to the ongoing import ban issued by the US Food and Drug Administration on production from the company's Unit-VI facility.

The company board recently appointed a restructuring committee to examine if the company needs to be restructured and its businesses spun off or demerged into separate formulations and bulk actives companies.

The exercise is aimed at focused and accelerated growth.

"We expect the committee report by this month-end," Reddy said.

"One of the options that is being evaluated subsequent to the possible spin-off is to acquire a few companies in the CRAMS (contract research and manufacturing services) space in the overseas market for the bulk actives business.

"The size of the companies will be $100 million to $200 million, with a strong customer base," he added.

Reddy said another proposal under consideration by the company is to acquire a city-based branded formulations marketing company.

Though he did not disclose the name of the company, Reddy said Aurobindo will acquire the formulations company once its revenues reach Rs 100 crore from the present Rs 70 crore.

In recent years, Aurobindo has acquired UK-based generic formulations firm Milpharm, Sandoz's unit at Dayton, in New Jersey, and Netherlands-based generic pharma company Jonghoud International BV.

Replying to a question on deals with Pfizer and Astra Zeneca, Reddy said the company expects revenues from these tie-ups to go up to $400-450 million by 2014 from the present $70 million.

Commenting on the USFDA import ban, Reddy said the company may suffer a revenue loss of $40 million on account of the ban.

"The Q1 (of FY'12) revenues may not as much as 15% as expected. However, we managed to show some growth quarter=on-quarter (Q-o-Q). The growth will be in the range of 2 to 3% on a Q-o-Q basis," Reddy hinted on the yet-to-be-announced Q1 results.

According to him, it will take another six months to get the FDA issues sorted out at Unit-6.