Leading Mid-Corporates of India 2021

13 Experts' View Leading Mid-Corporates of India 2021 How would you describe the journey of your company since its inception? What are some of the key products/ services offered by the company? RPG Life Sciences is a five-decade- old pharma company. It was formerly known as Searle India having started its operations as a JV with a reputed global partner – G. D. Searle, USA. With G.D. Searle having withdrawn its India operations, the company inherited its iconic brands, manufacturing infrastructure, processes, and capabilities and was rechristened as RPG Life Sciences. The company operates in three segments - Domestic Formulations, International Formulations and APIs. In Domestic Formulations, it is operating in Mass/ Mass-specialty and Specialty segments with a strong presence in Nephro and iconic brands in Pain, Cardio, Gastro, Neuropsychiatry and Nephro therapies. The company is building Chronic and Specialty franchises by foraying into Diabetology, Rheumatology, and Dermatology. In the International formulations, the company is into niche products like Azathioprine, Sodium Valproate, and Nicorandil with footprints across regulated and emerging markets like Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia, Asia, Africa. In the APIs segment, the company has a stable product portfolio with a presence across LATAM, Europe, Africa, and Asia. RPG Life Sciences Limited Yugal Sikri Managing Director The company has a dominant presence in the immunosuppressant portfolio across Domestic Formulations, International Formulations, and APIs and is a leading company in this category in the domestic market. What are some of the key factors that differentiate your company from its peers? What are the factors that give you an edge over your peers? RPG Life Sciences is amongst a few mid- sized pharmaceutical companies well- represented in all 3 segments - Domestic Formulations, International Formulations and APIs with strong front-end and back- end capabilities, experienced team, high-equity iconic/ “Text-book” brands in multiple therapies, leading position in the immunosuppressant portfolio, a strong and loyal customer base that includes reputed pharma players in both International Formulations and APIs and backing of strong RPG Group. What is your company’s growth strategy for the next 3-5 years? The company has a huge potential and latent strengths to become a major pharmaceutical player, given its Geographical spread (India as well as Regulated and ROW markets), Segment spread (API as well as Formulations), Therapy spread (Acute, Chronic), Powerful iconic/“Text Book” brands basket, Front-end capabilities (Marketing/ Sales in both Mass/Specialty segments with decades-old relationships with the Specialists in the concerned therapy), Back-end infrastructure and capabilities (API and Formulations Plants, API and Formulations R&D, Regulatory and Project Management and Quality orientation to support exports to the highly regulated markets). The company has devised a diligent Transformation Strategy focused around 6 pillars and is currently engaged in diligently implementing it : • Growing business by building high growth therapies/product portfolio in Domestic Business and Stepwise build-up of International Formulations and API business through New Products/New Customers/New Markets • Building iconic / “Text-book” brands into Strategic Assets • Augmenting prescription focused sales and marketing competencies • Embracing digitalization • Achieving cost efficiencies • Building organization to deliver strategy The impact of the Transformation strategy is manifest in the financial results with a clear, consistent, and notable turnaround seen in Revenues, Profits, Margins and Business Health. The company has become debt-free and is generating significant cash surplus to fund more likely avenues of growth including inorganic. EBITDA margins have expanded from 10.4% (FY19) to18.2% (FY21) and 22.6% (H1FY22), the highest-ever in the company history. Market cap has also seen a quantum jump, significantly ahead of BSE Healthcare Index growth. ICRA, too, has upgraded the company’s rating. On the people front, the Company featured amongst the Top 100 companies in India in the Great-Place-To-Work survey. Dun & Bradstreet