 "Morepen Lab rallies 8% in weak market; zooms 63% over QIP price in 1 month")
Shares of Morepen Laboratories hit a multi-year high of Rs 88.85, as they rallied 8 per cent on the BSE in Wednesday’s intra-day trade amid heavy volumes. In comparison, the BSE Sensex was down 0.51 per cent at 82,135 at 12:00 PM. The stock of pharmaceutical company is quoting higher for the fourth straight day, surging 15 per cent during the period.
Currently, Morepen Lab is trading 63 per cent higher against its qualified institutional placement (QIP) price of Rs 54.37 per share. On August 6, the company announced that it has raised Rs 200 crore via QIP. The company issued 36.785 million equity shares at Rs 54.37 per equity share.
Marquee global investors like Bank of America Securities Europe (BOFA), Samsung India, Citigroup, Societe Generale, Nomura, BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley and Eminence partnered with Morepen, paving the way for a promising future.
“With this fresh infusion of capital, the company can clearly focus on its two growth engines – Medical Devices & Pharma – and reposition itself for growth in select categories with an end to-end supply chain from manufacturing to marketing,” the had management said.
The company has been growing consistently at 19.6 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) based only on the robust internal accruals and has focused on the maximizing the revenue and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margins.
Now, the additional fund raise would accelerate the growth journey and help build large capacities and backward integration, cementing company’s leadership position in Glucometers and BP Monitors markets feeding directly to the consumers, the company's management had noted.
Now, the additional fund raise would accelerate the growth journey and help build large capacities and backward integration, cementing company’s leadership position in Glucometers and BP Monitors markets feeding directly to the consumers, the company's management had noted.
Morepen is a market leader in glucometers, having installed over 12 million units to date and sold nearly 1.6 million blood glucose strips, driven by an aggressive market expansion strategy into tier-2 and tier-3 cities. As a leading manufacturer of BP monitors, the company has shown impressive growth in the point of care (POC) diagnostics segment.
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In the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) business, Morepen holds a leadership position in the export of six key API products: Loratadine, Montelukast, Desloratadine, Atorvastatin, and Fexofenadine, catering to numerous international markets and exporting to over 80 countries.
The Indian medical devices market is estimated to grow 4.5 times to $50 billion by 2030 from the current size of $11 billion, and is expected to reach $250 billion by 2047, as per Invest India estimates. Morepen has said that it is preparing itself to gain a major market share in the point of care medical devices sector.
The company plans to double its Blood Glucometer meter capacity to 5.0 million meter per annum from the current 2.5 million meter, while strip manufacturing capacity will increase from 500 million strips to 700 million strips per annum within the next 18 months.
Meanwhile, in April to June quarter (Q1FY25), Morepen Lab had reported 147 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth in its consolidated profit after tax at Rs 36.17 crore, on back of healthy operational performance. Ebitda jumped 93 per cent Y-o-Y at Rs 55.05 crore. Revenue grew 14 per cent YoY at Rs 458.64 crore.
Pharma segment Q1FY25 revenue at Rs 320 crore registered a growth of 11 per cent YoY, and it represents 70 per cent of consolidated Q1FY25 quarterly revenues. Established molecules comprising of Loratadine and Rosuvastatin, and new products comprising of Sitagliptin, Saxagliptin and Linagliptin, helped drive revenue growth in Q1FY25, the company said.