Tag - inhalation therapy

Update on the Indian Equity Market:

On Tuesday, the equity market reversed from the day’s lows and the Nifty50 index closed 1% higher led by the BFSI sector. The top gainers in the index were SBILIFE (+5.0%), KOTAKBANK (+3.1%), and HDFCBANK (+2.9%) while the losers were BPCL (-4.6%), TATASTEEL (-3.9%), and GAIL (-3.3%). The sectoral gainers were FINANCIAL SERVICES (+2.2%), FINANCIAL SERVICES 25/50 (+1.9%), and PRIVATE BANK (+1.8%). METALS (-2.5%), MEDIA (-1.4%), and REALTY (-1.1%) led the sectoral losers.

On Women’s Day, CNBC-TV18 conducted interviews with some women leaders from India Inc. Here are the excerpts of an interview with Ms. Vinita Gupta, CEO, Lupin with CNBC TV18 on 8^th March 2021:

• Ms. Gupta believes that all the investments made to drive the generics business, and affordable medicines business to the next level are getting validated now. They have been investing in therapies like inhalation, biosimilars, complex injectables, and women’s health products over the past 5 years, and have made tremendous progress in the last 12-18months.
• In the inhalation therapy, they have received the first major approval for Albuterol in Sept-2020. The timely approval despite the pandemic will be beneficial for asthma and COPD patients who are at a high risk of complications due to Covid-19 infection. Lupin was able to launch the product and is ramping up the production.
• With more inhalation products pending approval from the US FDA, she believes the inhalation therapy will drive growth in the generics business.
• There is still a very large number of Corona cases in particular in the US. From a lockdown point, some states have more of a lockdown than others. The elective procedures are still below pre-Covid levels, suggesting things aren’t yet back to normal. They hope things would be in the second half of this year with vaccinations ramping up over the next couple of months.
• Lupin supplies medicines for about 5% of prescriptions in the USA so maintaining the supply continuity was essential through the pandemic.
• Despite the pandemic, Lupin was able to achieve QoQ growth in both revenues and profits. She expects the growth to continue on FY22E as well. The Albuterol approval will be a significant growth driver in FY22E.
• There are 5 other inhaler products in the pipeline in the next 2 years for Lupin in the USA. The FY23 will be a significant year as they intend to launch products like Albuterol, Fostair in Europe, Spiriva in 2023.
• Price Erosion in the generics will continue to be one of the biggest challenges in FY22E. The price erosion has reduced from earlier periods to low-mid single digits now. The complex generics launches and operating efficiency will help offset the price erosion impact.
• They have acute and chronic care products within their India portfolio. The chronic care areas such as diabetes, CNS, Cardiovascular, Respiratory have done extremely well. Acute care products have been struggling, in line with the overall acute market in India.

Asset Multiplier Comments

• Domestic pharma companies have been facing price erosion pressures in generic products in the US for quite some time now. Hence, they have shifted focus on complex generics, and biosimilars which require a higher degree of specialization and are margin accretive. Some of these companies have shifted to a direct-to-market (DTM) approach rather than being partnered companies of US pharma majors.
• Some domestic Indian companies such as Lupin and Cipla have specialization in respiratory/inhalation therapies. These companies expect Albuterol Sulfate inhaler products to be one of the key growth drivers in the near term. Apart from Albuterol Sulfate, these companies expect an incremental USD 100-150mn opportunity from the respiratory pipeline in the USA.

Consensus Estimate: (Source: market screener website)

• The closing price of LUPIN was ₹ 1,033/- as of 09-March-2021. It traded at 43x/ 28x/ 23x the consensus earnings estimate of ₹ 23.9/ 37.5/ 45.7 per share for FY21E/FY22E/FY23E respectively.
• The consensus target price of ₹ 1,045 implies a PE multiple of 23x on FY23E EPS of ₹ 45.7/-.

Disclaimer: “The views expressed are for information purposes only. The information provided herein should not be considered as investment advice or research recommendation. The users should rely on their own research and analysis and should consult their own investment advisors to determine the merit, risks, and suitability of the information pro