Mumbai: JB Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals (JB Pharma) is eyeing possible acquisitions of brands and portfolios to get a foothold in the diabetes segment, its CEO Nikhil Chopra has said.

“We would like to explore things inorganically in the world of metabolics,” Chopra told ET in an interview. He didn’t provide further details like whether the KKR-backed company has identified any such potential target, or the size of deals it’s looking for.

“We are not very big into metabolics…we’ve got dapaglifozin (anti-diabetes drug), which is a Rs 15 crore brand (per annum),” he said.

Chopra, who is also a whole-time director of JB Pharma, said diabetes aligns with the cardiovascular segment, and building the portfolio organically may not be easy.

JB Pharma has been investing in the chronic segment with a sharp focus on the cardiovascular segment through both acquisitions and new launches.

Chronic segment, which is largely cardiac, contributes about half of JB Pharma’s domestic formulation sales.

Chopra wants to improve chronic contribution to the firm’s India business to close to 60% in short to mid-term.“We are a dominant player in the world of cardiology,” he said, adding that its hypertension brands Cilacar and Nicardia contribute close to Rs 500 crore and Rs 150 crore per annum, respectively. “Now we are building our acquired heart failure brand Azmarda and lipid lowering brand Razel,” he said.

JB Pharma is growing the fastest in the cardiac segment and targets to be among the top five companies in this space, Chopra said. “We are largely covered in terms of offerings (in cardiac)… In the next 2-3 months, we are planning to launch diuretic products,” he said.

JB Pharma had in December last year acquired cardiac brand Razel (rosuvastatin) from Glenmark for Rs 314 crore. Earlier in April, it had acquired heart failure brand Azmarda (saccubutril-valsartan) from Novartis for Rs 246 crore.

According to him, 150 million people suffer from hypertension in the country and one in four hypertensive patients is undiagnosed, and heart failure too is under-diagnosed.

On Razel, Chopra said despite being a Rs 60-crore brand with huge potential, it was under-invested earlier as it wasn’t the focus of Glenmark. “We are pitching Razel to cardiologists, and also realigning our existing sales force to promote this brand,” he said. “We want Razel to grow 8-9% in FY24, and about 12-13% from FY25 onwards.”

JB Pharma had in December cut the price of Azmarda by 50% as the drug went off-patent in January and competition intensified. Chopra said he is seeing the growth in volumes compensating for the loss of value.

The chronic segment that constitutes cardiac and diabetes are valued at Rs 40,000 crore for the year ended February 2023, almost one-fifth of the Indian pharmaceutical market, and growing little over 10% a year, making it an attractive market.

JB Pharma is one of the fastest growing mid-size companies in the industry, with six brands under top 300. The company is ranked 23 as per IMS data, and 16 in terms of number of prescriptions.