Ajanta Pharma’s growth story gets a semaglutide boost

Ajanta Pharma Ltd announced an in-licensing agreement with Biocon this week to market semaglutide across 26 emerging markets, including Africa, West Asia, and Central Asia. The patent for the weight loss drug expires in most of these markets by March, with commercialisation expected post regulatory approvals in late 2026 or early 2027.

While this will not immediately impact earnings, it can potentially influence Ajanta’s medium-term growth.To start with, Ajanta is not stepping into unfamiliar territory. The company already has a strong branded generics presence in over 30 countries, supported by over 2,000 medical representatives.

This significantly reduces execution risk.PL Capital expects semaglutide to provide additional around ₹200 crore of sales for Ajanta with healthy margins in FY28. The broking firm estimates Ajanta’s consolidated FY28 revenue at ₹6,966 crore.

Biocon will handle manufacturing, while Ajanta leverages its existing field force and infrastructure across emerging markets.This keeps incremental costs low and helps preserve Ajanta’s strong return ratios, rather than diluting them through heavy capital investment.GLP-1 therapies such as semaglutide sit at the intersection of diabetes and obesity, both large and fast-growing markets globally. These therapies typically involve long treatment durations, which improves earnings predictability and durability.Over the past few years, Ajanta has consciously reduced its exposure to the African institutional (anti-malarial) business, which is tender-driven and structurally has a lower margin compared to branded generics, and has now declined to 3% of total revenue versus 9.3% in FY21.The branded generics business, which has the highest margins, now accounts for