Syngene Int'l looks to carry growth momentum to next fiscal

Having raised its revenue growth guidance for 2021-22 to ''high teens'' on the back of robust performance, integrated research, development and manufacturing services firm Syngene International Ltd is looking forward to carry the momentum into the next fiscal, its Managing Director and CEO Jonathan Hunt said.

The company, which serves global pharmaceutical, biotechnology, nutrition, animal health, consumer goods and specialty chemical sectors, has witnessed its discovery services performing ''particularly well this fiscal'' and expects development and manufacturing services ''to see a bit of a pickup'' by the end of this fiscal and into next year.

''We're seeing quite a good demand environment across all of our businesses, whether it's discovery services, development or manufacturing, that creates the right conditions for us to be a little bit more bullish about the year-end and building momentum into next year,'' Hunt told PTI.

Elaborating further, he said all the three divisions have got very healthy, growing demand in the marketplace and ''they've all got good outlooks and good reasons for it to grow''. ''Discovery services have done particularly well this year. I think development and manufacturing, we should start to see a bit of a pickup as we go into the end of this year and into next year,'' Hunt added.

In the third quarter, Syngene International reported a 10 per cent growth in revenue from operations at Rs 641.4 crore and for the nine months ended December 31, 2021, the company posted a growth of 21 per cent in revenue from operations to Rs 1,846.1 crore.

On the basis of the year-to-date growth, Hunt said the company has raised its revenue growth guidance for the full year to ''high teens'' from the ''mid-teen'' guidance shared at the beginning of the financial year. While the COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges on operations it has also brought opportunities, particularly on the manufacturing side, he said.

''Certainly (on the) manufacturing side, the demand for things like biologics manufacturing, that's quite a buoyant market. You can predict that just from the conversation we had around the pandemic, the global pandemic responses really consumed and soaked up an awful lot of capacity that was in the world...We do have capacity within our biologics manufacturing business. It's in good demand and we are seeing good, healthy incoming inquiries in that area,'' Hunt said.

Highlighting the role played by the company in the global response to the pandemic, he said Syngene worked to help vaccine manufacturers in identification of the protein structure of the virus, partnered with a company to develop lateral flow test for COVID-19 besides partnering with Gilead to manufacture Remdesivir.

''I am not most sure we're coming out of the pandemic yet but the world is certainly living, learning to live and operate with it. That's creating a good demand environment. I think that points for a positive outlook for the business, whether it's this quarter or into the next financial year,'' he said.

Commenting on the extension of long-term partnerships with Amgen Inc in December and with BMS (Bristol Myers Squibb) in April last year for five and ten years respectively, Hunt said it's unusual in the industry, in which Syngene is in where most of the research contracts would be rolling and repeating annual contracts.

''That gives us real visibility of the partnership. It's pretty good for cash flow planning, helps us really think about the health of the P&L (profit and loss), which in turn, gives you a lot of confidence about being able to invest in the business,'' he said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)