Profit before tax fell 27.1% YoY to Rs 107.27 crore in Q4 FY24.

EBITDA fell 10% to Rs 259 crore in Q4 FY24 from Rs 287 crore posted in Q4 FY23.EBITDA margin reduced by 280 bps to 18% in Q4 FY24 as against 20.8% in Q4 FY23.

Research and development (R&D) spends reported at Rs 69 crore and around 4.8% of revenues; Higher spends over last year partly due to additional spend towards CGT space.

The pharma company’s formulation business grew 9% to Rs 430 crore in the quarter ended 31 March 2024 as compared with Rs 393 crore in the quarter ended 31 March 2023.

Income from API business jumped 4% YoY to Rs 745 crore, supported from growth across franchise despite continuing pricing pressure in other APIs segment. As on 31 March 2024, the company has filed 342 patents out of that 228 patents granted. Cumulative DMFs filings stood at 83.

In Q4 FY24, CDMO-Synthesis business reported revenue of Rs 236 crore, up 4% YoY. Bio-transformation & Continuous Flow platform witnessed strong customer interest driven by rising complexity, faster time to market further fueled by increasing sustainability pressure.

Revenue from Laurus Bio division tumbled 37% YoY to Rs 29 crore, mainly transitionary in nature due to customer order cyclicality.

Meanwhile, the company’s board has declared a dividend of Rs 0.40 per share of face value of Rs 2 each for financial year 2023-2024. It has fixed 8 May 2024 as record date for determining the eligibility of the shareholders. The dividend amount will be paid on or after 17 May 2024.

Satyanarayana Chava , founder and chief executive officer, said, “Laurus core results reflects continued resilience across our business divisions despite discontinuation of Covid related products purchase orders. We delivered underlying revenue growth of 9% driven by strong performance in FDF, CDMO, Onco API and Bio division.

In the CDMO space, we are delivering on multiple RFPs involving higher chemical complexity and scale with increased customer engagement focusing on several sustainable technology platforms. Our on-going innovative CGT investment continue to report significant updates for the period under review, especially successful NexCAR19 commercial launch in India to treat cancers

We are entering FY25 with solid foundation and remain committed to grow by focusing on R&D led commercial excellence. We are prioritizing efforts to improve margin, particularly increasing asset utilization across network and delivering late phase commercial opportunity.”

V.V. Ravi Kumar, executive director & chief financial officer, said, “Overall FY24 reported operating result was challenging driven by selling price decline in ARV products, absence of large PO, and continued OPEX on growth projects/new initiatives. We achieved Rs 5,041 crore in revenues, representing 17% decline. Excluding the large PO the underlying growth was 9% over last year.

Gross margin was 51.7% and EBITDA at Rs 798 crore resulting in 15.8% margin. The EBIDTA margin for the Q4FY24 is at 18.0% and reflecting sequential improvement. Despite operational challenges, our committed capacity built-up is on track and continuing our focus on productivity improvement. Going ahead, we are fully focusing on gradually returning to growth, prioritising investments in high value segments, improving Net debt leverage while defining our strategic roadmap to ensure long-term profitable and sustainable growth.”

Laurus Labs is a fully integrated pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, with a leadership position in generic active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and a major focus on anti-retroviral, oncology drugs, cardiovascular, gastro and hepatitis C therapeutics. The company also develops and manufactures oral solid formulations, provide contract research and manufacturing services (CRAMS) to global pharma companies.