Laurus Labs Limited (LAURUSLABS) Q4 FY23 Earnings Concall Transcript

Laurus Labs Limited (NSE:LAURUSLABS) Q4 FY23 Earnings Concall dated Apr. 27, 2023.

Corporate Participants:

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Analysts:

Monish Shah — Antique Stock Broking Limited — Analyst

Ravi Agarwal — Agarwal Investment — Analyst

Madhav Marda — Fidelity International — Analyst

Nishant Shah — Emkay Global — Analyst

Harith Ahamed — Avendus Spark — Analyst

Bino Pathiparampil — InCred Capital — Analyst

Jeevan Patwa — Sahasrar Capital — Analyst

Tushar Manudhane — Motilal Oswal Financial Services — Analyst

Gaurav Singhal — Aspex Management Hong Kong Limited — Analyst

Bharat — Quest for Value Capitals — Analyst

Neha Agarwal — SageOne Investment Managers — Analyst

Arun — Nuvama — Analyst

Saurabh Kapadia — Sundaram Mutual Fund — Analyst

Yasser Lakdawala — M3 Investment Private Limited — Analyst

Ratish Varier — Sundaram Mutual Fund — Analyst

Presentation:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Laurus Labs Limited Q4 and Full-Year FY ’23 Earnings Conference Call hosted by Antique Stock Broking Limited. [Operator Instructions]

I now hand the conference over to Mr. Monish Shah from Antique Stock Broking. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Monish Shah — Antique Stock Broking Limited — Analyst

Thank you, Dhovin. Good evening, everyone; and welcome to Laurus Labs’ 4Q FY ’23 results conference call. We thank the management for giving us the opportunity to host this call. Today we have with us Dr. Satyanarayana Chava, Founder and CEO; and Mr. V V Ravi Kumar, Executive Director and CFO.

I will now hand the call over to Dr. Satya for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Monish. Thank you all of investors joining us for our Q4 and full-year FY ’23 results conference call. We are pleased to have this opportunity to update you on our progress and answer your questions.

FY ’23 has been a year of significant achievements and meaningful progress for Laurus Labs in light of a challenging environment globally. Our R&D-driven manufacturing strategy across our key growth pillars did very well and I’m glad that our team has delivered on several scientific and operational milestones. We are on track with our diversification roadmap and executing on opportunities ahead of us today, and at the same time focusing on what matters for the long-term.

Some of these initiatives have started giving results, especially in our CMO and CDMO business. We made significant progress in FY ’23, advancing our scientific capability in offering several key technologies to global customers, including access to technologies like continuous flow chemistry at lab and commercial scale, biocatalysis, continuous chromatography and gene development and manufacturing, precision fermentation, just to name a few.

We secured an important breakthrough with a major big pharma with record delivery of large purchase order. We’ve got several pipeline projects from big and medium size discovery companies. Revenue from animal health products expected from second half of FY ’24.

We also made important internal success with broadening pipeline products, collaborations, process efficiencies, innovative drug product platforms in new sterile lab and qualified new capacities for commercial APIs and intermediate production. We are confident in the underlying demand for our portfolio and making efficient results strongly linked to technology platforms, customer centricity and manufacturing excellence to seize new business opportunities and widening our target markets across human health, animal health, agrochemicals and consumer health.

We wanted to provide you an update on our strategy collaboration with cell and gene therapy platform company, ImmunoACT. They are making very good progress and our investment have supported establishing a state-of-the-art GMP CAR-T cell therapy facility in Mumbai. They’ve also initiated a Phase 2 for HCAR19 in lymphoma/leukemia post positive Phase 1 data. We’ll continue following our disciplined approach to investments in disruptive technologies and we will act when scientific opportunity and value align together.

We have remained focused on the long-term growth and success by delivering on existing capex projects. Throughout FY ’23, we invested heavily into strategic growth activities. We have increased our API drug system capacities by 30% during FY ’23 and these capacities are in various stages of ramp up for commercial production. Our CDMO investment is also to capture high-value opportunity is progressing very well.

We are entering FY ’24 with greater confidence that we’re creating a sustainable engine that will bring greater venous resilience and generate long-term sustainable value to our stakeholders.

Moving on to our financial results. Despite the challenges in the business environment, the Company achieved strong growth in revenues by 22% to INR6,041 crores and an EBITDA of close to INR600 crores [Indecipherable], delivering a margin of 26%. The growth we experienced in FY ’23 reflects fundamental strength of our key growth pillars; CDMO, generics, other than antiretrovirals. This strong growth was after taking into account unexpected and severe pricing led impact in ARV formulations as well as APIs. We believe this began to stabilize and our Q4 results was challenging, driven by completion of material purchase order supplies last quarter and higher upfront cost on growth projects. We reported INR1,381 crores in revenues, representing a 4% revenue decline.

If you look at from FY ’18 to ’23, overall, we had a strong cumulative performance. We have delivered diversified divisional growth, strong double-digit sales growth of 25% CAGR, and EBITDA margin improved by over 500 basis points. In the period FY ’18 to ’23, share of non-ARV business improved from 27% to 60%. That was a big achievement for us.

Going into detailed performance update, I would like to share the key updates on our formulation business. In line with the expectation of formulation division [Indecipherable] and reported overall revenues of INR1,140 crores for full-year, but it declined almost 40% versus FY ’22. The year-on-year sales was impacted mainly due to severe price fall and soft demand of ARV formulations. We remain intensely focused to stabilize ARV business through — throughout FY ’24 and beyond, while navigating pricing headwinds created by the competition.

We have successfully implemented several measures around the expansive portfolio and cost improvements. We believe these measures will subsequently ensure our market readiness and confidence of sustaining our leadership in first-line ARV treatment, both in APIs, as well as formulations.

Coming to the developed market, we continue to perform well across our portfolio, despite higher competitive intensity. During FY ’23, we filed 13 dossiers in the developed markets; six in US, four in Europe and three in Canada.

In US, we continue to get good market share on select products and also increasing volumes for our recently launched products. During the quarter four, we filed one ANDA, taking total filing to six for FY ’23. Cumulatively, we have 40 — 37 ANDAs; of this, we have a total 14 final approvals and 12 tentative approvals. We continue to have a diverse portfolio of products, including [Indecipherable] and ARVs, cardiovascular, CNS and gas — GI products.

In Canada, we filed one product during quarter four, taking the total of 20 filings. Of those, we’ve got 13 approvals and nine were launched. And we expect to launch three more during FY ’24.

In the EU, we have a basket of 12 approved products; out of which, six were launched and we are continuing to deepen our contract manufacturer relationships throughout the FY ’24 and anticipate more volumes in the coming quarters.

During the year, we invested significantly into expanding our non-ARV formulation infrastructure with the total commission capacity of 10 billion units. We anticipate that some of these brownfield capacities that we added during this year should start to get better utilized during FY ’24 as we begin to see better demand visibility in ARV business, CMO portfolio and key product approvals across US, Europe and Canada.

On the R&D front, our overall R&D spend to sales was about 3.5%. We continue to make good progress and invest in portfolio with product-specific approval based on complexity and economies of scale. During FY ’23, we filed our first NDA for novel HIV pediatric product using oral dissolving films technology and we intend to maximize opportunity by leveraging this platform to create innovative pipeline in our therapeutic areas. Our sterile R&D labs, which got commissioned during the mid-2022 is already working on several priority projects.

We have a total of over 60 products in R&D pipeline either under review or under development having addressable market size of over $40 billion. We have filed so far 37 ANDAs in US, 15 dossiers in Europe, 20 in Canada, 9 with WHO, 7 dossiers in South Africa, 1 dossier in Australia, 20 dossiers in India and 23 products filed in various RoW markets. As we explained multiple times, our approach remains product-specific, not market-specific.

Going to generic API, our generic API division during FY ’23 reported strong and all-round growth of 28% to INR2,609 crores, supported by continued CMO opportunities in APIs, as well as healthy growth in non-ARVs, as well as onco-APIs. Our antiviral API business delivered 21% growth and we achieved INR1,513 crores. This growth was partially due to low base effect, which was impacted by channel destocking. We continue to maintain a leading market share in the current product line.

Onco-API business reported a growth of 10% during FY ’23 at INR318 crores. Q4 saw a strong recovery following uptake in one of the key products. As all our stakeholders aware, Laurus Labs has one of the largest high potent API capacities in India and our aim to strengthen this further by partnering with global companies.

Non-ARV non-onco business also did very well, which includes cardiovascular, diabetes and asthma products. We have seen steady ramp-up of these products for the quarter and full year FY ’23. During Q4, this segment reported INR230 crores sales, growing at about 38% year-on-year, while FY ’23 the growth is robust at more than 50%, supported by continued ramp up in new contract supplies. In Q4, we filed two DMFs, in the full year we filed six DMF, all are in non-ARV category. With this, total number of DMFs filed to-date is 79. We also are working with few more generic customers for CMO opportunities and some of them advanced stages of implementation.

During the year, synthesis business recorded a sales of INR2,167 crores, representing an increase of over 136% year-on-year. This growth was driven by high quality delivery of a large order on time and accelerated demand from existing and pre-projects from new customers. We have further strengthened our partnership and signed several new clinical stage projects with a few big pharma customers. We continue to work on over 60 active projects and ongoing commercial supplies for about 10 products, including key APIs, as well as several advanced intermediates.

As indicated earlier, we are making good progress on new sites for CDMO division, both R&D center, as well as manufacturing facility for animal health. New sites will have capabilities to handle steroids, hormones and high-potent molecules apart from large-volume products. Commercial GMP manufacturing of animal health products will begin during the second half of FY ’24.

Going onto Laurus Bio, Bio generated a full-year reported strong growth of 25% at INR125 crores for the entire year. The growth was driven by substantial increase in uptake of CDMO business. During FY ’23, we have enhanced technical expertise on biocatalysis to promote the application of this in small molecule manufacturing, which will strengthen our offering in the APIs and CDMO segment.

We have completed scheduled expansion at R1, including new R&D block, along with balancing downstream equipments. And our new capacity implement at R2 is in the ramp-up phase with large scale CDMO partners. New greenfield site at R3 is in design finalization phase. We expect expansion to happen in a phased manner. This site should further strengthen Laurus Bio capabilities in offering CDMO services in animal origin free proteins, growth factors apart from large-scale precision fermentation. We believe global opportunity in alternate food proteins is an exciting phase and our focus is to have the right scale, cost and functionality, this will drive our technology differentiation.

Now, let me turn on to our FY ’24 outlook. While we continue to focus on operational excellence and evolving R&D platform, we anticipate FY ’24 to be a consolidation year of sales growth. As mentioned before, we are working on several new projects from big pharma and a meaningful contribution from these products likely to happen in the medium-term. Also, new capacities invested during FY ’23 is expected to get optimally utilized towards second half of this year.

With that, I will hand over this to Ravi to share some financial highlights.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Satya, and a warm welcome to all the participants for our FY ’23 and quarter four earning call.

Total income from operations for the full year is at INR6,041 crores against INR4,936 crores with a growth 22%. During the quarter, INR1,381 crores registered as revenue against INR1,475 crores with a decline of 3% year-on-year. The gross margin for the full year was moderately down to 54.1%. This is largely due to significant price fall in ARV portfolio and change in product mix.

Our EBITDA for FY ’23 is at INR1,594 crores with 26%, whereas for the quarter one 21% with INR287 crores. For FY ’23, the business mix had positively contributed as margin pressure on ARV business got materially offset by increase in CDMO of CMO business, but the negative operative [Indecipherable] on new capacities commissioned and higher inflation impact led to the margin fall compared to the last year.

We are working on several initiatives around productivity and cost improvement to manage its impact in FY ’24. We are using three-pronged strategy. One is on the raw material price improvements, second is on the process improvements, third is on the in-house manufacturing of the some of the intermediate by ARV. These three we expect the impact will be minimized in the segment four.

Our diluted EPS for FY ’23 is INR14.6 with a decline of 5%. Our return on capital employed is at 23.1% versus the 26.3%. We have been able to manage due to better net working capital management when compared to the March ’22 numbers.

On the capex front, we are on — in line with INR2,000 crore guidance for the two years, FY ’23 and FY ’24; INR990 crores was spend on the capex side in FY ’23. Next, FY ’24, our majority of our capex is on Synthesis and Bio and almost like INR800 crore, we are trying to invest into the Synthesis business. And the capex investment made in [Indecipherable] will start generating revenue from the second half of FY ’24.

With this, I would request the moderator to open lines for the Q&A. Thank you.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you very much. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Ravi Agarwal from Agarwal Investment. Please go ahead.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Hello. Am I audible sir?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Yes, go ahead.

Ravi Agarwal — Agarwal Investment — Analyst

Yes, sir. Namaste. Sir, what type of — my question is, what type of growth you see India as a key supplier of API or intermediates when we consider energy crisis in Europe due to war situation or any other regions, whether due to energy crisis in Europe, many plants are setup for API and it will be create an opportunity for company like Laurus in India?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

The energy crisis in Europe will definitely make cost of manufacturing higher. And if you look at the opportunities for companies like Laurus Labs will be in intermediates and APIs, not in the large volume products like specialty chemicals and other performance chemicals. For that opportunity to be captured, people need to have capacities. If you look at — Laurus Labs invested almost INR1,000 crores in the last year to see such kind of opportunities. If you go to companies who wanted to look for contract manufacturing, if some company says, please give me contract and I will put up capacities and it will take 15 to 18 months to set up capacities. So Laurus is well-positioned to take such advantage and we are seeing some opportunities like that what you have mentioned, Ravi.

Ravi Agarwal — Agarwal Investment — Analyst

Okay, sir. Sir, one more question. What type of competency in CDMO we have when we compare our Company with Lonza or Samsung Biologics or WuXi or Syngene, because we have been heard from Samsung Biologics that they are opening the fifth plant for biomanufacturing. So what type of competency we have as we compare to other companies?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

We are not into recombinant or bio-CMO right now. So, our Laurus Bio is not into the therapeutic protein. Our Laurus Bio is into enzyme manufacturing, is into food protein manufacturing, not into therapeutic protein manufacturing as yet. So, we are not offering recombinant mAbs for therapeutic use as of now.

Ravi Agarwal — Agarwal Investment — Analyst

Okay, sir. Sir, what type of businesses are included in —

Operator

Sir, sorry to interrupt. [Speech Overlap] we request you to please rejoin the queue.

Ravi Agarwal — Agarwal Investment — Analyst

Okay, sir. Okay. Thank you, sir.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Madhav Marda from Fidelity International. Please go ahead.

Madhav Marda — Fidelity International — Analyst

Yeah. Good evening. Thank you so much for your time. I just wanted to understand a couple of things. Firstly, you’ve been mentioning about the front-ending — some costs — because we are adding new capacity. Could you quantify broadly how much is this upfront cost, which is not [Indecipherable] at this point?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

We can give you how much capacity is not utilized, but we will not give you how much cost we are observing. But one standard principle what we followed since inception, the pre-operative costs of any capacity which is coming online until commercialization is expensed, not even a single dollar is capitalized. Currently, for example, Q4, we have utilized our capacities between 55% and 60%. So, lot of state capacity is available right now for us to seize any opportunities.

Madhav Marda — Fidelity International — Analyst

Okay. And our plants can potentially run at 100% or is the peak utilization, like, 85%, how does it work in our industry?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

It’s about 85%.

Madhav Marda — Fidelity International — Analyst

85%, okay. And then just the second question which I had was, if you could just talk about the opportunities that we’re seeing from — like you mentioned just in the previous question about opportunities coming from Europe, we won the animal health contract, which starts in second-half. Is there any more such contracts which could potentially win in the next one year? Just wanted to understand your thought process if you could [Technical Issues].

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

We have several programs in Phase 2, Phase 3, but we don’t know how many of those will advance into commercial. So, we have no control. And typically, we don’t get a contract for future supplies until the molecule moves into commercial phase. There are several programs we have. And good thing is we have capacities to capture those opportunities if they move into commercial phase.

Ravi Agarwal — Agarwal Investment — Analyst

Understood. Okay. Thank you so much.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nishant Shah from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.

Nishant Shah — Emkay Global — Analyst

Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. So, basically, my question is, sir, is there any one-off in the revenue?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

The — one of the large contracts — we executed big pharma, we haven’t considered any sales in FY ’24.

Nishant Shah — Emkay Global — Analyst

Okay. And what was the quantum?

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Sorry?

Nishant Shah — Emkay Global — Analyst

What was the quantum of that, sir?

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Quantum, we can’t —

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

We can’t give you a number.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

We are not disclosing that.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Nishant Shah — Emkay Global — Analyst

Okay. Thanks. Another question is, on the outlook, what was your outlook on the near-term and the long-term? And you are talking of the cost improvement and technology improvement, ongoing projects and pipeline and new product launches. Will you be able to maintain the 25% of CAGR growth that you are saying and any new addition of the geographies?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

We — our growth will come from capturing more opportunities with the existing partners. We are not anticipating growth coming from new geographies.

Nishant Shah — Emkay Global — Analyst

Okay. And, sir, is there any line item in the revenues, which have occurred in this year or in this quarter that will not be a part of our next year or the future revenues?

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Sorry, your voice is not very clear.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

No, is there any line item — future revenues captured in the current year? No.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

No.

Nishant Shah — Emkay Global — Analyst

Nothing, right?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah.

Nishant Shah — Emkay Global — Analyst

Okay. And the last question is, if we are seeing a slowdown in the US, and there are news of US may go into a recession, what kind of an incremental impact that can be seen on the Company?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Our generic sales in US is not significant for us to get impacted.

Nishant Shah — Emkay Global — Analyst

Okay.

Operator

Thank you.

Nishant Shah — Emkay Global — Analyst

Okay. That’s from my side.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Nishant Shah — Emkay Global — Analyst

Thanks a lot, sir.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Harith Ahamed from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.

Harith Ahamed — Avendus Spark — Analyst

Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. The 60% quarter-on-quarter growth that we’ve seen in the FDF business, we’re trying to understand how much of that has come from ARV formulations versus the exports to US and Europe. So, if you could share the ARV formulations number for the quarter, that would be helpful.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Generic, we — in the quarter four, we did INR393 crores sales in formulations. Out of that, ARVs is [Indecipherable] 60% is ARVs and rest is non-ARVs.

Harith Ahamed — Avendus Spark — Analyst

Okay. And going forward for the overall ARV business, in the past, you had given guidance of around INR2,500 crores of revenues for the API plus the FDF ARV combined. Are we maintaining that number for FY ’24 and beyond?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Yes. We’ll definitely maintain that number in FY ’24 and beyond.

Harith Ahamed — Avendus Spark — Analyst

Okay. And then, in the presentation, you’ve mentioned that you’ve completed supplies under the large purchase order in December ’22. While the — Pfizer has talked about continuing or guided for fairly large revenues from the product in calendar ’23 as well. So, can we expect further orders under this partnership in future?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

We don’t know and we have no knowledge on that how things will move.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Yeah.

Harith Ahamed — Avendus Spark — Analyst

Okay. Last one with your permission. LSPL Unit 3 and Unit 4, how should we think about the timeline for commissioning of those two capacities?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

See, LSPL 2 will be for animal health. That will go into commercial production in the second half of FY ’24. And LSPL 4 is for agrochemical, that we already have a pilot plant for registration batches and commercial production will happen maybe by second half of FY ’25.

Harith Ahamed — Avendus Spark — Analyst

Okay. And we’ve had a couple of years of close to INR1,000 crores of capex and you’re guiding for a similar number in FY ’24, how should we think about capex beyond FY ’24? Will there be a reduction in the capex intensity in the business?

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

I think, we’ll take another quarter to give a guidance around FY ’25. We are working on that. So, it’ll probably may be lesser than what we have spent in the current year and the next year.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

It all depends on what opportunities will come for us. See, if opportunities are there, we’re happy to invest. See, two years back we never thought we’ll invest INR2,000 crores in capex, but we’re investing because there is a visibility for us what to make, how much to make, to whom to sell.

Harith Ahamed — Avendus Spark — Analyst

All right, sir. That’s all from my side. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bino Pathiparampil from InCred Capital. Please go ahead.

Bino Pathiparampil — InCred Capital — Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple of clarifications. So, when you say FY ’24 is a consolidation year, can we assume that it will be like broadly a flat year at the revenue level?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

I think you can think that way, because we were saying flat year, despite not having that large contract in FY ’24. We still maintain our growth slightly over FY ’23 is a big achievement. So, we’re not giving any quantitative guidance. Even we assume it will be flattish, despite not having that large contract, we will still grow over previous year is a good achievement.

Bino Pathiparampil — InCred Capital — Analyst

Understood. And the 4Q EBITDA margin level, is that a good base to work with? I’m not looking for any specific number for FY ’24, but generally is that a good reference point for us to work forward?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

So, I think, we will get back to you in an appropriate time about how — maybe our Q1 and Q2 results will give you some guidance which direction we’re going in the margin, but we can assure you our EBITDA margin will not go below 20%, yeah, 21% — what we said, so, yeah.

Bino Pathiparampil — InCred Capital — Analyst

Understood. Great. And, sir, I see that you have adopted the new policy for tax. So what would be your reported tax rate for FY ’24 onwards?

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

25.17%, we are moving to new regime.

Bino Pathiparampil — InCred Capital — Analyst

Okay. So, it will be 25%?

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Yes.

Bino Pathiparampil — InCred Capital — Analyst

Okay. Good. Thank you. I’ll join back the queue.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jeevan Patwa from Sahasrar Capital. Please go ahead.

Jeevan Patwa — Sahasrar Capital — Analyst

Yeah. [Technical Issues]

Operator

Sir, sorry to interrupt. The line for you is a little muffled.

Jeevan Patwa — Sahasrar Capital — Analyst

Okay. So, I’m basically saying this quarter formulation and API has picked up very well, but CDMO is actually much below expectations. So is there any kind of deferment of shipment or anything?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

No, no, there is no deferment of shipment, Jeevan. This is — we delivered what orders we were supposed to deliver in Q4, we delivered, nothing was deferred.

Jeevan Patwa — Sahasrar Capital — Analyst

Okay. Okay. Because even if I look at the whole year and if I just remove that one-time — not one-time, but the large product delivery — one-time delivery, then the CDMO sale year-on-year doesn’t look any growth? So —

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

CDMO, you can’t have a flat — a straight line or — so it will be depending on what customer needs we have to deliver. So, it will be little bit bumpy sales you can expect in CDMO, not just for us, but any customer.

Jeevan Patwa — Sahasrar Capital — Analyst

Sure. Sure. Sure. And, secondly, the gross margin has actually dipped below 50% this time, so I am asking this since last two, three quarters, I think, but I’m still not able to understand, the gross margin trajectory has been down since last few quarters. So earlier there was last CDMO the gross margins were almost 57%, 58%, then CDMO percentage was same, but still gross margin actually came to almost 54% and 53% and now it is below 50%. So, any kind of gross margin you think we can assume actually going forward, is it 52%, 53% is a good consistent sustainable gross margin we can assume?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

See, the gross margin impact was mainly due to depressed pricing in ARV, APIs and formulations.

Jeevan Patwa — Sahasrar Capital — Analyst

Correct.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

As we implement some measures in process improvements, manufacturing cost improvements, purchase pricing improvement, these margins will improve. I will not give you a quantitative number how much will improve, definitely margins will improve.

Jeevan Patwa — Sahasrar Capital — Analyst

Okay. Perfect, sir. And the last question is on the formulation side, any guesstimate on how much will be our utilization on 1 billion tablet basis, so how much will it be right now and how much you think will be at the end of the year?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Currently, we are around 50% capacity utilization out of 10 billion. We expect that will go to 70% by end of FY ’24.

Jeevan Patwa — Sahasrar Capital — Analyst

Okay. Perfect, sir. Thanks a lot.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tushar Manudhane from Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Please go ahead.

Tushar Manudhane — Motilal Oswal Financial Services — Analyst

Yeah. Am I audible?

Operator

Yes, sir. You are audible.

Tushar Manudhane — Motilal Oswal Financial Services — Analyst

Sir, just on your guidance of FY ’24 remaining stable compared to FY ’23 in terms of the overall financial performance, so will that be spread across four quarters, and we are considering that four quarter — fourth quarter FY ’23 we are INR100 crore PAT. So should one expect rebound in Q4 FY ’24 onwards or that will be more back-ended as the animal health contract picks up second-half FY ’24? That’s my first question.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Tushar, actually we don’t want to give a guidance on the quarterly basis. Like, on the annual basis whatever Dr. Satya has indicated that is based on annual.

Tushar Manudhane — Motilal Oswal Financial Services — Analyst

Okay. And sir, secondly on this formulation capacity, while we had good number of ANDAs filed over past couple of years, but not seen good — so great traction at least on the US generic side. So this new non-ARV formulation, where do we see the business prospects from? Is it more from ANDAs or is it more from the customer-specific contracts?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Significant growth in formulations in non-ARV will come from contract manufacturing and also increased sales in Europe, increased sales in US and Canada.

Tushar Manudhane — Motilal Oswal Financial Services — Analyst

Okay. Thanks. That’s it from my side. Thanks.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Gaurav Singhal from Aspex Management Hong Kong Limited. Please go ahead.

Gaurav Singhal — Aspex Management Hong Kong Limited — Analyst

Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. So one is, can you share how many projects you have in Phase 3 for the CDMO project or for the CDMO segment, or any other color on Phase 3 that you are working on?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

We are only giving the total number of active projects, over 60, we are not giving the detailed breakup of how many in Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3. Yeah.

Gaurav Singhal — Aspex Management Hong Kong Limited — Analyst

Okay. And secondly on the debt — on the slide that you have for FY ’24 outlook, you mentioned that one of the negative factors is lower prices for ARV, API and FDF. So — is this — are you suggesting that the prices in FY ’24 can be lower from Q4, because my impression was that ARV, API prices, for example, already stabilized and also on the FDF we got this global fund contract mix where the prices kind of known. So maybe if you can share some thoughts on why you feel prices can be lower again in FY ’24?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

We don’t expect the prices will be lower when compared to Q4 to Q1 FY ’24. We’re not expecting that. We believe the ARV prices were bottomed out.

Gaurav Singhal — Aspex Management Hong Kong Limited — Analyst

Yeah. I see. So, it’s more of full year FY ’24 versus FY 2023. Got it. Got it. And just one last thing, so on this global fund project for the ARV formulation, when do we expect to start the shipment and what can be the cadence of the ramp up?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

That shipments started already. Yeah.

Gaurav Singhal — Aspex Management Hong Kong Limited — Analyst

Got it. Sorry. Just one more, if I may. For the large project in CDMO, did we have any contribution of that in Q4 or did we have no contribution in Q4?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

No, no. The large order what we delivered has no contribution in Q4.

Gaurav Singhal — Aspex Management Hong Kong Limited — Analyst

Got it. Got it. That’s very helpful. Thank you.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bharat [Phonetic] from Quest for Value Capitals. Please go ahead.

Bharat — Quest for Value Capitals — Analyst

Hello. Hi, sir. This is Bharat from Kothagudem. Hope you’re doing good. In the presentation, I see there is a new greenfield capex in its line for the BF in Hyderabad. May I know, sir, how many — how much BM tablet capacity is that?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

So, that capacity we purchased land, but we haven’t started construction of a formulation facility in Hyderabad.

Bharat — Quest for Value Capitals — Analyst

Okay. Because we have —

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

The first two facility will come up in that site will be sterile commercial manufacturing and then followed by oral solid manufacturing.

Bharat — Quest for Value Capitals — Analyst

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Because, I think, in Vizag, I think we have already a civil structures ready and then if we just add the lines, I think, we could increase the capacity from 10 billion to 15 billion, I guess, right?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

15 billion. You’re absolutely right. So that is the reason the new formulation capacity will come up in Hyderabad will be for sterile commercial manufacturing, not for oral solids.

Bharat — Quest for Value Capitals — Analyst

Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. And my second question is that, this is more on the long-term, I want to know your vision like five years down the line, may I know like how you see the product mix changing? May I know how much could be the share of CDMO and Bio together combined five years down the line?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Very interesting question. Yeah. So, this year, which is — as we discussed in FY ’23, our CDMO revenue is 36%. CDMO and Bio in five years should be 50% maybe.

Bharat — Quest for Value Capitals — Analyst

50%, okay.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

That’s really a broad number. Yeah.

Bharat — Quest for Value Capitals — Analyst

Broad number. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. That comes to my next question, like we have many divisions now, if you see we have human health CDMO, we have animal health CDMO, we have agro CDMO, we have Bio, we have generic FDF, we have ARV as well. So I just want to know, like, do you think you have enough management bandwidth to manage all these divisions?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

In the CDMO, how we define is part of CDMO or not. We’re selling — any product where technology comes from partner and sell it to only one that CDMO product. So, there is no technology risk, there is no market risk, there is no pricing risk, because all those are predetermined. So, our management bandwidth is only in the manufacturing space, not in the business development space or procurement space, that’s the easy business to handle for us. Yeah.

Bharat — Quest for Value Capitals — Analyst

Okay. Okay. Yeah.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

We have an enough management bandwidth at this juncture, and we have been reviewing over — on a periodical basis as and when necessary we induct more people into the system.

Bharat — Quest for Value Capitals — Analyst

Okay. And when you say that you want to aspire for 50% of share from CDMO and Bio in five years from now, so it means — I understand that the management focus is more towards CDMO than generic FDF I would say?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

It’s not a focus. See, if you look at the investor presentation what we posted, the revenues coming from non-ARV has gone up significantly.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Here, in your question there is an answer. So, when you say 50% to the CDMO and Bio, the 50% is generics. It is not that we have an equal focus.

Bharat — Quest for Value Capitals — Analyst

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. That’s it from my side. Thanks.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Monish Shah from Antique Stock Broking. Please go ahead.

Monish Shah — Antique Stock Broking Limited — Analyst

No. Actually my questions were answered. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Neha Agarwal [Phonetic] SageOne Investment Managers. Please go ahead.

Neha Agarwal — SageOne Investment Managers — Analyst

Thank you so much for taking my question. Dr. Satya, you guided for FY ’24 revenue growth with the large base of the FY ’23. Just wanted to understand the growth guidance also in terms of profitability, more of topline growth that you are more confident about?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

We’ll give more guidance as we declare results in Q1 FY ’24 and Q2 FY ’24, so we can’t give you more granular right now.

Neha Agarwal — SageOne Investment Managers — Analyst

No. I’m not really looking at number here, but if you could just suggest whether they represent terms of topline or bottom-line.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

We gave you guidance on the topline.

Neha Agarwal — SageOne Investment Managers — Analyst

Okay. Thank you. And another question from my side would be the capex that we did in the last few years, FY ’22-’23, and then the plan that we have for ’24, all put together close to, say, [Indecipherable] In how many years, subsequently, do you think we could achieve full utilization of those capex?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

I think, the current capacities it will be fully utilized by FY ’25. Yeah. And I’m sure FY ’25 we put more capex to increase our capacities. See, if we don’t increase the capacities, the growth opportunities also limited. So, we need to continue to invest. We look at — we have added 30% API capacity in the last 24 months and we’ve added 50% more capacity in formulation in the last 24 months. So that’s a significant improvement in capacity. Yeah.

Neha Agarwal — SageOne Investment Managers — Analyst

Yeah. [Indecipherable] the capacity so far at least for that you are expecting in ’25?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Yes.

Neha Agarwal — SageOne Investment Managers — Analyst

And just one last question, if I may, from my side. Sir, out of the 60-plus active projects that you have currently in the Synthesis side, any new projects that we are expecting to go commercial in FY ’24, just on the expectations side?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

I’m sorry, we can’t give you those kind of details, but, see, if — we broadly mentioned we are putting capacities, what to make, how much to make, whom to sell, at least there is clarity. Yeah.

Neha Agarwal — SageOne Investment Managers — Analyst

Sure. Thank you.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Arun from Nuvama. Please go ahead.

Arun — Nuvama — Analyst

Hi, sir. My question related to two parts. One is that your CDMO business, I mean, in your CDMO page in your PPT, which you have released, so if I look at your CDMO business is doing INR200 crore on an average if you exclude whatever the one-off numbers are. So just trying to understand that if you look at even five quarters, your CDMO business remain in same level, like INR200 crores per quarter, right. And what is the — I mean, say, guidance you are giving for this business? Because it has a very high base and to matching that high base, it will be very difficult even to achieve the same kind of number in FY ’25. Am I correct or you have some different views?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

I can’t comment on your views. Your views, we appreciate. What we feel, since we are investing to capture the opportunities in CDMO, we see opportunities to grow if we remain at INR200 crores, INR250 crores per quarter and for — there is no need for us to invest.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

But you need to look at how the — on a year-on-year it has grown, right. So, it was INR500 crore a couple of years back, it moved from INR500 crores to INR900 crores. INR900 crores — see, you — the only one — I can say one point of view is, we always say that one-off, one-off, but the kind of mileage we get from this execution of the contract, we will not give any credit. So, as we are indicating repeatedly for last four to six quarters, we are bullish on CDMO, still we’re bullish on CDMO, we can’t give more specifics to this, but maybe over a period of time you can see the numbers.

Arun — Nuvama — Analyst

So, sir, same — you said that we are investing and, therefore, we are very confident that this — what I can get from your words, right, we are investing, if the number will be — remain INR200 crores, then we should not have been investing. But if you look at your investment in last two years, you have almost invested like INR3,000 crores, INR3,500 crores, and I presume that most of the business has gone to CDMO. If I do any kind of calculation, and if you are utilizing 50%, 60%, it is not even matching your one-time assets to turnover, if you — if I exclude your one-off number. Anyway, we can discuss it offline if you — yeah, you want to answer it?

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Sure. But I’ll just give a glance and then we can discuss offline any point of time, Arun. If you look at the INR2,000 crore investment, we never said it was invested for CDMO business. What we’re saying is, we are going to invest INR800 crore into the CDMO business in FY ’24 and those kind of results you will see in the next — FY ’25 onwards. So, we can discuss further on this, if you have any clarification, Arun, offline. Thank you.

Arun — Nuvama — Analyst

Second question is related to guidance, sir. If you look at your five-quarter guidance, right, just two, three quarters you pulled down your guidance, right, that you will not be able to achieve $1 billion. I can understand that there are lot of uncertainty in business, right. But this is a humble suggestion that when you guide something, right, you should have some kind of margin of safety for that, right. Again, if you look at this year, if I — whatever I can infer from your words, you are saying that in FY ’24 you will be probably a flat, right. If you do any kind of calculation, even you said that your FDA business, which is that fixed — I mean, say, your generic business in US will not see any kind of competitive pressure, you answered for certain very specific question, which was that recession-related, I can understand that, recession may or may not, but in India or anywhere in the world, no generic company can guide that our business will not see any kind of pricing pressure and you have done extremely well in last 12 to 15 months. So, this is my humble suggestion that when you’re speaking with a lot of investor, at least, thousand people are listening to you, at least have some kind of margin of safety when we speak as far as the guidance is concerned. This is my humble suggestion, sir.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Arun, thanks for your suggestion. What I mentioned, our formulation revenue coming from US is not that large to get impacted. That’s the comment I made.

I think, Ravi want to make some comment.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Arun, here, we never gave any quantitative guidance till we gave $1 billion. Of course, our investor friends also make some kind of a provocative approach, in this sense, in not a negative way, positive way, what you will do, how you will do. Then in one of the point, actually, we said $1 billion. In the next quarter, when we came to know that the $1 billion is not going to happen, we gave a guidance, revised guidance, and we are on par with our revised guidance. In our investor presentation also we mentioned that. So, we are cognizant of what we speak. It’s not that — we know, we are well aware many people are watching us and we also aware that how the performance has been improved for several quarters, not one quarter or two quarters, and we also know that how we have been built the organization. So, in a 16-year time, we have invested INR5,500 crores into capex. We have 6,500 families have been working for us. So, we are very cognizant of it. We also know the margin of safety. Thank you.

Arun — Nuvama — Analyst

Thanks a lot, sir.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Saurabh Kapadia from Sundaram Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.

Saurabh Kapadia — Sundaram Mutual Fund — Analyst

Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, was there any one-off in Q4 that impacted our EBITDA margins?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

There is nothing in Q4, no one-off.

Saurabh Kapadia — Sundaram Mutual Fund — Analyst

Okay. So how should we look at the margins for ’24? Like, you mentioned about the topline to be — probably maintained at FY ’23 level, but any color on margins? How we should look at the margins in ’24?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

As we mentioned, I think, you will get more clarity and color when we give results for Q1 and Q2 FY ’24. I think we’ll leave it at that stage.

Saurabh Kapadia — Sundaram Mutual Fund — Analyst

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Yasser Lakdawala from M3 Investment Private Limited. Please go ahead.

Yasser Lakdawala — M3 Investment Private Limited — Analyst

Good evening, Dr. Chava and team. I had an easy question on a non-ARV API side, probably the oncology API business is a low-volume, sort of high-value API business, but what about the other APIs there? So what is our right to win on the other APIs? Are they large volume products? Do we have some cost advantage there? If you give some qualitative insight there, that would be really helpful. And [Technical Issues] are these older or newer molecules, basically things that have lost IP protection in the near — in the recent past, if you could give some color on that, that would be very helpful.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Sure. So if you slice the API revenues of INR2,600 crores, we mentioned INR1,530 crores coming from ARV APIs and INR328 crores is coming from oncology, INR318 crores, and about INR780 crores is coming from non-ARV and non-onco. In the — I think, at that — say, INR770 crores, half of that revenue coming from contract manufacturing of generic APIs to generic customers.

Yasser Lakdawala — M3 Investment Private Limited — Analyst

Okay.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

So, we are offering manufacturing and service to our generic companies, where they include our site into their DMF. So technology is theirs, DMF is theirs, and we make with the defined margin. At least, it is a good business, because we know the raw material cost, our partner also know the raw material cost, we are not changing process, most likely we are not changing the back stages also. We create capacities for them. So, we are giving our manufacturing facility, kind of a total manufacturing for them. That’s about half of the business. Rest is, again, medium to large volume products. We are not doing small volume products there. Those — most of those products are well established generic molecules. We are not trying to get into Day 181 or P4 markets there, they are well established markets.

Yasser Lakdawala — M3 Investment Private Limited — Analyst

Okay. Thank you, Dr. Chava. Also on the formulation side, I saw that we have few sort of Para IV filing and FTFs. So just sort of a longer term question just to understand this better. We have a CDMO business, which is dealing with big pharma and [Technical Issues] biotech. On the one side, we are doing IP protected work for them, and on the other side we are having these Para IVs and FTFs. So how does — do you feel that [Technical Issues] run these four businesses independently? Is there any sort of case of conflict of interest? If you can just help us understand how this — what is your thought process here, and how do you see your customers reacting to this, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

It’s a very pertinent question you have asked. It all depends on the customer and how we are approaching customer and IP. Typically, from the class of compounds we work, we don’t want to work in generics and more [Indecipherable] right now, we are not working on any P4 opportunities with the partners which we are working. So, we don’t want to have a conflicting business, so we are also very clear on our approach right now to the CDMO business.

Yasser Lakdawala — M3 Investment Private Limited — Analyst

Sure. And last question here. We’ve had this one-off opportunity during COVID, just to understand from a company level margins, how do you see or if you could give us some color on the EBITDA level profitability of our API and FDF business as compared to CDMO, are they higher, lower than — what would be our normalized margin?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

We gave a quantitative — qualitative guidance in the order of increasing profitability APIs, formulations and CDMO, that’s the only guidance we gave and stick to that. We don’t want to give any absolute numbers there.

Yasser Lakdawala — M3 Investment Private Limited — Analyst

No worries. No worries. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Dr. Chava.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Gaurav Singhal from Aspex Management Limited. Please go ahead.

Gaurav Singhal — Aspex Management Hong Kong Limited — Analyst

Hi. Thank you for taking my question again. So just one follow-up. On the CDMO side, can you share some thoughts on the competitive landscape and the supply of capacity that is coming up in India? And, also, specifically for Laurus Labs, some of the advantages I could see obviously is, we are working on 60 active projects, so as they get commercialized you can be the vendor of choice and then you also completed this large project on time. Are there any other advantages that can help us stand versus the competition when we look at the new supply for CDMO in India?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

The Indian CDMO companies are well-positioned to capture the opportunities, because of supplier diversification initiatives by big pharma. I think, it is good opportunity not just for Laurus, there are many other CDMO companies will do very well, that’s what we feel. The advantages are: the ability to create capacities, the ability to recruit people to support the capacities, and the current global scenario is also helping India to get more projects, I’ll put it that way.

Gaurav Singhal — Aspex Management Hong Kong Limited — Analyst

All right. Thank you.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Yeah.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ratish Varier from Sundaram Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.

Ratish Varier — Sundaram Mutual Fund — Analyst

Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. Congrats, over the last two years, our execution, etc, has been excellent. I would like to place that on board that it has been an excellent execution. Sir, just one clarity only I wanted. One of my colleagues also asked, it’s on margins. So no guidance, but if you see in the previous five, six quarters, because of one-off opportunities or specific contracts, etc, we had certain margins, right. So I just wanted to understand, as you move forward over the next one or two years, are those margins aspirational or those are one-offs which went by and it will go by what current Q4 exit run rate is there? From that slowly improvement is what we have to see? Just wanted some color, sir, on that, if you can give us some thoughts there. Thanks.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Well, the business was very prosperous, so we even before this large contracts, we were inching towards 30% EBITDA even before this large contract in the global pharma company. I think, we’ll put our efforts to improve our margins and the change in business mix and improvement in margins of ARV business. And our dependence on ARV business goes down, our margin profile should also increase. If you look at our FY ’18 to FY ’23, the numbers, we grew our ARV business by INR500 crores, but non-ARV business was INR4,000 crores. So — but the another challenge what we’re having is, since we are adding lot of capacity there, lot of deleverage is happening. So, as we move away from deleverage to leverage of our capacities and teams, I think, our margins will improve. Yeah.

Ratish Varier — Sundaram Mutual Fund — Analyst

Okay. Just one more follow-up, sir, regarding the revenue guidance, so I’m not asking for any numbers, here when we are saying consolidation, etc, this is — we are saying based on — still, we are left to sign certain contracts as you are saying they are in pipeline, because of that we are not that confident from a guidance perspective or you want to be more cautious this time? Thanks.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

We want to be more cautious.

Ratish Varier — Sundaram Mutual Fund — Analyst

Okay. I understand that. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take the last question from the line of Madhav Marda from Fidelity International. Please go ahead.

Madhav Marda — Fidelity International — Analyst

No. I said one last question, in the PPT, in the beginning, you have mentioned about want to invest up to 10% of profits on disruptive technologies, has it already started in the previous quarters, or this is something we will be starting FY ’24 onwards?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

When we mentioned the disruptive technologies, the investment we made in ImmunoACT is part of that. And we are evaluating few more opportunities and we are also very conscious not to invest more than 10% of our profits in such kind of initiatives. So, we did one and we are evaluating one more and probably when it is materialized, we will let you know. Yeah. Yeah.

Madhav Marda — Fidelity International — Analyst

So, sir, has this already happened in [Technical Issues] FY ’23 or it’s starting — I’m assuming it’s already happened in the last [Technical Issues]?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

This will happen in FY ’24. The new investment will happen in ’24, not in FY ’23. Our investment in ImmunoACT happened in FY ’22 actually.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

’22.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

FY ’22. FY ’23, we haven’t done any such investments. We evaluated, but we are moving forward and we will let you know when we will leave something there.

Madhav Marda — Fidelity International — Analyst

And this is 10% of PBT or EBITDA, what is profit scheme there?

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

It’s a very qualitative number. It’s 10% of our profits. Yeah. PAT.

Madhav Marda — Fidelity International — Analyst

Of PAT, okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Over to you, sir.

Satyanarayana Chava — Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Well, thank you all stakeholders for your engaging discussions. And whatever steps we do, whatever investment we do, whatever initiatives we do is for the benefit of all the stakeholders, and we wish you all the best. Yeah.

V V Ravi Kumar — Executive Director & Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]