Nandini Piramal charts bold growth path: Piramal Pharma eyes $2 billion revenue by FY30

Piramal Pharma is on the right track of growth trajectory to achieve the goal of US$2 billion in revenues and be among the top ten companies in its addressable markets by FY2030, says Nandini Piramal, Chairperson.

"Across the business verticals, we have been growing at 10-15% in the past. Going forward, as we scale up, revenues and EBITDA will improve in the coming years to achieve our aspirational targets’’, she said in an exclusive interview with Fortune India.

Piramal Pharma had ₹8,171 crore (nearly one $ billion) in revenues in FY24 and ₹6,397 crore revenues for the nine months of FY25, a growth of 14% compared to the nine months' revenues in FY24. The company operates mainly in four areas of pharmaceutical business -- contract development and manufacturing (CDMO), Complex Hospital Generics (CHG), India Consumer Healthcare and a JV with Abbvie for making ophthalmic products.

Nandini Piramal says the main CDMO business, which contributed 58% of revenues in FY24, has seen a growth of 18% in the last three quarters and aspires to grow as a $1.2 billion business with 25% EBITDA margin by 2030. The globally integrated CDMO business is focused on differentiated services and on-patent molecules, with the rare advantage of having facilities spread across the US, Europe and Asia.

It is working on a deep pipeline of 150 plus projects across multiple phases and about 34% are in Phase 3 clinical trials. "We expect at least half of those products to become commercial and offer a good source of long-term commercial manufacturing opportunities. These are for large pharma and emerging biotechs and the majority are small molecules’’, she said.

Apart from the new facility started in Aurangabad and expanded capacity at Digwal for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), the company is investing at Lexington to enhance sterile fill-finish capacities, which will take three years to complete. "We will continue to do a fair amount of debottlenecking and increase capacity across our sites, besides constantly investing in automation and processes’’, says Nandini Piramal.

In Complex Hospital Generics Business, revenues had grown at a CAGR of 10% between FY16 and FY24, despite COVID disruption. The $300 million (FY24) critical care business has healthy EBITDA margins of over 25% and 70% plus revenues come from regulated markets of the US, Europe and Japan. The target is to double revenues and become a leading critical care company by strengthening core business in inhalation anaesthesia, injectable pain and limited competition complex therapies. "We are also looking at in-licensing or acquiring more complex generics’’, says Nandini Piramal.

In the case of Indian consumer healthcare business, Piramal Pharma has grown from 3 brands and about Rs 100 crore sales in 2008 to 25 plus brands and about Rs 1,000 crore sales by 2024, as sales have almost tripled in the last 5 years at a CAGR of 23%. Plans are to grow power brands- like Litle's, Lacto Calamine, i-range, CIR, Tetmosol, and Polycrol into large-selling products with line extensions and new SKUs supporting the growth of power brands. Apart from the traditional strength in general stores and offline pharmacies, products are also sold on 22 plus leading E-commerce platforms. The plan is to generate sales of over $200 million by FY30, says Nandini Piramal.