 "Nandini Piramal, chairperson Piramal Pharma")
After it posted a 12 per cent revenue growth for the financial year 2024-25 (FY25), Piramal Pharma (PPL) expects single-digit growth in the current financial year with a muted Ebitda. The company has presence across contract development and manufacturing, complex hospital generics as well as consumer health business in India.
Speaking to Business Standard, Chairperson of PPL Nandini Piramal said FY26 was set to be a ‘muted year’ owing to a lot of uncertainties and it was important to watch out for macro factors like trade deals and tariff environments. PPL posted a 12 per cent rise in revenues to ₹9,151 crore in FY25. The contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) business grew by 15 per cent, while the complex hospital generics business grew by 8 per cent and the India consumer health business posted 11 per cent growth in FY25.
“There is a little bit of uncertainty and we see single digit revenue growth for overall PPL and a muted Ebitda,” she said.
After US President Donald Trump began tariff negotiations with major economies and issued an executive order aimed at boosting American domestic drug manufacturing, several drug companies have promised billions of dollars of investments in the US
Since the election of Trump, multinational drug majors like Roche, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly have announced investments. Some reports peg the amount to be around $150 bn. In April, Swiss company Roche said that it will be investing $50bn over the next five years.
PPL has seen a 50 per cent growth in on-patent commercial manufacturing revenues in FY25 to $179 mn compared to $116 mn in FY24 and $53 mn in FY23.
Several of PPL’s clients are global players. If the players focus on manufacturing on their own in the US, it could be a dampener for PPL.
“Some companies will decide to make it on their own, but others will go to CDMOs. It is a large market, and people are waiting for clarity to make decisions,” said Piramal, adding that requests for proposals (RFPs) have grown overall.
“We have seen that people are trying to understand what would be the cost if they had to move production (to the US). Until there is clarity, no one would take the final call,” she said.
PPL has a network across the US, UK, and India. Piramal said that once uncertainties subside, they have the capacities and capabilities to deliver across geographies. Moreover, PPL has had a good regulatory track-record – it cleared 36 regulatory inspections and 165 customer audits in FY25 without any major observation.
It also has low-mid teens sourcing of ingredients from China, a factor that can work in its favour as the Trump administration has asked for reporting the source of active pharmaceutical ingredients.
It will be investing $100-125 mn into capacity expansion, debottlenecking and smaller capex in FY26. It has seen growth in its antibody drug conjugates portfolio, for sterile fill-finish capabilities and also peptides.
As for the India consumer business, which hired a former P&G veteran as its new CEO Sai Ramana Ponugoti in January, PPL is eyeing to double revenues from a current ₹1,000 crore by 2030. “We reached the ₹1,000 crore milestone for this business in FY25, and we will continue to focus on scale and profitability. We will continue to double down on our power brands like Little’s, I-range which can grow in high-teens,” Piramal said, adding that PPL would also expand distribution network beyond chemist-channel and e-commerce to quick-commerce, modern trade, super-stockists for general kirana stores, standalone super markets.
