India’s Piramal Pharma
hopes to accelerate earnings growth over the next two to three
years, led by rising demand for complex drugs, including
targeted cancer therapies, a top executive said on Wednesday.
The company, which sells popular medicines like the
emergency contraceptive tablet i-pill and lacto calamine lotion
in India, relies on contract drug manufacturing for 55% of its
overall revenue.
Global biotech funding into Indian contract drug makers is
improving after a year of slowdown marked by macroeconomic and
geopolitical uncertainty. Indian drugmakers also stand to gain
from U.S. curbs on biotech funding for rival Chinese firms.
“Biotech funding in the second half of the year was about
80% higher than in the second half of last year, and that is now
translating into higher requests for proposals and order
inflows,” Nandini Piramal, chairperson of Piramal Pharma, told
Reuters, attributing the funding pick-up to lower interest rates
and reduced uncertainty in the U.S. pharma sector.
The company expects to clock early-to-mid-teens revenue growth
in two to three years, the chairperson said, after reporting a
3% drop in fiscal 2026 revenue, hurt by a 10% slump in its
contract drug manufacturing, its biggest vertical. The revenue
loss caused margins to shrink to 13% from 17%.
Within contract manufacturing, Piramal is prioritising
higher-value segments.
Global demand has been rising for antibody-drug conjugates
(ADCs), which are targeted cancer therapies that link
chemotherapy drugs to antibodies, as drugmakers expand oncology
pipelines.
“We’ve added a significant number of customers, both big
pharma and biotech, as this sector (CDMO) has grown,” Piramal
said.
What is not moving up the priority ladder for the company are
the active ingredients for weight-loss drugs, generic
semaglutides, given the intense competition and falling prices
in the market, she said.
“These (ADCs) are high fixed-cost businesses, and as
revenues grow, operating leverage flows through to the bottom
line.”