Blue Jet Healthcare Ltd (NSE: BLUEJET) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Jan. 29, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Shiven Arora — Director
Vimalendu Kumar Singh — Chief Operating Officer
Ganesh Karuppannan — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Advait Bhadekar — Analyst
Sanjesh Jain — Analyst
Kunal Dhamesha — Analyst
Sudarshan Padmanabhan — Analyst
Meet Katrodiya — Analyst
Bansi Desai — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Alankar Garude — Analyst
Harsh Bhatia — Analyst
Darshan Engineer — Analyst
Aditya Chheda — Analyst
Yash Gandhi — Analyst
Amish Kanani — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to BlueJet Healthcare Q3 and Nine Months FY ’25 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I now hand the conference over to Mr Aduit from ENY. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Advait Bhadekar — Analyst
Thank you, Sagar. Good evening, and a warm welcome everyone to the Q3 and nine M FY ’25 earnings call of BlueJet Healthcare Limited. Please note, investor presentation and the financial results are available on the company website and the stock exchanges. Also, anything said on this call, which reflects our outlook for the future or which could be construed as a forward-looking statement must be reviewed in conjunction with the risks that the company faces. The conference call is being recorded and the transcript along with the audio of the same will be made available on the website of the company as well as on the exchanges.
Please also note that the audio of the conference call is the copyright material of Healthcare Limited and cannot be copied, rebroadcasted or attributed in press or media without any specific and written consent of the company. From the management, we have with us Mr Arora, Managing Director; Mr Vike Singh, Chief Operating Officer; Mr Ganesh Karupanan, Chief Financial Officer; and Mr Sanjay Sina, Deputy Chief Financial Officer. Now I would request Mr Arora, Managing Director of Blujat Healthcare Limited to provide you with the updates for the quarter and nine months ended 31st December 2024. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Shiven Arora — Director
Good evening, everyone, and a warm welcome to our Q3 FY ’25 earnings call. We are pleased to report a record-breaking quarter, reflecting our strong execution capabilities and growth momentum. On operational performance, we delivered revenue of INR3,184 million INR and a PAT of 990 million, marking the highest-ever profit for the quarter in the company’s history. This performance is a reassurance of the step-up growth that we had communicated earlier.
The growth this quarter was primarily driven by our new capacity additions in Unit 2. Capacity expansions, as you may recall, we had announced additions in June 2024, and I’m happy to share that we were able to fully operationalize the facility in Q3. This expansion has played a key role in our strong performance and we believe we can sustainably add production levels on the current customer offtake. Additionally, we had earlier communicated about another capacity addition in December 2024 in Unit 2, which was more focused towards contrast media.
I am pleased to confirm that commercial production has commenced and we expect to optimize capacity utilizations by H1 2026. R&D initiatives, recognizing the critical role of innovation in our future growth. We have decided to invest INR40 crores towards R&D. This investment will focus on developing advanced intermediates, expanding our contrast media portfolio and enhancing our capabilities towards high-value CDMO projects. We believe this strategic commitment to R&D will reinforce our leadership position and accelerate product pipeline expansion in the coming years.
Order book and business outlook. Our contract manufacturing order book remains robust and near-term forecasts indicate a strong sustained performance. We continue to see a healthy customer offtake across all key segments, reinforcing confidence in our future growth trajectory. With successful capacity expansions, strong demand visibility and ongoing investments in innovations, we are confident of delivering sustained growth in the coming quarters. With that, I now hand over the call to Mr VK Singh. Thank you.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh — Chief Operating Officer
Hi, good evening, everyone. Am I audible?
Operator
Yes, sir, loud and clear.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh — Chief Operating Officer
Okay. Thank you for joining the call, all of you. We continue to debottleneck and add new capacity to keep in step with the growth that we envision. Our capacities are often co-engineered and built-to-suit to support our go-to-market that is largely innovator oriented. We also build capacity to complete backward integration, which is a stated goal for cost leadership and strategic independence. As also mentioned in the last call, we had said that we are going to expand or add more capacity in Unit 2. We have done this in two phases. In Phase-1, we added 120 KL capacity. And in Phase-2, we added another 37 KL capacity. The capacity that we had added in Phase-1 is now on-stream, producing the cardiovascular intermediate optimally.
The capacity that we added in Phase-2 has also gone live and we are happy to announce that the validation batches for the contrast media intermediate have been successfully completed and the first quantities have been shipped to the customer. Our current capex cycle for Unit 2 is mostly in step with what we had indicated in the past and is also synchronized with the customer lock-in and supply contracts. Moving to Unit-3 at Mahad, at this site, we were creating a build-to-suit capacity for backward integration for contrast media. The common utilities at the site are nearing completion but we have redesigned the process.
We have some good data and proof-of-concept for a continuous process which we will tech transfer and commercialize. This change when implemented shall deliver higher and more consistent quality, be safer and have a lower physical and carbon footprint. We have also added some more products to that site, given the requirements that we have from our customers. We expect to go-live now in H2 FY ’26. As mentioned in his opening remarks, the company has shown robust growth and industry-leading financial ratios. The growth is an outcome of new product launches.
These launches are based on complex chemistries and multi-step synthesis, often requiring custom-built suites. For consistency in homogeneity, these newly built suites have a very-high level of automation. The CDMO business globally is witnessing two clear tailwinds. One, increasing product offerings from small and mid-sized VC-funded biotechs; and two, new discoveries in targeted therapies like GLP-1s. The company is building capability to capitalize on both. New labs are being designed, as mentioned, that will focus on new technologies, both for a bino acid derivatives that will act as a regulated building block for NCEs in the GLP-1 space and dedicated CDMO labs for a quick turnaround of RFPs for advanced intermediates for late-stage NCEs for the smaller biotechs, which are mostly virtual companies.
Due to the changing legislative environment like the Biosecure Act and the IRA, there will be a migratory trend for business to geographies other than China, to be closer to our clients and to tailor our proposals to their need and ensure a faster turnaround of RFPs, the company has onboarded a very senior resource-based in Europe. We are a company in the growth phase as operations expand, it is very critical to improve operational efficiency. We have therefore created a very strong team for operational excellence. In the past 18 months, we had doubled our R&D hardware and talent pool.
We are now in undertaking a second very significant expansion. Strengthening the R&D talent pool, strengthening the project team and creating this new department on process excellence, all these initiatives are getting reflected in the increase in our HR cost. On sustainability, as we have always maintained that we between our windmills and solar, we have created capability to produce — to use renewable source energy up to 70% to 75% of our total energy requirement. We are also taking lot of initiatives for having green chemistries on our sites by using atom efficiency. With this, I pass it on to my colleague Ganesh, to take you through the financials.
Ganesh Karuppannan — Chief Financial Officer
Good evening. We have uploaded Q3 financial performance in our website for your reference. I’ll be providing certain key financial indicators for you to understand better about our results. Our reported sales at INR3,184 million for Q3 ’25 is higher by 53% quarter-over-quarter and 91% year-over-year. Our EBITDA at INR1,240 million for the current quarter is higher by 79% quarter-over-quarter and 127% year-over-year. Our PAT at INR990 million is higher by 70% quarter-over-quarter and 208% year-over-year. For the nine months ended December ’24, we reported a revenue from operations of $606,895 million, up by 31% year-over-year.
Our EBITDA for the nine-month period at INR2,378 million is higher by 35% year-over-year. Our reported PAT for the nine months period at INR1,951 million is up by 57% year-over-year. For the nine-month period, our Contrast Media segment reported a turnover of 3,028 million. There is roughly a degrowth of 17%. We had highlighted customer offtake in the last few quarters for reasons beyond our control. And our production for — our production for the NCE molecule has started from the new production block in this quarter and we expect the new advanced intermediate to go-live in Q1 of ’26.
With these additions, we believe we will be in a position to sustain the growth. Our pharmaceutical intermediate category reported a turnover of INR2,663 million, up by 352% year-over-year. As informed by Shivan and Vikay, we were able to optimize the new capacity. Based on the order book, we believe we can actually like sustain similar growth in the coming years. Saccharine category grew by 10% to 1,038 million. Gross margin for the nine months at 55% dropped by 2%. This is due to the change in the product mix. You can appreciate now pharmaceutical intermediate share has actually gone up and we are also witnessing a stable raw-material prices in the last few quarters and we don’t see any significant variance out of raw-material prices.
While the EBITDA for quarter one for quarter three is at 39% of sales, for the nine-month period, it is 34.5%. The step-up growth in Q3 has impacted positively on the operational leverage for the quarter. On sustaining similar level of turnover in the coming quarters, we believe we can benefit from operational leverage, improving the EBITDA margin on an annual basis. Profit-after-tax is at 28.3% for nine-month period, driven by sales growth, expansion in EBITDA margin and change in the depreciation method. Our working capital for the nine months increased by 1,200 million, million predominantly due to increase in inventory to produce pharmaceutical intermediate. This increase will be optimized over a period of time.
During the nine-month period, we have capitalized production capacities amounting to 1,000 million. Apart from this, we have spent around 620 million and we hope to spend an additional 1,500 million on the existing projects mostly in. As mentioned, we will also be investing around 400 million in R&D, which is slated in FY ’26. Our total investments, cash and bank balance put together is at $3,313 million, marginally down by $210 million compared to September. The increase in working capital has been funded by internal accruals. With this, I actually open the call for question-answers.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities. Please go-ahead.
Sanjesh Jain
Yeah, hi, good evening. Thanks for giving me this opportunity. A few questions from my side. First on the pharmaceutical intermediate side, a very strong number and I think this is entirely coming from cardiovascular product. Have we reached the full utilization for the capacity? So we added what — we have now total capacity of, 140, 150 metric ton per annum. Are we running that full capacity? If first, then sequentially this number should remain stable.
And the second question is, is this entire offtake is for building the channel inventory and all? So when we say sustainable number, how are we getting confidence that this entire full capacity utilization will run for next few years? And when is this product expected to go out of patent regime? These are the three on this particular product.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Hi, Sanjesh. Welcome to the call. I think it’s a very good question that you ask. See, the installed capacity or the design capacity of the plant is much more than what you have indicated. Okay. And that was intentional, because you know everything about the product was very positive. Initial label updation and then the label expansion in US and then the label expansion in Europe and then the Phase-3 data of Japan and settlement with Sankyo. So we have enough headroom.
But to answer your question, I would say that today, I think the plant is being run optimally as you could see from the numbers also. And given the offtake, I mean if you look at the published data that I think quarter-on-quarter the prescription increase for the product, I mean the retail — the RPE, the retail prescription equivalent for the product on the US market is about 15% quarter-on-quarter. So annually, you can say that the molecule is growing by more than 50% and that is just US. For Europe, the growth numbers not so easily available, but then are supposed to be even better.
The Anchor market being the German market. So I think as far as the molecule is doing, it is doing very well. And we believe that it will bring a lot of consistency in our number also. Your third-part, which is about the patent. So the initial patent expiry was in 2026, but then there was a patent term extension given granted for the molecule. So in the US, I think it is 2031. In Europe, you get an additional marketing exclusivity. So I think it will go to 2032. So I think till that point of time, we are protected from generic competition in this — in this molecule.
Sanjesh Jain
Yeah. That’s pretty clear. Very, very helpful and very detailed one. Second on the contract in India, last quarter, Seven, you mentioned that the two products for the new customer in the contract India, we were expecting one to go-live in December and second in the quarter of March. It appears to be there is some delay in the first and any update on the second one?
Shiven Arora
The update on the second one, this is the current quarter. I would refrain from telling around that. But at the same time, the one which was done in December for the NCE molecule, that is running smoothly and we will reach optimal utilization levels from both the products in H1 ’26.
Sanjesh Jain
You’re expecting the other product also to go-live in next quarter or that is more of an FY ’26.
Shiven Arora
In the immediate quarters.
Sanjesh Jain
In the immediate quarter. So both the products will go-live in the immediate product. And we have that kind of capacity right now. I understand we have built 47 KL capacity, but for both the products to go-live, do we have the capacity space?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Yes. So the capacity built-up for a dedicated line for the NC molecule, this is a fresh capacity. But the other molecule towards the ironated side of contrast media, we had built-up capacities well in advance maybe 18 months ago. So that — that also we are very much covered because these are long-term arrangements and we’ve been really looking-forward to this offtake.
Sanjesh Jain
Got it, got it. And the next question is on the future pipeline. Now that all these contracts which were in the progress are closing to completely commercialize, how should we look beyond this product?
Ganesh Karuppannan
Firstly, there would be an increased offtake in the existing product-line with these new launches. From a short to medium-term focus, this would be our key focus area. But at the same time there are other intermediates under validations which could be which could fuel the future growth.
Sanjesh Jain
Any number you want to share how many are in the process of validation, how many are in the process of development you are also committing a large sum into the R&D. How is that going to aid it?
Shiven Arora
Yeah. It’s a — it’s a fairly encouraging number, but it would be under CDA right now would be — would not be possible for me to share. But it’s exciting enough for us.
Sanjesh Jain
Got it. One last question, this is a bookkeeping question. I’ll just finish it up. So the total — the revenue sequentially has gone up by more than 50%. While the cost line has remained stable, only increase of 1%, can you help us understand where in the cost are we benefiting not even the freight cost or power cost getting captured in the other expenses? Was there any one-off or anything in this quarter?
Ganesh Karuppannan
Not exactly. Like there is a mark, like if you say look at it as a percentage of sale, salaries would be at a lower percentage. But absolute numbers have marginally gone up. So we have built-up team for expansions and new capacities. So that impact is marginally there. In terms of other expense, if you look at the first-nine months, the previous quarter, we did have a certain impact on freight. For this quarter, most of the sale is ex-works. So we didn’t have any implication on the freight on account of freight.
Sanjesh Jain
Telling freight is captured in the previous quarters already and there is no getting captured in the.
Ganesh Karuppannan
So this year, this quarter we don’t have a significant impact on account of that. We are getting leverage — operational leverage. But the real issue is, if you look at the Q3 EBITDA, this is close to 39%, okay. If you just look at the standalone Q3 and if you look at the year-to-date number, it is 34.5%. The impact is because of the first two quarters. I think we should have sustained levels of activities based on Q3. But when you do that in that fashion, we should expect an EBITDA of in excess of 35% 37%.
Sanjesh Jain
So we are increasing the guidance from 30% to 3% to 35% 37% for revenue.
Ganesh Karuppannan
I’m just indicating when the operational leverage, so it is not there technically it should go up. Mathematically, if you look at it, it should actually grow.
Sanjesh Jain
But from the guidance perspective, we still maintain or we want to increase the margin expectation.
Ganesh Karuppannan
We don’t want to give any guidance at this stage because we also have the new R&D coming in and we need to actually like make an assessment on how the operating costs are going to be for FY ’26.
Sanjesh Jain
Very clear. Thanks. Thanks all of you for answering the questions very patiently and best of luck for the coming quarters.
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Kunal Tamesha from Macquarie. Please go-ahead.Hi, thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on great set of numbers. First one on the pharmaceutical intermediate, while you said that the capacity is at optimum level, but you also have said there is a caveat that know there is an opportunity there or capacity. So is that incremental capacity from 120 KL additional? Is it a function of putting more equipment while you have the manufacturing suite ready how should we think about it and how can how fast it can be added?
Ganesh Karuppannan
So you know there are three ways of increasing capacity. One is better utilization, the second is debottlenecking. The third is adding more equipment or putting up more capacity. I think when I say that we are not still operating at design or installed capacity. It is because we at the outset built more capacity. Now so there is headroom to go up, right? If there is further demand, then we have an opportunity to debottleneck in that plant. It’s a dedicated plant and therefore, we’ll have an opportunity to debottleneck. But we will not need to add more reactors. We don’t see the demand go up so high that we have to add more equipment.
Kunal Dhamesha
And if I need this 120 KL capacity, how much does it translate in terms of metric tons annually?
Ganesh Karuppannan
I will not have write-off right away, but we normally don’t go to that level also.
Kunal Dhamesha
So because what I understood is yield improvement could be one, then debottlenecking and then more reactor you said you are not going to add it.
Ganesh Karuppannan
So if you are, if you are talking about — when I said debottlenecking, that is just sometimes changing the bat charging frequency, sometimes improving the cycle times and sometimes increasing just the bat size. So there are many, many ways of debottlenecking, if that was what your question was.
Kunal Dhamesha
Sure. So I get the gist and for the NCE on the contrast media side, again, the 37 KL and then my question remains the same, how much does it translate to in terms of metric ton of whatever processes we are following, whatever current yield we are getting or expected to get, let’s say, for next one year.
Shiven Arora
I mean again the same answer, we would be difficult to go down to the metric ton level, but these are long-term projects protected space. So I think we typically take a five to seven-year view when it comes to designing capacities and execution timelines.
Kunal Dhamesha
So this — let’s say, 37 KL, what is your expectation that this gets utilized fully? Is it next two quarters or longer horizon?
Shiven Arora
It should be a slightly longer horizon. But in general, the acceptance of the end molecule is very encouraging. So we believe that it could be a sustained growth over the next few years.
Kunal Dhamesha
Okay. And you suggested the last one from my side, you suggested R&D, you are setting up R&D or with roughly INR40 crores expense in FY ’26. What is that number currently in FY ’25? So what’s the delta that we are looking at or delta itself is 44.
Ganesh Karuppannan
The INR40 crore is going to be more on equipment. It’s more of a capex, okay. It is — the operating expense would be in the range of expectation would be around INR10 crore to INR12 crores. The current number is somewhere close to INR5 crores to INR6 crores.
Kunal Dhamesha
So it’s going to double from here. Yeah. I have more questions. I’ll join back. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from Sudarshan Patmanawan from JM Financial PMS. Please go-ahead.
Sudarshan Padmanabhan
Thank you for taking my question and congrats on great set of numbers. Sir, my question is to dwell a little deeper on your R&D. Now that we are spending more on the equipment as well as the absolute expense as well. And also can I know taking your earlier statement on GLP ones. If my understanding is correct, GLP-1 requires a fair amount of the complex chemistry around the peptide chemistry. So would it be right to assume that a fair amount of incremental capabilities that you’re building would largely be towards you know a specific GLP-1 or a group of GLP-1, if you can elaborate a little bit more about what are we trying to enhance our capability on that?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
So this — the whole idea of augmenting our R&D capability is to have new chemistry platforms. The company has built on chemistry platforms. And when you talk of you know complexity, then of course, what we do today is also — has got a lot of complexity. We are — the company is in the business of building blocks. And there also as far as GLP, one is concerned, we will be giving advanced intermediates for the GLP-1 products where the volume is higher and we benefit from patent protection while one of the labs that we are putting up could be working on peptides but that’s something which is you know still far away so if that was your question that we are going to work on the final peptide, no, that’s not the idea today.
We’ll be working on advanced intermediates for these peptide products. So you could say that we are working on myo acid derivatives.
Ganesh Karuppannan
I think just to add-on to that, I think the new infrastructure, I think in terms of utilizations or dedicating our R&D resources will be one-fourth towards this segment. But of course, there are other platform — platforms which Mr Vique indicated where we could add more value to the business?
Sudarshan Padmanabhan
Sure. And as far as runway of growth from this platform is concerned, you know, should we assume that probably the commercial offtake would be in the near-term or the medium-term order will come from? See, I’m a little bit on this, primarily ones are very large, it’s an opportunity. And we know the funnel basically percolates to all the people who have capabilities.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
So I would say that you know we are working on several opportunities. Some of them are for products which are already commercial and on the market — on the market, although still under patent. Some of them in Phase-3 and some of them are in earlier phases, Phase-1 and Phase-2. So very difficult to make this assessment. I think nobody will be able to do it even the innovators that we are working with will not be able to do it. But I would — I think I would — it would suffice to say that, you know, we are working on several opportunities and in a staggered way, they’ll keep getting commercialized.
Sudarshan Padmanabhan
And one final question before I join back the queue is on the contrast media side. One, of course, is the molecules which you had said would primarily start from the 4th-quarter. But also there was some capacity expansion, which was expected from our clients and I just wanted to check if that is something that would incrementally benefit of — I know additional to you know the commercialization of the molecules in the supply that we talked about.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
So I think we’ll have to wait-and-watch on that aspect. Broadly, the indicators are positive.
Sudarshan Padmanabhan
Thanks a lot. I’ll jump back. Yeah.
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Meet Katrodia from Niveshai. Please go-ahead.
Meet Katrodiya
Yeah. Congratulation team for the very good set of numbers. So my question was on the side of API. So what could be the bottom-line to get the SPI on for even larger quantities, right? So we are seeing the traction which is facing is very good. So can we — what would be the bottlenecks to get even more larger quantities?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
I think we are very, very happy with the current offtake. The whole idea is towards the right execution. From the time we had put the production line active, we’ve been able to scale-up immediately. So it’s a good success story for us as a company. Broader indicator for the end molecule are as are very encouraging as you indicated. So we just have to be focused on execution and let’s see where it takes us.
Ganesh Karuppannan
But also this handy from the last two, three years, pharma API segment is doing very good, right? So going-forward on which segment we are focusing more like contract media, what are the plans of ours, like contract media will be the next growth drivers or we are focusing — focusing more on the pharma side. So pharma will be the next driver, what we are focusing on.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
So the whole idea of having three or four verticals is that we have a diversified portfolio. So it’s — so two years back, we had a lot of questions that PI, API segment was subscale. Now it has scaled-up very well. Mentioned about two new launches on the Contrast media side. Once that happens, you’ll see higher-growth there. So in a CDMO business, each time — which was a part of my narrative also, each time we launch a product, there is a step-up growth. There is a quantum jump that we get-in both revenue and profitability. So I think let’s just wait-and-watch and see how the story unfolds. But all that I would say is that we have a very decent pipeline in all three of our verticals. B
Meet Katrodiya
But also on the side of let’s say they are also one competitor from the India, which is supplying experience, right? So how are we better placed as compared to them? So if the experient wants to allocate or bifurcate the quantities between two players, what right do we have or we do have any additional capabilities or capacities or what could be the winning capability for us to win the orders?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
As far as we are concerned, we have long-term orders and I don’t know if I know about the competition or even if I would, I don’t think it’s fair to comment on that on this call, but all that we can say is that we have very good business visibility and we have orders in-hand. Hand and I think the product is doing extremely well. The supply-chain is extremely well-oiled. So I think it’s a good business that we are tracking.
Meet Katrodiya
Okay. Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from Bansi Desai from JPMorgan. Please go-ahead.
Bansi Desai
Yeah, hi, thanks and congratulations for a good set of numbers. My first question is again on Contrast — on Contrast media. So we have couple of launches ahead of us. You also mentioned about sustained growth here. So are we talking about more high single-digit kind of growth or are we saying that there is a possibility of step-function increase also in media space?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
We are actually — we will be launching this product shortly. And we need to await customer response for a higher offer. So like today, I will not be in a position to immediately share anything. We need to.
Bansi Desai
But over a two, three-year period, do we believe that this business can see a step increase in revenue? If we were to forward integrate on any of those products?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Yeah. No, there would be a very-high conviction around that, very, very-high, yes.
Bansi Desai
Okay. And the second is that on bempedoic acid, what could be your sense in terms of the market opportunity ex of US or would it be as big all markets put together, say Europe, Japan, in your assessment?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
See, see if if you know the how should I say if the benchmark is statins, then I would say that the opportunity outside of US is even bigger so but then you know, it all — it depends a lot upon the brand company, how it’s promoting the product but I think it’s a huge opportunity. The molecule is on its way to become a blockbuster. And you have just pointed out the right markets. The US is of course, big, Europe is even bigger and Japan will be a very credible market. But interestingly, the growth of this product is very good in Latin-America also. If you see the numbers, it’s that the Latin-American markets are small, but then the growth is phenomenal.
Bansi Desai
Yeah. But in terms of pricing, you know, it would be disproportionately high in US, right? So I’m just thinking in terms of value, would US be 50% of the overall market or higher, lower.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Usually the thumb-rule is right what you said, but I have personally not seen the non-US numbers. But then they — you can track them through perhaps the royalty payments to Espirion, but I would not have data on what the non-US numbers are. Honestly, I have not yet. But also I know is that the molecule is doing very well as far as prescriptions are concerned.
Bansi Desai
Yeah, yeah, that is seen in IQVI. And so here, again, I mean we would be the supplying ultimately to Daichi, right, because Daichi is doing the entire manufacturing even for the US market for.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
I mean that’s not the specific names. We are under CDA in some conditions. But yeah, is one of the partner which is promoting this.
Bansi Desai
Yeah. Okay. And just on this product, we are doing almost a run-rate of INR145 crores on — in pharma intermediate, I’m assuming a large part of it would be your CBS product. But to think about it, if this product is going to grow, say, 12%, 15% on prescriptions in US quarter-over-quarter. and I’m assuming you mentioned the growth is higher in other geographies. Should we assume the realizations to remain stable here because protection is also kind of a long here. So how should we think about realizations while your volumes could continue to grow quarter-over-quarter.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
You haven’t received any indications of any recalibrations as of now. We’ll keep you all updated if there is any.
Bansi Desai
Okay. Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from Pujar Rathi from Lucky Investment Private Limited. Please go-ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi, sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I’m a doctor myself. I work for Lucky Investment. So I actually wanted to speak about Contrast Media and the — like about the Iodination, etc., the product itself. So what I wanted to understand is, in contrast media, there are three, four various use, right, like IoD and barium,, etc. So are we only going to focus on IOD? Or are we going to also get into the other forms of contract idea? That’s my first question. How much is — and how much would Iodine be as a percentage share of the entire contrast media market?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Iodine is about 76% of the overall contrast media market followed by which is around 22%. This is for MRI scans. Since the early 2000s our focus was ironated space, but in the past five to six years, we’ve also added a pipeline and product portfolio on the MRI side of molecules as well.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And you mentioned you’ll want to do backward integration for contrast maybe on the call. So how would you all go about doing the same and what are any plans or any pipeline for the same?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
So we are majorly backward integrated on this space. So that’s why we have a cost and a quality leadership in some of our key candidates but there was one missing link which was which we were importing a particular raw-material. That would be manufactured at one of our sites in the short-to-medium term.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And with respect to the market for this contrast media, most of it, would it require a heavy regulation and most of it would be exported to the US markets only or globally? Is that correct?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Yeah, we are at the intermediate stage, advanced intermediate stage. Majority part of the regulatory burden would be at our customers’ end, but I think we also face cruise very a lot of scrutiny around the quality parameters as well, even at the intermediate stage, which is very unusual. But having said that, it’s a high dosage injectables, so quality plays a very big role at every stage.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. So any future or you won’t be able to discuss that. Someone already asked a question, so I just thought I’ll add-on to the same about this future plan potential list, et-cetera. But I think you’ve already answered the questions of the other people.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Thanks for your questions. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Alankar Garude from Kotak Institutional Equities. Please go-ahead.
Alankar Garude
Thank you for the opportunity and congrats on the great numbers. Firstly, on the cardiovascular product, you spoke about the plant being run optimally. On the other hand, you also spoke about the opportunity growing prescriptions. Even the innovator sales are growing at a pretty fast pace. So in that context, will just debottlenecking suffers to cater to that incremental demand won’t be run-out of capacity soon? So just wanted to understand the constraining factor here.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
No, there will be — as far as capacity is concerned, there is no constraining factor. The way the plant has been designed, there’s lot of flexibility.
Alankar Garude
So any color, Vikay, sir, in terms of percentage expansion in our supply — in our dispatches, which can happen with those changes which you are alluding to? That would be helpful.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
See, dispatches will depend upon the orders that we have today. We are moving based upon the orders that we have in-hand. But I would suffice to say that even if we have to double capacity, we can as far as capacity is concerned. This is not any guidance or indication of what the run-rate for the molecule would be. But then if it comes to, you know, debottlenecking capacity, we can double capacity.
Alankar Garude
That is just why debottlenecking?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Yes.
Alankar Garude
Okay. So basically, there is no reason to believe that growth in this product could be more measured just because of a capacity constraint? No. No. Fair enough. That’s helpful. Secondly, how should we look at traction for our flagship existing — existing contrast media product? Are the supply issues which we had spoken about in the previous two, 3/4 sorted? And how is our market-share trending? Is it stable?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
I think it’s very stable and robust right now. I think all these issues that we’ve discussed in the past have been partially resolved.
Alankar Garude
So in that context, Shivan, how should we look at the growth for this product more closer to the overall contrast media market growth of 78%.
Shiven Arora
Yeah, broader market growth of the contrast agents, I think that could be a benchmark for this particular candidate. But the key things to focus on would be the two new launches for the overall segment contribution?
Alankar Garude
Understood. Yeah, that’s it from my side. Thank you.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Thank you.
Operator
Thanks. Thank you. The next question comes from Harsh Bhatia from Bandgan Mutual Funds. Please go-ahead.
Harsh Bhatia
Yeah. Thank you. Am I audible? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just one clarification. You mentioned, this may be a little bit early for you to comment on. But again, just going back to the peptide opportunities, you made a passing statement that would sort of include both commercial as well as molecules which are in clinical stages. Is that the right way to think about it?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Yeah. Yes, you could say that, yes.
Harsh Bhatia
Sure. And just one in terms of clarification for this advanced intermediates for the sales. But again, little bit early to ask, but this would also sort of mean that you would be taking the synthetic route or the fermentation route for the process or because you are very early in the process, it might not make any difference. I’m just trying to like sort of get my thought process.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
So just to give you some background when it comes to the fragments of amino acids as a company, we’ve been doing R&D for the past four to five years. And the evolution is ongoing. And we have some inroads with our key customers and we submitted RFQs. So I think it’s — as a CDMO business, it’s majorly customer-driven and from a development standpoint, we have decent capabilities, but we are adding more to strengthen our position. But then you know, coming to your question on fermentation, that is involved at the amino acid stage. So we are not doing that. We’ll be doing the stages after that. So we are not setting up any fermentation capacity as of now.
Harsh Bhatia
Sure. Thank you. All the best.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from Darshan Engineer from ValueQuest. Please go-ahead.
Darshan Engineer
Good evening, sir. First of all, congratulations for a great set of numbers. I hope you’re able to hear me. Yeah. Yeah. So sir, I just wanted to understand in the past, we have seen that for some of the key products in pharma intermediates relating to cardiovascular. We have seen in other companies as well as shows that the volumes and the growth is more — I mean I would say or it happens with and then there are months of lunch that happened. So would it be fair to say that the strong growth that you have seen in Q3 would be more of a — I would say the one-off and should not be extrapolated in the coming quarters because a lot of this volumes that you may dispatch would be used by the client for a period of time in the coming quarters and therefore the next order come maybe a few months down the line or maybe in. So I just want to understand the sustainability of the Q3 run-rate as far as pharma intermediates business is concerned.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Based on the current order book and customer forecast short-to-medium term, it is pretty encouraging for us and we should be in a position to sustain similar margins or growth.
Darshan Engineer
No, I understand the margins are a function of the strong sales that you reported, but what I’m trying to get a hand is on the volume sustainability in the upcoming quarters for this specific product? And is it — I mean, would this be the new normal in a way that the Q3 volume or the run-rate that we are seeing for specific product, would that be the new novel or would this be a more like an elevated quarter and therefore, maybe the sustainable volumes can be steady at a lower level, but I mean more smooth throughout the year is what I’m trying to understand.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
I mentioned that short-to-medium term-based on customer feedback, it is pretty encouraging for us.
Darshan Engineer
It’s not going to be okay, sir. Sure, sure. Okay, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from Aditya Chheda from InCred Asset Management. Please go-ahead.
Aditya Chheda
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Congrats on a blockbuster quarter. My question is on the sweetness segment. It’s more of a trend question where we’ve heard that saturing is getting replaced by Sukra in the overall scheme of things. If you can comment about how your product is sort of placed in the overall market-share in the sweetener market and if that trend has changed in the recent past or how it’s going on right now?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Yeah. I you know has been on the market for 150 years. So this was invented 150 years back. I think it’s the most stable product both in chemistry and demand. And so close is doing extremely well, but I don’t see saccharine getting replaced by. And the segment that we are in, which is — which is the FMCG segment or the pharma segment, very niche segment, there is a lot of stickiness of business. So I mean, I would say that over the last five, six years, we have not lost any customer. So I don’t foresee any existential threat for the product as such. I mean, there will be competition, so there’s lot of competition from China, but we are in a different segment right.
Aditya Chheda
Right. And my next question is an extension of the previous one. It is noticed in the past that the margins in the development phase are usually higher for a product, but they tend to normalize over a period as the volumes are further ramped-up. So is there an element of higher-margin in the initial supplies that we have made in the pharma intermediate space? And are we expecting any normalization of those in the medium to longer-term? Yeah, these were my questions. Thanks.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
So two points I will make here. One is that if you see the complexion of business, the entire business that we have, we are not really in a generic space. Although there are no patents in contrast media that there also there is no generic competition at this point of time. So we don’t see the type of price erosion that perhaps you are talking about. The second is what already mentioned as far as PI is concerned that we have no indication of any recalibration happening in the near-future. So I don’t think we are you know, price erosion is not a threat at this point of time.
Aditya Chheda
Got it, sir. That’s it from my end. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from Kunal Damesha from Macquarie. Please go-ahead.
Kunal Dhamesha
Hi, thank you for the opportunity again. Just wanted to understand the peptide piece a little bit more. So you are saying that we are more like offering building blocks at this point. So is it more like a dipeptide — tripeptide stage with the fair way to understand.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
So right now you know we are not developing or supplying peptides. Right now the first businesses that will happen when they happen. I don’t wish to give any timeline or guidance for that, but they will be for intermediates for peptide products. Eventually, if, as you know, as an aspiration, if you will ask, then we would like to be in the peptide space for which, as mentioned, we are building capabilities today. Now whether that happens two years from now or three years from now, that’s something that even we will wait-and-watch. But this is clearly an opportunity and we have — we are building capabilities to be able to tap that opportunity.
Kunal Dhamesha
And does it require specialized type of equipment or can be done in the normal API reactors that we have for small molecules?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
It will be type of equipment. It is a relatively smaller volume, high-value type of business and as we advance we will build capabilities which are compatible for that.
Kunal Dhamesha
Thank you. Sure, thank you and all the best. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Yash from Stallion Asset. Please go-ahead.
Yash Gandhi
Hi, thank you for the opportunity. So in your Pharma Intermediate segment, I wanted to understand, so are you the only supplier from India for the product.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
We are a primary supplier for sure. But I don’t have any.
Yash Gandhi
Okay, okay. And so these contracts are fixed margin, like if there’s any changes in your raw-material API prices? Will you have to then sort of negotiate or are they sort of fixed margin contracts?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
I think we are covered by, but now that I think Ganesh already mentioned that the margins are sustainable.
Yash Gandhi
Okay, okay. Okay. Okay. That was it. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from Pratik Chaudhary from Capital. Please go-ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hello. Am I audible, sir?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Yeah.
Unidentified Participant
So with many growth levers building up for us, as you mentioned GLP one advanced intermediates for biotech companies and even others in our other segments. Would you want to revise your capex guidance for the next three years till FY ’28? Because earlier you had talked about a INR200 crore kind of a number for FY ’25 and ’26, where given these significant areas that we are lunturing into, would that be a much higher number annually till FY ’28?
Shiven Arora
We don’t give guidance on the financial performance now. But on the absolute capex number, we are — we are working on the drawing board from a long-term perspective. I think we’ll give you visibility in the in the coming quarters. Yes, your observation is absolutely right. But specifics we can share in the near-future.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from Amina Amish Kanani from Investment Managers. Please go-ahead.
Amish Kanani
Yeah, hi, sir. Sir, you know, in terms of am I audible?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Yes, yes.
Amish Kanani
Yeah. So sir, the question is, you did mention about order book. Some color of your.
Operator
We are losing your audio.
Amish Kanani
I’ll just change.
Operator
Your voice is breaking.
Amish Kanani
Yes, is it better?
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
Yeah.
Amish Kanani
Sir, the question is order book. If you can give us some flavor there in terms of visibility, is it few quarters or in terms of value, how do you look at? And is it in API, the new vertical or also some flavor on the new two new products that we have launched on the Contrast media side? If you can give us some total addressable market opportunity in that side. Thank you.
Vimalendu Kumar Singh
We don’t give guidance on order book. Based on the current trend, we believe numbers are quite encouraging. Short-to-medium term, the numbers are encouraging. So is it possible to share some number at current pipeline versus, say, six months back or something, which gives us some color of probable growth rate that can come. We are not looking at the numbers range of some, you know, if you look at our investor presentations, the numbers are there. You can actually check the last four quarters and yourself.
Amish Kanani
Okay. Okay. You’re saying okay. Thank you, sir and all the best.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we would take that as our last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Shiven Arora
Thank you. On behalf of the management, I thank all the participants and thank you for being active in this entire conversation. Thank you.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]