CDMO revenues to touch $1.2 bn by FY30: Piramal Pharma chairperson

Says that their growth is led by innovation related work

Contract Development and Manufacturing (CDMO) player Piramal Pharma posted a 12.5 per cent growth in revenues in the third quarter of financial year 2025 (Q3FY25). The net profit, however, fell by 63.6 per cent. Speaking to Sohini Das from the US, Nandini Piramal, chairperson Piramal Pharma said that their growth is led by innovation related work. She says that CDMO revenues will touch $1.2 billion by FY30. Edited excerpts.

 

Do you see the CDMO business to continue strong double digits in coming quarters?

 

We have set a target to double our CDMO revenues to $1.2billion by FY30, implying early-to-mid teens CAGR revenue growth over the next five years. Guiding for quarterly or annual revenue growth is difficult in CDMO business, given the timing and lumpiness in customer orders. However, our efforts would be to grow at an early-to-mid teen rate every year. We will see growth in the US. We have capacities there. Due to geopolitical uncertainties, some may choose to manufacture there. We are better at serving the USFDA customers. We do some supplies for domestic customers in India.

 

Why has the share seen some selling pressure in the past few days?

 

We cannot comment on share price movement which is purely driven by demand supply forces in the market. However, in the recent past, there has been large selling in the overall market, especially the mid and small cap shares. As far as our performance in FY25 is concerned, we have delivered in-line with our full year guidance of early teen growth in revenues and Ebitda for full year FY25.

  Your comments on the drop in profits in Q3.

 

There is cyclicality in our business where a large part of our full year PAT comes in Q4. This year the trend will be the same. So as per our guidance, FY25 full year PAT is expected to be significantly higher than FY24 full year PAT. Also in our long term guidance till FY30, we expect our PAT to grow significantly faster than our revenue or Ebitda growth. Customers at times want deliveries in Q4, and the plant is busy making these products, but the sales cannot be booked until the deliveries happen.

 

In India consumer business, how are the non-power brands doing in terms of revenue growth? What are the plans?

 

Non-power brands are growing at a slower pace, amidst the general consumer market slowdown which is being witnessed in the market. Our larger focus is on building our power brands which has been growing at over 20 per cent CAGR in the last 4 years and now contribute about 48 per cent to our consumer business sales.

 

E-commerce sales grew over 40 per cent in India consumer business. What share will e-commerce have in ICH sales from 20% currently?

 

We expect e-commerce to be an important driver of consumer sales going forward as well. However, focus would also be to improve the profitability of e-commerce channels through mix of pricing and product mix. We are also exploring new channels such as quick-commerce, super markets, hyper markets, etc. Further we are also looking to expand our distribution network in rural areas and non-chemist channels.

 

Will you be looking to divest the i-range (i-Pill etc) which now is under pricing control?

 

Currently no plans to divest i-range. It is one of our power brands and we are focused on growing it.

 

What trends are emerging in the CDMO space in global markets? Any proposals for GLP-1 drug manufacturing?

 

In terms of trends for the global CDMO market … for one, customers continue their efforts to diversify their supply chain and reduce their dependence on one country (especially China). Secondly, Biotech Funding environment is gradually improving with interest rate cuts announced by FED and other major banks which should help funding for mid-size biotech companies to advance their innovation pipelines, and thirdly, customer decision making to select their preferred CDMO continues to be prolonged which is leading to higher lead time between inquiries and those inquiries getting converted to final orders. Moreover, demand for differentiated offerings such as High Potent APIs, Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADC), Peptides, Sterile injectable, on-patent API development remains encouraging.

 

On the GLP-1, we do have capabilities for peptides and are working on GLP-1. However, at this point of time, nothing material to report on that. We make vials for injectables, and not pre-filled syringes. We may look at it at the second phase of our expansion. There are ongoing projects both in the US and India, which start coming onstream from next financial year (like Pithampore).

 

How do you plan to raise market share in the complex hospital generics (CHG) business where you already have market leadership in many products?

 

We would look to defend our market leading position in the US. Additionally, growth would also come from entering new markets (Europe, Asia, ROW) and launching new differentiated products (mainly injectable products) which can be sold in the hospitals leveraging our existing field force and relationship with over 6,000 hospitals across the world. We have done some capacity expansion here (Gujarat and Telangana), and the benefits will come in the next financial year.