Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, in an interaction with CNBC-TV18 on May 24, said the biosimilars business is the key growth driver for Biocon. She said Biocon Biologics had a broad pipeline of 20 biosimilar molecules spanning insulins, monoclonal antibodies and conjugated recombinant proteins with a strong focus on diabetology, oncology and immunology, targeting a $70 billion addressable market by FY27.

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Shaw said Biocon had a good licensing deal for a biosimilar asset in FY23, which helped boost its margins. Biocon Biologics crossed $1 billion in revenues in FY23. Shaw said: "We will build on the $1 billion guidance in FY24 as well". Biosimilars revenues more than doubled in the fourth quarter to Rs 2,102 crore and witnessed the integration of the Viatris Biosimilars business.

Biocon beat Street estimates in the fourth quarter of the financial year 2022-23 by posting a 31 percent year-on-year jump in net profit at Rs 313 crore. Revenues stood at Rs 3,774 crore, up 57 percent against the CNBC-TV18 poll of Rs 3,612 crore.

Margin in the March-ended quarter was higher at 26 percent despite elevated research and development expenses. Shaw said, "R&D expenses have doubled this quarter and expect to normalise to 12 percent going forward". The company expects mid-teen revenue growth in the US generics business and guided for 35-40 percent core EBITDA margin in FY24.

In terms of new launches, Aspart and Bevacizumab are expected in FY24. For the Aspart insulin, the company expects a site inspection in Malaysia and there are ongoing talks for Bevacizumab in Bengaluru.

The company noted there is no assured revenue and EBITDA from the tie-up with Serum Institute and their vaccines are not expected to be a growth driver in FY24. Shaw said the company has access to 100 million doses of vaccines and that they "still need to understand" the market opportunity for vaccines. The pharma major has raised $150 million from the Serum deal and about $350 million overall.

Biocon does not have any plans of reducing its stake in Syngene. The net debt now is at $1.25 billion and plans to reduce it further with no hurry to raise more funds.

The pharma major is trading nearly 2 percent higher on the exchanges at 2pm on May 24.