Bankruptcy court admits BSE-listed Supha Pharmachem under Insolvency Resolution Process

The bankruptcy court in Mumbai has admitted the listed pharma firm, Supha Pharmachem (formerly Remedium Lifecare), to the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) and has appointed Rajesh Jhunjhunwala as the interim resolution professional (IRP) of the company.

Mumbai-based Supha Pharmachem’s operational creditor, Boston Ivy Healthcare Solution, had approached the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) after the company defaulted on its dues in November 2023.

The company is in the business of products and services, which includes the trading and sale of APIs and Intermediates to innovator and generic pharmaceutical players in both Domestic and International markets

Before the tribunal’s ruling, Siddhima Kotak, counsel appearing for Boston Ivy Healthcare Solution, argued that the operational creditor defaulted on the payment of about Rs 7.47 crore for certain raw material supplied to it.

“The corporate debtor (Supha Pharmachem) has committed a default in payment of an admitted operational debt,” observed the division bench of judicial member Nilesh Sharma and technical member Sameer Kakar in its order of March 17. However, the tribunal noted that, “We make it clear that at this stage we have not crystallised the amount as claimed in this application; the same is left to be collated by the IRP.”

Countering this, the company argued that the creditor’s petition suffers inherent defects and is not in accordance with the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

After the initiation of the resolution process, the IRP will now take over the company’s management and call for the claims from financial and operational creditors. The secured financial creditors will form the committee of creditors (CoC).The pharmaceutical sector has witnessed several distressed deals through the resolution process. In the recent past, the Gujarat-based Intas Pharmaceuticals and the Mumbai-headquartered Shamrock Pharmachemi-led consortium acquired the defunct Unimark Remedies through an insolvency resolution process. Also, last year, Bionext Pharma Pvt Ltd was acquired by Shreeji Pipes and Gujarat-based Astral Steritech Pvt Ltd was acquired by Asons Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd.