Pharmeasy-parent’s loss narrows in Q1, revenue up 10%

API Holdings, the parent company of Pharmeasy and Thyrocare, reported a narrower loss of Rs 29.6 crore in Q1 FY27 compared with a loss of Rs 145.4 crore a year earlier, according to its investor presentation, as it tightened costs and focussed on debt reduction. The figure excludes Esop costs.

The company’s Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation) was Rs 39.3 crore in Q1, compared to an Ebitda loss of Rs 12.8 crore in the year-ago quarter. The results come days after the company announced that it had repaid Rs 1,050 crore of outstanding debt, becoming debt-free after years of pressure on its balance sheet following the acquisition of the diagnostics chain Thyrocare.

Revenue in the quarter rose 10% on-year to Rs 1,754 crore, driven by growth in its B2B and consumer businesses. API Holdings is the parent company of online pharmacy app Pharmeasy, Thyrocare, medicine distributor Ascent, and Aknamed, a hospital-focussed supply chain platform.


Pharmeasy, which competes with players such as Tata 1mg, Reliance-owned Netmeds, and Apollo 247, reported 10% revenue growth in the quarter to Rs 348 crore, while Ebitda loss narrowed to Rs 17 crore from Rs 21 crore a year ago.

Its B2B business, which includes medicine distributor Ascent, reported an 8% year-on-year revenue growth, to Rs 1,005.6 crore, while posting an Ebitda of Rs 0.7 crore, excluding costs related to employee stock options and impairment charges. In the year-ago period, the B2B business posted an Ebitda loss of Rs 17.2 crore.

Both Aknamed and Ascent reported positive Ebitda in the quarter, while Thyrocare, which has been its only profitable arm, posted a 34% jump in net profit to Rs 51.3 crore. The company repaid its debt through the proceeds from the sale of a portion of its stake in Thyrocare and internal accruals, it said in a statement on Monday.

As part of the transaction, Docon Technologies, the promoter and holding company of Thyrocare, sold 9.9% stake through market trades; it continues to own 51.02% of the company. The repayment has also released the pledge on the remaining 79.5 million Thyrocare shares that Docon had provided as security.

Following the company's announcement of being debt-free, cofounder and vice chairman Siddharth Shah wrote in a social media post that the biggest mistake was not using available capital to repay debt, instead deploying it to pursue growth and buy back secondary shares.

The debt repayment marks the latest step in API Holdings’ efforts to clean up its balance sheet after a prolonged period of struggling to raise capital and service debt. The company had incurred heavy finance costs following its Rs 4,546 crore acquisition of Thyrocare in 2021. In 2022, API borrowed Rs 2,280 crore from Goldman Sachs to refinance debt taken for the acquisition, with the five-year loan carrying an annual interest rate of 17-18%.

In 2023, ET reported that API had breached a covenant on the Goldman Sachs loan after failing to raise around Rs 1,000 crore in equity, as it continued to service high-cost debt while its planned IPO was pushed back.