Aurobindo Pharma to step up product launches in US

The move is crucial to its ambitious goal of seeing $3 billion revenues by FY18

Indian pharmaceutical major Aurobindo Pharma Limited, which has crossed $2 billion revenue mark in FY16, is planning to step up the momentum this year by increasing the number of launches in the US market as it aims to reach $3 billion in revenues in next two years.

Even though Aurobindo had launched as many as 28 products in the US market in the previous year, it has carried forward 7 ANDA final approvals received during the year for the launch in the current year.

In a clear hint at targeting more revenues from the US, which now contributes half of the company's total income, Aurobindo management told the investors in a recent analyst call that it anticipates to have an additional 30-40 product approvals that would all be launched during the current year itself.

This comes on top of the the seven fourth quarter approvals, which include some of the key products that the company is planning to launch in the first quarter of this year.

In response to a question on Aurobindo's bigger launch plans, Aurobindo USA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Robert Cunard said every product stands on its own so they have been evaluating the proposed launch of those products in terms of prioritisation to bring them to the market place.

The company management says its intention was always to continue to fill out the full portfolio as they see that breadth of line is a key part of their value offering to the customers .

The company as on March, 2016 has filed 398 ANDAs on a cumulative basis, out of which 251 ANDAs were approved including 36 tentative approvals and balance 147 ANDAs are under review by the USFDA, according to the company.

Last year Aurobindo Pharma's top executives stated that the company was targeting to achieve a revenue of over $3 billion by 2017-18 and to achieve that it was planning to expand its basket with new drugs to treat cancer and hormonal diseases as also with other therapeutic areas.

According to Aurobindo Pharma CEO N Govindarajan, the company has several complex products under development, namely Hormones, Oncology and Microsphere (protein or a synthetic polymer), which they plan to start filing over the next 4-6 quarters.

In FY16 Aurobindo top-line grew by 14.65% to Rs 13,896 crore while the consolidated net profit increased 25.78% to Rs 1,982 crore.

However, to reach the target of $3 billion revenues by 2017-18, the company needs to grow its top-line by around 24% in the current year. Obviously the company needs to launch more number of products and also bet big on the upside of some of the key products it was talking about launching in the current year to reach its ambitious revenue goals.