Biocon Biologics Confident Of Tackling Pricing Pressures, Ready To Compete

Biocon Biologics' Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Shreehas Tambe is confident of navigating the pricing pressures in the biosimilar market.

He told NDTV Profit that pricing will always be a factor but companies wanting to be successful need to be ready to face competition. “We don’t necessarily look at pricing as a challenge for us to move forward. We look at it as a differentiator because we believe that we have one of the most competitive setups and it positions us better than most of our peers in the space,” he said.

Noting that the company was cautious about its cost structure, Tambe said, “We have, for a very large part of how we have grown the company, been an emerging markets player, which is very frugal on how it approaches cost structure and is price sensitive in terms of affordability index. This has driven us as a company.”

At Biocon Ltd., Biocon Biologics' parent, profit tanked over 84% to Rs 27.1 crore in the September quarter versus Rs 172.7 crore in the year-ago period. Revenue during this period was up 3.7% year-on-year at Rs 3,590 crore. Biosimilar sales were up 4% in the quarter. 

On Biocon Biologics' performance, for the quarter ended Sept. 30, Tambe said, “Coming specifically to Biologics, which is the business that I can talk about in detail, we have had a very strong quarter where the business has grown 19% on a like-for-like basis year-on-year.”

“This growth was not just in revenues but it has also been a strong profitable growth with our core Ebitda being in the 30s and Ebitda margins in the 20s. This sets us up nicely for the second half of the year,” he added.

Shares of Biocon Ltd. closed 2.08% lower at Rs 311.20 apiece on the NSE on Monday. In comparison, the benchmark Nifty 50 had declined 1.27% to 23,995.35.