India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) has assigned Wockhardt's Rs 500 million commercial paper (CP) and short-term debt programme a short-term rating of 'IND A1+'. 

Wockhardt has an established and diversified portfolio of branded products across niche therapies areas including pain, respiratory, CNS, cardiac, anti-infective, oncology. This protects the company against therapy or brand/product-led concentration risks. Wockhardt's consolidated top-line is geographically diversified across India, rest of the world (ROW), the US and EU. For FY15, EU contributed 30.4% to total revenue, the US contributed 35.1% and ROW and domestic business together contributed 34.5%, respectively.

Ind-Ra expects growth over FY16-FY18 in the revenue and EBITDA in mid-teens to be led by EU, ROW and India. The growth would be led by the commercialisation of existing product filings, new product launches, geographic expansion (especially in ROW) and enhancing market reach in domestic markets (especially in rural and Tier 2 cities). The agency expects the US to register moderate growth and has not factored in the resolution of the import alerts in its projections.

Over FY16-FY18, the agency expects the EBIDTA margins to remain around FY15 levels due to an increase in the proportion of revenue contribution from other geographies (EU, domestic and ROW).

The rating agency expects Wockhardt's R&D spends to increase. Its current pipeline includes 73 abbreviated new drug applications pending approval in the US. At end-June 2015, the company cumulatively filed for 2,322 patents, and has been granted 367 patents. For FY15, R&D expenses accounted for 11.5% of revenue (FY14: 9.3%).