Always believe growth will come from acquisitions: Lupin

Lupin revenue for the quarter came in below market estimates.CNBC-TV18's Archana Shukla spoke to the company's MD Nilesh Gupta to understand Lupin's earnings and where the slowdown is coming from.Below is the transcript of Nilesh Gupta's interview on CNBC-TV18Q: Are Lupin numbers imn-line with expectations? A: It is certainly out of our usual trend; this is not the norm. From our perspective this was the expectation for the quarter in any case. In 9 months we have grown 19 percent. So, it is inline with whatever we had planned internally. It is not the usual 15-20 percent that we churn out every quarter. However, things are pretty much on track. We had a huge quarter last year. Our Q3 last year was a big one primarily driven with the US. We had three big launches that happened in the US at that time and that has really kept it as a large quarter last year. So, growing on that has obviously been a bit of a challenge. We grew 5 percent for the quarter but 19 percent for year-to-date.Q: Even on quarter on quarter (QoQ) basis it is kind of a muted growth. So, are you intending to say that Q2 of last year was also on a higher base and which is why the six months period that we are seeing has seen a muted growth?A: If you really see Q1, Q2 of this year, when we look at sequential we are really talking Q2 to Q3 of this year are flat. And these have all been great quarters because we have been at that higher run rate right from Q3 of last year. So, Q3, Q4, Q1, Q2, Q3 all of these have been more or less at the same number. So, the number is pretty flat. Again that was quite inline with what we were expecting as well. So, there was only 1 percent growth on a sequential quarter basis.Q: It is mainly impacted by the US growth because US is also just 1 percent in this quarter. US-Europe together is only 4 percent growth. What has impacted the growth in the US market to come down to a level of 1 percent?A: It is the same thing that has been happening in the last couple of quarters as well. In many ways this has been brewing for a little while. The US was flat because there has really been no material launches. We have been waiting to get approvals on some products, it has obviously taken longer. Again this is an industry issue, everybody is facing the same problems. So, we are struggling with the same problem in the US as well.In US we have branded and the generic side. On the generic side we are obviously wanting for approvals to come faster than what they are doing right now. On the branded side we have always talked that in the near term, growth is going to come more from acquisitions than from our own pipeline. We haven’t closed on any acquisitions in the last couple of quarters. So, that is why the branded side growth has not been that great. Sequentially though on the branded side has grown 30 percent.Q: That is because of the Suprax?A: Exactly. The anti-infective season is kicking in. So, Q3, Q4 are always better quarters. We are going to see that in next quarter as well.