Caplin Point Laboratories stock is down 10 percent today and was down almost 21 percent in August, and over 30 percent from its 52-week high in July. To understand exactly what is ailing the company, CNBC-TV18 caught up with Vivek Partheeban, COO, Caplin Point Lab.

Partheeban said, “It has been business as usual and there have been no changes at all with the overall performance of the company and what happens in the capital market is not in our control. Having said that, when it comes to the virtual US FDA audit, it is a big positive for us. At a time when FDA audits are not happening, we have received confirmation that our Amaris clinical is going to have an audit from September 21 or 25, and we are just submitting all the documents to the FDA for that. We have been waiting for this for a long time.”

The company’s injectable plant was last audited a couple of years ago. So when asked if there was any fresh update on that, he said, “Our last audit was in June 2019. It was a successful audit, and we got the EIA within a month itself. And there has been no other audit that has been announced. However, in our business, we have to be ready on a daily basis. It is supposed to be anytime ready. So, if anything is announced on that front, we will obviously be ready to face it.”

“We maintain a very high level of compliance. We've had multiple successful audits at the plant and on the compliance front, we have never diluted,” he further said.

The company reported its Q1FY22 earnings, its revenues were up 25.1 percent at Rs 300.4 crore versus Rs 240.08 crore for the same period last year and EBITDA too was up 29.3 percent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 92.6 crore versus Rs 71.6 crore. The YoY margins were up 30.8 percent versus 29.8 percent.

Talking about the Brazilian authority inspecting and approving their Chennai plant, both Brazil and Mexico being new markets for the company, he said, “This is a desktop audit that had happened because of our successful USFDA and EU GMP audit. For Brazil, because travel is not possible for the auditors, they have taken cognizance of high compliance record with regard to other countries and approved us on a desktop basis,” he clarified, adding that Brazil is a key market for them and going forward, Mexico and Brazil will both be very important.

“We have started product registrations in Brazil and Mexico, and we have also started some emergency tender business. For an overall organic business, we expect something out of these markets in the next 18-24 months,” he said.

He further said, “Mexico is much more of a focus market in the short to midterm for us because of contiguous expansion in Latin America, as we are in multiple markets in Central America itself. So, we are focussing on Mexico very closely. As far as Brazil is concerned, we need a good partner there and we have finally found a couple of people that we were working with, and we feel quite confident.”

“Things are very fluid, dynamic at the moment. So, we don't want to get into numbers. But obviously, these two are, especially for a company that has a large exposure to Latin America, we feel Mexico and Brazil are going to be key markets for us in the future,” said Partheeban.

For the entire interview, watch the video

(Edited by : Dipika Ghosh)