Key takeaways from the data include
1) Persistent lack of meaningful new approvals that can help support US in Q4 or beyond
2) Barring a few, most approvals across companies are fairly commoditized in nature
3) New approvals particularly for players like Alembic continue to remain lackluster; indeed, Alembic has hit a drought in terms of fresh approvals which is also true for large volume players like Aurobindo and Zydus
4) Torrent Pharma has garnered ~9 approvals albeit most of them genericized as FDA likely cleared backlog including potentially decent ones like Sevelamer Carbonate.
5) Lupin – Mirabegron sees another approval (Apotex) and it may be launched in the next 6 months as earlier indicated by Lupin. Overall, we keep an eye on current month approvals and if the trend of previous months continue, base business performance would gain significance vis-à-vis new launch contribution.
Expect Torrent, Alkem to do incrementally better in Q4 in US while stick to AJP, SYNG, JBCP as top picks.