Pharma company Cipla has outperformed benchmarks and pharma index in the year 2020 on a year-to-date basis, rising over 40 percent. In comparison, the Nifty50 has fallen 9 percent fall while the Nifty Pharma index has jumped nearly 30 percent in this period.

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Pharma companies have performed better than most sectors in 2020 owing to increased interest in the sector on the back of COVID-19 pandemic.

Other pharma stocks also performed well this year With Cadila Health, Biocon, and Dr Reddy's also surging over 40 percent.

Founded by Dr KA Hamied way back in 1935, Cipla is one of the oldest Indian ventures. The company has 46 manufacturing facilities spread across the world with a product basket including over 1,500 products.

In a recent report, ICICI Direct suggested another 15 percent upside for the stock.

"With a 5 percent market share, Cipla is the third-largest player in the domestic formulations market. Domestic formulations comprise 39 percent of total FY20 revenues and it commands 21 percent market share by value in the respiratory segment," the brokerage stated in the report.

Going ahead, it expects domestic formulations to grow at 12 percent CAGR in FY20-22E to Rs 8,288 crore driven by improved productivity of the newly inducted field force and product launches besides realignment of the portfolio in sync with its ‘One-India’ portfolio rationalisation exercise.

It is also one of the 6 stocks that have received earnings upgrade from brokerage CLSA for FY22.

Meanwhile, Emkay expects the sector to continue to relatively outperform in the near term given the defensive earnings characteristics, but after a sharp run-up, it remains selective as valuations leave little room for execution misses. For Q1, it estimates only IPCA Labs and Cipla to post positive growth while the rest to decline on a YoY basis.