Coloplast A/S (COLOB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Well, hello, everybody, and welcome to the first Capital Markets Day breakout session. It's a great pleasure to be here with you today. My name is Paul Marcun. I'm the Executive Vice President for Growth. Last week, I presented at the Capital Markets Day. And for those of you who did not participate, I presented a strategy centered around innovation and with an emphasis on the U.S. and on China. Today, we're going to go global. And I have invited 2 Senior Vice Presidents, Howard Sui, our Senior Vice President for Asia; and Manu Varma, our Senior Vice President for North America, to present their Strive25 strategies. At the end of the presentations, there will be time for a Q&A. Please be aware that there will be a slight delay on the webcast versus the phone calls and the audio you may hear. And without further ado, I'd like to hand over to Howard, who's based in our Beijing office in China. And Howard, please go ahead.

All right. Thank you, Paul. Good evening, everyone, and greetings from Beijing. I have been in the company for 13 years, and I am the Senior Vice President for Asia. So over the next 10 minutes, I will share with you an overview of the Strive25 strategy for our business -- for our Chronic Care business in China. And maybe you have noted that the title of my presentation shows that our starting point is actually quite a good place as we enter the Strive25 period. We are the market leader in our space, and we will definitely leverage this market-leading position to further build our business in China. Now when you look at the Chronic Care business in China, clearly, it's a healthy, growing business. Today, we are a top 3 growth contributor for the Chronic Care business in Coloplast. And we have roughly 5% of the group sales in the chronic space in China. And we also have quite a strong organization, numbering more than 500, in China. Now as you can also see, the vast majority of our business today is in ostomy care where we do have a very strong market position with roughly 60% market share. And we are operating in a very, let's say, healthy space where the overall ostomy care market is growing at 15%. And this is certainly supported by the very positive macro trends and demographics for our business such as the fast-aging population, the organization that's still ongoing, the very rapidly growing affluent population and the increase in the prevalence rate of chronic illnesses in China. Now China is one of the key themes in the Strive25 strategy for our Chronic Care business, and I think for very good reasons. China is already the world's second largest med tech market, and it's one of the fastest-growing. We also know that in the past decade, China has contributed greatly to the global GDP growth. Roughly 1/3 of the world's GDP growth has come from China. And of course, in 2020, I think China will be the only major market that will still have a positive GDP growth. And most prognosticators do believe that once the pandemic settles for the strategy period, the global GDP growth contribution from China will return to roughly the 1/3 level as in the previous decade. Another very important aspect of the Chinese market is the digitalization that's happening here and how fast the e-commerce market has advanced. And this is particularly important for China as for the med tech space, once the patient leaves the hospital, the reimbursement today is not very good. So a lot of the purchase is out of pocket, so making patients in China more -- behaving more like consumers than patients. So the e-commerce market today in China is the world's largest. And in fact, it's already bigger than the rest of the world combined and also growing at a very fast rate. So for us, over the next 5 years, clearly, ostomy care is our biggest and most important business and will remain our core business. So we aim to continue the growth momentum that we have now in China, and we continue to expect ostomy care to be the biggest growth driver for our business. In addition to that, we do expect to be able to develop a sizable IC business during the Strive25 period, and we will do this by creating a dedicated business unit to further advance our market development work and the size of the business. Now in addition to that, we have established a very strong and sizable consumer business today, but that importance will become even more over the next 5 years. So we need to continue to expand and evolve our business in this space. So in ostomy care, today, we have, by far, the largest sales force in China with very strong coverage. In fact, we have staff based out of more than 130 cities in China. Of course, all of these cities are with populations that are more than 1 million. And we have sales to nearly 300 cities in China. So the coverage of our ostomy care business is actually quite strong in the hospital side. And our products are also very much preferred by clinicians as evidenced by the fact that the majority of NPD are placed on Coloplast products when they are discharged from the hospital. We also enjoy a very strong relationship, a trusted relationship with our clinicians in China through our many years of strong effort in working together on improving the standard of care through education for clinician and also through our joint efforts in conducting patient education. And many of these education programs is also done online, but we have also now established a very strong position in the digital world, both in terms of sales and e-commerce channels, but also in the types of education and other services that we offer online. Now going forward, we expect that we will be able to sustain a very healthy growth rate in ostomy care in China primarily for these reasons. First, one of the key drivers for our growth is coming from the continuous improvement in the change frequency that patients are doing in China. So over the past 5 years, we have more than doubled the number of products that patients use in a month, from roughly 5 to 6 bags per month to now over 12 a month. Now when you compare that to the current European level of basically 30 bags a month, then that shows you that there's still a lot more room to grow in this area. And patients and clinicians are starting to recognize that the right change frequency can significantly improve the quality of life, the quality of the skin and also reduce the worries that most patients have on leakage. So this is something that we will continue to drive through our education efforts. Another growth area is on furthering our NPD shift. So today, we are covering the vast majority of NPD surgeries in China, but there's still a bit more for us to go for, and this is something that we will plan to deliver over the Strive25 period. In addition to this, this year, we have launched our SenSura Mio, and the product was introduced about 5 months ago, and it is off to a very good start. So this has now further broadened our portfolio where currently, today, roughly half of our patients start their ostomy care journey with SenSura and the other half with Alterna. And with the introduction of SenSura Mio, we expect that we will continue to be able to move patients up the value chain into more and more premium products. And another area that has really offered us a lot of strong growth over the past few years is in our ostomy care supporting products. Patients are starting to really recognize the benefits supporting products can bring to them in addressing specific issues that they have. And with additional education efforts planned, we expect the supporting products contribution to our growth to be something that will sustain our performance going forward. Now the IC category today is very -- you can say, potentially large, but it's still very underdeveloped. And we aim to create a sizable business by focusing our efforts on a selected number of high-potential cities. And the segment that we will focus on will be the spinal cord injured, SPI, patients. Now in China, the reported number of SPI is in the range of 1 million to 2 million with an additional 60,000 to 70,000 new patients each year. So in terms of potential, it is a huge opportunity. At the same time, we also recognize that the IC, the use of IC of -- by clinicians of -- by patients recommended by clinicians is still very low. Most reports indicate that less than 10% of spinal cord injured patients in China today are using IC as their preferred means of emptying their bladder. So we aim to, in the short term, focus on the out-of-pocket market because reimbursement is also something that requires additional effort to achieve. So in the near term, we will focus our efforts on a selected number of cities, focusing on the largest hospitals, working together with the clinicians and the patients to help them understand the benefit of using IC for bladder management. And then together, we believe that we can also, over time, convince the government on the needs of this patient group and then gain some reimbursement support. And finally, as I mentioned earlier, the patients in China, because of the reimbursement situation, behave more or less like consumers. And with the largest e-commerce who are already in China that has basically penetrated about 25% of all retail sales, we do see that on the health care side, specifically in ostomy care, the penetration of e-commerce is even farther than the general retail sector with about 30% of all ostomy sales today already online. And we expect this to further increase over the next 5 years to roughly half of all ostomy care sales in China. And today, we do enjoy a very healthy position online. We are present in all the major e-commerce platforms, from Tmall to Taobao to JD.com and WeShop. And we have a very strong market share position at roughly 70% today, and this is definitely something that we plan to further leverage to help grow our business over the next 5 years. So clearly, our ambition for China's Chronic Care business is to continue to outgrow the market and continue to deliver strong profitable growth. So this concludes my 10-minute presentation. Operator, I'm ready to take questions from the audience.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Veronika Dubajova of Goldman Sachs.

I'd love to ask a couple of questions on the continence care side and the size of the IC opportunity that you see. One, kind of what your ambition is in terms of market share? If you can talk to what you think is realistic and maybe touch upon the competitive landscape, the key players in that segment today and who are you competing against? And then my second question is just pricing and product type in IC in China. How do you see both of those? And when you do think about this out-of-pocket market, is this mostly hydrophilic or not? And the type of products that you're expecting to sell there, that would be really helpful.

Thank you, Veronika, for your question. There isn't a lot of data in China. What we do know is that there's a very large patient population. As I mentioned before, 1 million to 2 million. And if you consider roughly half of these patients will be eligible for IC, then that will give us a potential population of users of 0.5 million to 1 million. Now today, the IC penetration is below 10%. So roughly, 50,000 to 100,000 patients are using IC today in China. And so if you use these types of numbers to project out the current market size, it is not very large. It is a few hundred million CNY, local currency. And right now, the market share that we have is not -- it's just a starting point. The majority of the products in China that are being used is the very low-priced uncoated catheters made by local manufacturers. So the goal for our company is to really build the IC category, help clinicians and patients understand for their, let's say, longevity, it is important that they recognize the importance of good bladder management. So the first thing we want to focus on is really to build the IC category to improve the standard of care. Now the products that we offer are hydrophilic in China. And we are active today with both business in the hospital and also a direct-to-consumer business through our subscription program. And the reason why we have launched the subscription program is to basically take out the middlemen so that we can help patients afford to use products. And we have learned quite a bit over the years from the work that we have done to the point where we now believe it's time to set up a business unit to basically put more resources in this effort. So I hope that answers your question.

Our next question comes from the line of Oliver Metzger of Commerzbank.

My first one is a quite general one on whether you can comment on volume versus price development in China, that would be quite interesting. And the second question is also on your product portfolio. So on the slides, there were already some legacy products. So could you disclose which share of product is still coming from your legacy portfolio and to which extent you can also use the newer technologies like the SenSura Mio?

On the first question, certainly, with still an increasing number of surgeries on the ostomy care side in China, low to mid-single-digit growth each year, so there are more patients coming into the pool. And by winning more share, for sure, part of our growth is being driven by volume growth. On the pricing pressure side, certainly, I think all of us have heard about the volume-based procurement that's happening on the pharma side and also now starting to happen on the premium-priced consumables on the med tech side. But we have, let's say, been quite lucky that we haven't been exposed to the volume-based procurement efforts. So our pricing has held steadily in China at this point. And your second question on the portfolio, yes, we still have a few legacy products in China, Alterna being one of them. And we launched SenSura about 5, 6 years ago. And in China, after a product gets and receives regulatory approval, we still need to make quite a bit of effort to get the products listed individually into hospitals for us to be able to really make the product available to patients, and that does take time. So it took us this many years to reach today's point where half of our new patients are, let's say, starting their journey with SenSura and then the other half are still on Alterna. And with the introduction of Mio this year, we expect that more and more patients will migrate to the Mio portfolio and then, over time, this would also receive a significant share of patients. And we think the -- this will cannibalize the Alterna patient population. But we do expect, over time, that the portfolio will move, you can say, upwards to the premium brand, but we do offer a broad portfolio so that we can service all the different segments in China.

Our next question comes from the line of Scott Bardo of Berenberg.

So first question, please. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the competitive landscape in ostomy care in China. I note in your slides, you suggested around 20% of the market comes from more local regional players, which seems very low in the context of some of the efforts the Chinese authorities are making to stimulate domestic production and to fuel more local competition. So is there any noticeable moves or players from a local perspective that it is worth keeping a watch on or are making some strong advances in this area? It would be interesting to understand that, please. And the second question relates to your Coloplast Care program. I appreciate you've made extensive investments. Can you confirm how many players in China have similar type care offerings? And when -- if you're successful in migrating more sales towards online channels, does this devalue in any way a broader care offering and increased competition? Or is it the opposite is true?

In terms of competition, that certainly has increased over the last 3 years when China decided to lower the classification of ostomy care products from Class II to Class I. So the regulatory hurdle was lowered. Therefore, over the past 3 years, more than 2 dozen local brands have entered the market. They are all, you can say, similar in that they're all aiming for the low end of the market. So basically, trying to differentiate only on price. And they're not really making any efforts to introduce their products with their own sales force, a hospital sector. So it's more or less just making the products available. So at this point, none of the local competitors have scale. So combined, they have about 20% of the share of the market, but this involves more than 30 players. So no real, you can say, serious threat at this point from local competition. In terms of our Care program and similar programs offered by our competitors, there's only one that we do note, and that is from ConvaTec. And I think they are a latecomer, so we do believe that we still have the great majority of the patients in China. And the migration online or maybe I should say the digitalization that's being done in China now actually offers us, you can say, more means to service our customers because now education can be automated, can be done via a channel that is most convenient for our users. We can also automate our service so that we can have more frequent contacts with our customers. And I think the digitalization effort has also helped us in terms of our retention efforts with our customers. So it has been, I think, a quite a nice development that these new tools are now available to us to help us better service our customers.

[Operator Instructions] Our final question for this session comes from the line of Veronika Dubajova of Goldman Sachs.

Howard, I just wanted to get your thoughts on sort of the size of the organization and your ambition to grow the sort of number of feet on the street that you have. This has historically been a big focus for the company, and I think there was a little bit of pause and consolidation on that over the last couple of years. How are you thinking about the next 2 to 4 years? When you think about those 500 folks that you have, what's that number looking like in 2, 4 years from now? And I guess, incrementally, it sounds like more of that goes towards the IC business than the OC business. Is that a fair assumption or not?

I think, for certain, we will be expanding our organization for the IC business and to a lesser degree compared to the previous ramps up -- ramp-ups in the OC business. Now as you can imagine, as you move into the last, let's say, pieces of the market that we are currently not covering, for efficiency reasons, we will have to use a less traditional means of reaching all these customers. So some type of a hybrid model where we will be visiting customers not exclusively in-person, but through a combination of in-person versus -- plus the supplementation with online visits. So I think, at this point, because of our coverage of the ostomy surgery, it's already quite expensive. So the requirement to expand compared to the previous phases will be smaller, but the IC opportunity, I think, is one where we will focus our efforts. So I think your view is something that I can confirm, yes. Thank you, everyone, for your interest. Thank you, audience, for listening in on the session and asking all your questions. This does conclude the China session. So I will now hand this back to Paul. Paul?

Very good. Thank you very much, Howard, for Beijing. And thank you to all the participants for very interesting questions. And again, just to reiterate the message from last week as well, we will continue to invest in China to build on our market-leading position. What I'd like to do now is hand over to Manu Varma, who is our Senior Vice President for our North American business. Manu is based in Minneapolis and will be streaming live now. So over to you, Manu.

Thank you, Paul, and hello, everyone. It's great to be here to share our new 5-year strategy for the U.S. market. As you know, among all Coloplast regions, U.S. is a bit of an odd duck. We don't have the highest market share in ostomy and our continence market is still not fully developed. Too many users are using uncoated catheters. It should then be no surprise that we see ourselves as the challenger in the market. We're challenging competitors in ostomy, but we are also challenging status quo in our business areas to become leaders in our categories during this strategy period. Actually, it looks like we didn't move the slides, so apologies. So that's why the tagline for our strategy for the next 5-year period is challenger to leader. Looking at the picture of the business, this isn't materially different from what you have seen before. We have a bigger Continence Care business than Ostomy Care business. We continue to grow 2, 3x the market rate in both of those business areas. And we have approximately 30% share in continence. And in ostomy, we are in the mid-teens. And in both, because we are growing faster than market, we are gaining share. So what's our strategy for the next 5-year period? Looking ahead, it's all about sustainable growth leadership. We could not be more excited about the innovation pipeline that you all got to see last week. Those innovations will definitely put Coloplast substantially ahead of competition in our categories. The commercial strategy, however, expects those innovations to arrive during the course of the 5 years. And it builds on top of that through commercial tactics that go after the substantial runway that we have in our market. So let's look at it by business area. Starting with Continence Care, we look forward to bringing not just those groundbreaking innovations, but also some smaller innovations to market during this 5-year period and continuing to upgrade the market to hydrophilics. In Ostomy Care, we will expand our offering just like we have over the last strategy period, and we will deploy commercial strategies to ensure that we win along the patient pathway, starting with hospitals into post-acute care and in the community. Our direct business, Comfort Medical, has made solid progress over the last couple of years and is growing well. We want to make it the go-to dealer for users in the U.S. market. And ultimately, this is a rich agenda of a lot of business activities that have to happen over the course of next 5 years, and doing this well will require us to execute with excellence. And so commercial execution will be a super important element in the strategy. And we will be working with providers to build clinical standard of care. We will be bringing more digital offering and solutions to market and continue to grow and strengthen our organization. Looking at this by business area. In Ostomy Care, we have, over the last strategy period, gained more than 6 points in market share. And this has happened because of the terrific innovations we brought to market in the past strategy period. When you look at SenSura Mio, we have flat barriers like everybody else, but we have more types of convexity barriers than anybody else and we have the only concave product in the market. And this excellence of innovation on the barriers and pouches side exists on the accessories side, too. And both of those, B&P and accessories, have grown handsomely for us in the past strategy period. Looking ahead, as I mentioned, we are going to deploy tactics to win along the patient pathway and ensure that we take share at every level. Taking a double-click into the acute segment, which I know you guys are keen on hearing more about. You've heard from me in the past about some of our marquee wins, Bon Secours Mercy Health was -- is one of the largest IDNs in the U.S. that we won last year. Last fall, we also won a contract position with Ascension, which is one of the largest hospital chains in the U.S. You've heard about Kindred and Encompass Health. We won their Home Health business last year. Since then, we have also expanded to their rehab facilities, the long-term acute care hospitals. And I'm very pleased and proud to share that we are now the second largest player in the acute channel. In the last market NPD data that we saw, we had become #2 in NPDs in the U.S. This is great and we are obviously happy and pleased about this, but now, our eyes are set on #1. It will be a lot of work and a long road, but we are on the attack and we intend to get there eventually. Now an important part of making this happen is having contract positions with GPOs. And you know we won a position with Premier last year. We are actively working on the Vizient opportunity right now. We expect Vizient to make a decision sometime close to spring of next year about who will -- they will give an award position for ostomy. So that's going to be exciting and we're looking forward to that. And Health Trust happens in a couple of years from now. We did not win a position with Health Trust this summer, but we expected that, that was possible. And certainly, the situation in the U.S. market with the pandemic did not help us as we believe Health Trust saw it tricky to switch manufacturers during the pandemic. But we're doing very well with Premier. We have a very strong pipeline. Certainly, the pandemic has slowed it down a little bit in terms of implementation, but we are continuing to make progress there. Moving on to look at Continence Care. Similar story, we have gained substantial share and we have upgraded the market. That's how nearly 60% of our business now is in hydrophilics. This has happened again because of the innovations we've brought to market. SpeediCath and SpeediCath Flex Coudé Pro have been very successful in the U.S. market. As I mentioned earlier, we have brought in a new innovation to this space recently. We launched SpeediCath Soft in the U.S. market last month during the pandemic. Last year, we also expanded our sales team, so we have a very strong footprint in the market. Now just a quick double-click into SpeediCath Soft. This is our newest member of the SpeediCath family. And it's a soft catheter, it comes with a gripper, and it is going to fit in the A4351 reimbursement category, which is about 40% of the market but actually represents nearly 70% of the volume. And this is going to be a very important launch for us. It's a little early for us to see the full impact for it, but the reason why it's really important is that you guys know we've talked about hydrophilic upgrade of the U.S. market for a long time. As we were looking at this a couple of years ago, one of the things that we saw was that a number of users on IC are trained on a technique that is unique. It's a pinch-an-inch technique. The user pinches the catheter, inches it in and just repeats that process until they have catheterized. And when you look at our existing 5-1 product, SpeediCath Straight, which has been tremendously successful, its technique is different. And that technique is more hygienic because the user does not have to touch the catheter anywhere along its path where it enters the body. So the reason why SpeediCath Soft is so important is that with having SpeediCath Straight and SpeediCath Soft, we can now cater to all types of techniques used in the U.S. market. And this should help us continue the journey of our hydrophilic upgrade in the U.S. market and continue to grow our Continence Care business in the years to come. Looking ahead to our direct business. We have been executing our growth plan for Comfort Medical for the last couple of years, and it's growing nicely. We're very happy with the performance that we've seen there this year. It's going to be all about driving new patient demand at Comfort in this strategy period and improving the retention of the patients that we already have. We also recognize that Comfort has -- when we acquired it, it had very little coverage outside Medicare, and we have expanded that, but we still have a good runway of commercial insurance plans, managed care plans that we want to expand our coverage to, and that's going to be worked for us in the coming strategy period. Now looking at that, commercial is one part, but our strategy is really about taking Comfort to the next level in terms of being the go-to dealer for U.S. patients. And there, I think we look at 2 important tactics that we're -- our strategies we're going to look at. One is strengthening our digital offering for a superior customer experience. You can see in the App Store or Android, we do have a Comfort app now. Right now, it caters primarily to existing users who just want to reorder what they currently use. We expect that during the course of the strategy period, we would expand that functionality and make it more of a full-service offering, and that should put it well ahead of competition. We're also going to focus on improving the service levels that are provided at Comfort. And for instance, when a user calls, we shouldn't just be taking orders, but we should also be listening to them and helping them deal with the condition that they have. And I think when we do that, we will really make Comfort different and unique in a market which tends to be fairly transactional and not very customer-friendly. Looking ahead on the commercial execution side, you've heard from me in the past that we were investing in medical affairs, medical marketing. We're expecting to see the impact of that happen during the strategy period. We are going to work with clinicians to set the standard of care. We believe it's super important. We need to bring innovation to market, but we also need to make sure that clinicians who are thinking of guidelines and standards of care are fully bought in and understand those innovations. As I mentioned, in the case of Comfort, we do have plans to expand our digital solution and offerings to empower end users. And this is certainly even more important in this post-COVID environment where so much of business has moved to the digital front. And then finally, ultimately, nothing can be done without a strong organization. We're super proud of what we've accomplished in the U.S. over the last several years. We have a very strong team. Very recently this summer, we were recognized as a top employer by a Minneapolis -- a Minnesota-based organization that evaluates local employers. That's the first time that we've showed up in that list. And we're just going to work very hard to make sure that we have the best organization and culture through talent development and an emphasis on inclusion and diversity in the coming strategy period as well. All of this leads me to our ambition for this strategy period. We will be going from challenger to leader, and our goal is to have sustainable growth leadership and deliver that at a rate of double digits in the entire strategy period. With that, operator, I'm ready for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Jannick Denholt of ABG.

Manu, it's Jannick from ABG. Just to pick off, you started by saying that you can say the new generation of products and innovation is key in the U.S. growth. Can I just get your perspectives on -- obviously, the new platforms are not just around the corner. They're a few years out. So how important do you see these for -- it's probably just this strategy period, but probably even beyond? And how do you see this in terms of the importance towards your negotiations with the GPOs, in particular?

Yes. So great question. I think innovation is -- I mean this is a medical device company. In our categories or any other categories, we're a medical device company, right? Innovation is what drives growth. We continuously move standards of care higher and so on, right? So we definitely see the quality of those ideas and where the new pipeline takes us. And it is meaningfully different. One of the things that I believe we deal with on a consistent basis as a company is this general perception that supplies or consumables, well, are they're getting commoditized? But I think this innovation proves that we are not getting commoditized. We can do material changes to the kind of technologies being used by our end users and really improve standard of care. So that's really a long-term thing. However, we expect that those innovations will launch in this 5-year strategy period. I do not expect each of them to be very, very material during the next 5-year period. We believe we can get to our growth rate through the products that we have and the incremental innovations also that we're bringing to market. So that's how I see the innovation playing a role in the next 5-year period. Now coming back to the conversations with GPOs, there's certainly a brand conversation, right? We are a newer player in the U.S. market. A couple of years ago when we started talking to some of the GPOs, one of the biggest misconceptions that we had to deal with was that people tended to think of us as a European company or a niche company in Europe. And by bringing some of these stories out, by talking about these things, we do differentiate our brand. That said, none of the major innovations the clinical performance program talks about are necessarily on the RFPs that we get from the GPOs. We're not at a position where we are pricing them or having that kind of discussion. So I think it does get a halo effect on the brand, which can help us, but it's not part of, if you will, the nitty-gritty of the GPO contracting process.

Okay. May I just quickly follow up and then I'll jump back in the line. What are you most excited about when you look at the clinical performance program and the new products? So is it the digital solution also, given you can say the way that the world moves digitally? Or is it the next platforms, whether being catheters or ostomy bags?

Gosh. I mean that's like asking you to choose a favorite child. I think they're all very exciting. I -- it's broad, it's deep, it's meaningful. And that level of quality and innovation is what excites me most.

Our next question comes from the line of Annette Lykke of Handelsbanken.

I mean comparing to what is in the market already in the U.S., it is my impression, like in Europe, Coloplast has a quite superior product portfolio. I just wonder if there's a need for adjusting that portfolio to American preferences, i.e., having bags that can be used for a longer time being possible to empty. And then my other question would be on the hydrophilic upgrade you talk about. How do you see that in context of the deal structures? Is it at all possible for you to sort of convince dealers to win people who are getting back to community to actually use the products that are best for them and not the products that gives the biggest profit to the dealer?

Great questions. So to start with the first one, well, of course, I think there is an element of localization and catering to a specific market need that may come from time to time. SpeediCath Soft that we just talked about is a great example of that, right? It's a U.S.-only product at this point. And it was developed because we had that insight that the technique being used in the market is unique to the U.S. market in its prevalence. So we had to -- instead of just trying to convert everybody to use a different technique, we said we will take a step forward and bring our hydrophilic coating and high quality to the techniques that many people are used to. So we do this from time to time. And I think we have done this in ostomy as well. We had -- 2 or 3 years ago, we launched a high-output product portfolio, which is -- of bags which is used by ostomy patients in the U.S., primarily in the hospitals. So we have done this from time to time, and I foresee that continuing to happen in the coming strategy period. To your question about hydrophilic upgrade and can we ever do that completely, I mean I think it's always going to be something that is done with effort. It's not going to happen automatically. But I think that's why we have a commercial organization, that's why we do innovation. We bring innovation that is compelling. Through our commercial organization, we educate users, we educate clinicians. And we know that the dealer reluctance to provide premium products is only successful when users and clinicians are not informed or educated, and that's what we try to change every day. And so I'm confident that certainly, it's not something we can do overnight. You've heard I think from us before how -- when you look at the U.S. market, it’s had reimbursement for even onetime-use catheters for only about 10 years. So the market is in a relatively early stage of development and it's on our -- it's basically our task to get it to where all users have access to and are educated about the hydrophilic products.

Our next question comes from the line of Christian Ryom of Nordea Markets.

I have 2, please. So the first is to how COVID has impacted the market dynamics in the U.S. over the last half year. So I think Coloplast is generally -- in Europe seemed to benefit from being the market-leader -- COVID seems to have benefited the market leader. Has a similar dynamic played out in the U.S.? Of course, understanding that you're not the market leader in ostomy, but are the market leader in catheters. And then my second question is to this increase in NPD share that you report for catheters in the U.S. When I go back and look at what your -- at your last update at the Capital Markets Day in 2018, you reported that your market share had increased by 23 percentage points from 2014 to 2017. So my question is, given that you now report that the market share is only up by 6 percentage points from '15 to '19, has the market share moved at all over the last couple of years in the catheter market?

Okay. Great questions. Let me speak to the COVID situation first. Here's the reality. I think all the patterns that happened in Europe happened in the U.S. also. But just like we didn't really shut down completely in the U.S., I think all of those patterns were much more muted. So for example, the demand spike that happened in March in many places, we believe there was a bit of a demand spike in the U.S. also at the dealers. It kind of happened for us into April. But within that quarter, it smoothed out and that demand was consumed. So it was muted. As far as competitive activity goes, I think you could argue on the margin maybe. The -- on the ostomy front, for example, we were not able to implement all the Premier accounts we would have if there was no pandemic. So in that sense, it may have helped our competition. Keep in mind, share-taking is what we do. We are share-takers in this market. And for that, we do need more open access than we had for the better part of that period from late March into June. Since then, I think things have opened up, and I think everybody is getting better at navigating this. I wouldn't say we are back to everything being great and normal. We do see a decline in total volume of patients, which given the physics of the business, I think we are going to expect something to happen here in terms of some maybe ups and downs in demand, which we are watching very closely for the first half of the next year. So again, on the COVID situation, all the same kind of things as anywhere else in the world, but much more muted, I would say. Looking to your second question about catheter share, I do think that the share has been maybe not as volatile as it was in the early part of previous strategy period. But I think a big part of that is also that our key product in the market has been Flex Coudé Pro, right? And so Flex is a 5-2 catheter. It's primarily for users who have tried 5-1 and it's not working for them. So in that sense, it's -- there are NPDs who also use Flex, but it's primarily for users who have tried 5-1 and it didn't work for them. So from an NPD standpoint, sometimes there maybe is a bit of a de-linking of NPD versus business growth. The business is doing fine. It's done well. And we continue to be on the attack. And Flex remains this marquee product, which stands head and shoulders above the competition. And now we've also added SpeediCath Soft to the portfolio. So I feel pretty good about our overall position and where we're going in Continence Care.

Our next question comes from the line of Scott Bardo of Berenberg.

So first question, please, just relates to the current status of competitive bidding for durable medical goods. I know that there's various lobbying groups now that are suggesting that competitive bidding is delayed or that ostomy and urology appliances are excluded from any future program. Is this a consideration for Coloplast? And could that indeed change in any way surrounding the change of administration? And the second question, please, just relates to a little bit more understanding of the current structure of the U.S. ostomy market. A lot of Coloplast new products, I think, are for single-use devices. Can you give us a sense of how significant the 2-piece market is in the U.S. and whether there's any shift changes between 1-piece and 2-piece that you're able to exploit?

Great questions. Competitive bidding, I would say, it feels fairly distant at this point. This is not to say it cannot come back. But in the last round, what they announced, excluded our categories. We're also seeing CMS go through a lot of changes. I don't know if you have seen, but they reorganized CMS a couple of times in the last few months. There is a new department that's responsible for all of home products and DME POS products. And so competitive bidding would be under their purview. So as of now, I don't have any new information which leads me to believe that I should be concerned. Now I would also add, when I look at the possibility of a new administration, whether it's this one or the new -- or a new dispensation, what we know is that anybody coming into power would want to have growth in the economy. So I suspect that they would be looking at other things different from competitive bidding in the near term. I also believe that if it is a democratic administration, they're looking to expand coverage and insurance. So that should be good for the industry overall as well. So it is something we'll keep an eye on, and we'll certainly make sure that lawmakers and people at CMS are fully educated. We just don't think our categories are such that we want to reduce the options available to users. These are highly personal, highly intimate products, and they are -- in many ways, there's a reason why the ostomy portfolio has so many SKUs. They have to fit every individual user. And this competitive bidding type of approach works well when you are doing pretty much similar products. It doesn't work when you have this kind of range and complexity in what people need. Your second question, I'm forgetting now. Can you remind me what it was?

So -- yes. It was just some clarification on the 1-piece, 2-piece market for ostomy and what the sort of market landscape is, if everything changing now?

Yes. Great question, yes. So U.S. is primarily a 2-piece market, right? And I think if you look back at our portfolio 5 years ago over the -- back in the early stages of the previous strategy period, our innovation was very much in the barrier technology, but we had a lot more, I would say, advantage in the 1-piece segment. So what we see today is basically a result of the work that was done back then where we're very strong in the 1-piece market. We're not as strong in the 2-piece market. But I would say, for the last 2, 3 years, we have focused on the 2-piece market much more. We have a Flex coupling that we have introduced and promoted in the market, which has been quite successful for us. Our Click coupling also has been quite successful, and a lot of the innovation that we're bringing into market continues to grow our 2-piece segment handsomely. So if I look at the state of play right now, I think we are more strong in 1-piece than in 2-piece, but that's really, to me, a legacy effect. And we're definitely making a dent in that situation by improving our 2-piece share everyday nowadays. I believe that was my final question. Can we go back to Paul?

Thanks, Manu. I think we have time for one more question, please, operator. One more question. I think we've got enough time for that.

Our final question for this session comes from the line of Carsten Madsen of SEB.

I was actually just interested in hearing a little bit more about the historical performance of Comfort Medical since you acquired it because I think back when you secured Comfort Medical, we all had a pretty big hopes for how fast this one could be expanded, et cetera, et cetera, but you still call it a relatively small player. And now you have ambitions again to make it the go-to dealer for U.S. patients. So I'd like to understand a little bit about what has been holding back the performance of Comfort Medical, if that's the case, and what the -- and how will you change this. And as a follow-up, if you have a -- if you can pinpoint how much of the 6% market share points you have secured for ostomy and continence comes from the acquisition of Comfort Medical?

All our share in direct is from Comfort Medical. That's our only direct business in the U.S., okay? So that's on Comfort. Comfort has done much better in this year than previous couple of years. I think we acquired it 3 years ago, 3.5 years ago. I think it was a new thing for us. We learned much more about our dealer space in the process. We also, I would say, had an entity in Comfort, which was good at its current size. We needed to do a lot of work to make it scalable. And that's the work we did a couple of years ago. We've had a lot more structure put into place. We've had IT systems improvement, business improvements in the back office and so on. And the large majority of that work was completed more than a year ago. And so -- and the business has grown all along. So it's -- when I say -- when you hear us say that it's still a small part of the market, that's really a reflection on the market being much bigger rather than Comfort underperforming. Comfort is growing handsomely. So I don't want to create that impression that it's a drag on the business by any means. It's doing well. But when your starting point is 4% share, you can grow 50% and get to 6% and it's still not that much bigger. So when we talk about the next strategy period, it's really about going from these kind of low shares to getting to a much bigger share over time.

And is it possible to give a range? What will require for you to call you a go-to dealer? What type of market share do you need to be at?

Yes. I'm not prepared to speak in terms of market share just yet, but I think when you are at 6%, you first go to 7%, 8%, 9%, 10%. And so what we pay attention to is, is it growing? Is it doing well? And I think right now, it is. I'll now hand it back to Paul Marcun for a close.

Very good. Thank you very much, Manu, and very interesting questions from the participants. Manu, I want to thank you for that. In summary, we are pleased with our progress in the U.S. and we also recognize we have a lot more work to do as well, but we are confident that with that work and on the back of the investments that we have made, that we will move from a challenger to a leader position. So this draws us to the close for this workshop and breakout session. I want to thank all of our participants for your engagement, particularly your thoughtful questions. We will be now breaking for 15 minutes. And after the break, please come back and join us for our Wound & Skin Care breakout session, which will be hosted by my colleagues, Nicolai Buhl Andersen and Rasmus Hannemann. And thank you, everybody, again, for your engagement, much appreciated. Have a nice day. [Break][Presentation]

Hello, everybody, and welcome to our next session here, which is centered around the Wound & Skin Care business. My name is Nicolai Buhl Andersen. And with me today, I have my successor, Rasmus Hannemann, who will join me in our Q&A session. So you also can get an introduction to Rasmus, who will take over the Wound & Skin Care business as well as have his perspective on the questions that comes up in the Q&A. But with that, let's go into the next slide, please. So what we want to convey to all of you today is that our strategy for Wound & Skin Care under Strive25 is really about a focused strategy where we want to aim for category leadership within one of the biggest and fastest-growing category within the wound care market. This is the silicone segment. We want to grow more. We want to grow faster than the market, so we can scale the business and ultimately drive better profitability for our franchise. We believe we have a very strong point of differentiation in what we call the 3DFit technology. We believe we can talk to this in a distinct, different way compared to competition, and we sincerely believe that not all forms are the same. We are, in this period, going to do a couple of new things to make sure that we truly leverage this opportunity, both from a marketing point of view, but definitely also from a portfolio and pipeline point of view. As you all know, we believe we can talk to a pretty strong performance and track record when it comes to what we have done with our business in Europe where we have been growing faster than the market and, in particular, growing faster within the Silicone Foam segment. And of course, we want now build on this great momentum in our new strategy period, but in particular, we aim to scale our business both in China and the U.S. And as you also have heard from Kristian and others, in this strategy period, we will definitely also be much more active on exploring inorganic growth opportunities. So with that, let's sort of go to the next slide. And what we are presenting here is our current view on how we see the market we are operating in right now. As you all know, from our fact text, we have estimated the advanced wound care market to be representing around DKK 18 billion to DKK 20 billion, growing around 2% to 4%. I do know that we operate right now in a very different context. So we do not have better insights at this point in time to guesstimate what we see the growth being. But right now, we are still leering with the data and the facts that we have used in the past at our best view on how big the market is. There is no doubt about that COVID-19 has impacted the short-term growth rates, but estimating them is quite difficult for us. Now what I want to call your attention to is the slide we also used at our CMD in London last year. And what you can see here is the reason why we are so super focused in our strategy. We are focused on really taking category leadership within one of the biggest segments within the overall wound care market, the Silicone Foam segment. This is representing approximately DKK 5 billion to DKK 7 billion and is one of the fastest-growing categories and remains one of the fastest-growing categories. But we're also tapping into a new important category, the gelling fiber category, which is approximately DKK 2 billion to DKK 4 billion and also growing quite nicely. So our focus is right now to be focusing and catering for the 2 biggest segments where the growth is and where the big deltas can be made. We estimate that approximately 45% of total value pool sits within the Foam segment as well as the gelling fiber segment. And as you can see here, it represents approximately 2/3 of the total growth. So this is the place you need to be and if you want to be in the growing segments. Let's take the next slide. Now as you will know from our quarterly report and what you've heard from both Kristian and Anders, there's no doubt about that we have had a very strong momentum in our business until COVID-19 entered. As you can see from this slide, we were running with a quite significant positive momentum until COVID-19. We saw a very nice growth in our European business. We saw very nice double-digit growth in our U.S. business. And also, our emerging market business was growing very nicely. As mentioned a couple of times, the key growth driver for us was our unique technology, 3DFit technology, within our silicone franchise. So one of the key growth drivers was our Biatain Silicone franchise. Now then corona came. And as you can see on the next slide, we also saw an impact on our business. And in particular, as we have been reporting, we saw an impact on those businesses within our Wound & Skin Care franchise that were highly exposed to what we call the hospital segment or the secondary care segment. And we have 3 geographies where we, in particular, are exposed to the hospital segment, that's China, that's France and that's the U.S. That is also 3 of our biggest geographies. So when they are hit due to the corona impacts, it also has an impact on our business. And as you can see on the curve on the left side of this slide, we saw Q3 diving quite deep due to lack of access, due to lower amount of procedures and, overall, also less patients simply coming to the facilities. Now the good news is that we can see here in Q4 that things are moving in the right direction and Q3, for sure, was our bottom. We can see that we now have access across these geographies. Again, we can see procedures are now taking place again. And we can also see that our businesses are picking up in those 3 geographies. So we believe that Q4 will be seeing a nice uptake in momentum and Q3, as I mentioned before, being our bottom so far. So as we move on to the next slide, let's also talk a little bit about how do we sort of refer to our achievements during the past strategy period, a strategy that we call LEAD20. But as I just mentioned, we believe we have proven that we have a pretty strong track record and performance record across all of our European markets. We can more or less tick mark every single European business in terms of growing more than the market and, as I mentioned, growing significantly faster than the market within the category we focused on, which was the Silicone Foam segment. In the past period, we also set ourselves up for more ambitions and more growth in China and the U.S. We have created new setups. We have created new leadership teams. And we have also created new commercial infrastructures for our businesses in China and the U.S. We are, in particular, very proud with what we have been doing, as I've been saying a couple of times, with 3DFit technology as this has been our growth driver. And what we are, in particular, very pleased around is that even though we didn't came in as #1 in this category, we have managed to take share and actually take substantial share within this category. What we're also pleased about is that we, in the last part of this LEAD20 strategy period, has launched more products. We have, first of all, now a complete portfolio when it comes to our Biatain Silicone portfolio. But on top of that, we also have launched a silicone content layer. And lately, we have also started to embark on entering the gelling fiber segment with Biatain Fiber. So we feel we have delivered across the different strategic themes, and we believe we have a pretty strong point of departure in terms of embarking on a new strategic period. Let's talk about that with this new slide. So the essence of Strive25 for Wound & Skin Care is similar to some of the things you have seen in Chronic Care. We have 2 geographies that represent significant opportunities for us, that is China and that is the U.S. In China, we have ambitions of really continuing to be a market-leading player within the Chinese wound care market. And what we need to do, in particular, is to accelerate with our silicone portfolio to take share and grow faster within the Silicone segment than we have done up to now. In the U.S., we are focused on the acute channel. So what we need to do in this strategy period is transform our strategic focus on silicone -- or sorry, we just had a small error here. Sorry, guys. To focus on our desire to take our franchise in the U.S. from not just being a Wound & Skin Care business, but being, in particular, a Wound Care business. And then in Europe, we need to build on our momentum. There is no doubt about that in Europe, we have a strong momentum, but we need to build on it by doing more marketing but definitely also by increasing our share of voice in the European continent. How do we do that? We need to do more with 3DFit technology, but we are also going to launch more products into our pipeline. On top of that, we also want to make sure that those key brands that are going to drive our growth going forward are at the best possible level from a margin point of view. So as you've heard Kristian speaking into, we want to drive our profitability, one, by driving more top line, but we're also going to do it by ensuring that the brands that are driving our growth has the best possible margins. So we're going to do a couple of things also to see a margin uplift. And then, as you've heard, we are going to take an active approach to find out how we further can accelerate by doing nonorganic activities. Let's talk a little bit about 3DFit technology and why we are so excited about it. So if we go to the next slide, please. As you have seen and heard, we are pretty proud and pretty happy and pretty pleased with what we are doing with 3DFit technology. Why? Well, first of all, we believe now that we have created consensus among our customers, in particular, key opinion leaders, that the best way to handle wounds is to take care of the exudate in the wound bed. And to do that, you need a 3T -- 3DFit technology approach because this is the most effective and best way of ensuring conformability. Now what we also have done in the past period and continue to do is to prove the 3DFit technology from a clinical and scientific point of view. We have now more and more evidence speaking to the fact that it is clinically different and that not all forms are the same. And we can also prove it. As I mentioned before, we are not only a follower anymore. We are actually the leading silicone provider in a couple of geographies. Next slide, please. Now what we also want to do is to ensure, as I said in the beginning, and that is to cater not just for the Silicone Foam segment, but also for the gelling fiber segment. This is an attractive value pool. This is an attractive growth rate that is coming out from the gelling fiber segment. So we have recently launched the products that we talked about at the CMD in London, the brand, Biatain Fiber. This is a gelling fiber solution with what we call a Hexilak technology that locks in the exudate in a unique way, that has a minimal shrinkage and, last but not least, has a very cohesive gelling profile. Let's talk about the next slide. So what we're doing here is not only pursuing 2 different segments. We're actually also believing in that we have a synergistic market approach because by catering to both the gelling fiber segment as well as the Silicone segment, we can now address the majority of the wounds that are out there. So with Biatain Silicone and 3DFit technology, we are solving for wounds that are less than 2 centimeters when it comes to exudate pooling. And for those wounds that are deeper and require different kind of solutions, those that are less than 2 centimeters, we can now use Biatain Fiber with this Hexilak technology actually in combination with Biatain Silicone. So what we believe we can do by catering to both of these 2 segments is that we can have synergies. So we actually believe we can sell not only into a new category, but we can actually also get synergistic effects to our Biatain Silicone franchise. How are we doing in terms of doing this job? Well, let's take the next slide. Now what you see in this slide here is a couple of things. And the headline is that we believe we are actually off to a pretty good start when it comes to Biatain Fiber. First of all, we believe that the uniqueness of the Hexilak technology and the feature and the benefits from the Hexilak technology is being proven in the market not just by us, but actually by our customers and our clinicians. We are now getting clinical feedback from our customers that the core value proposition of Biatain Fiber is actually working and being demonstrated in their clinics. And if you look in terms of how we are doing from a performance point of view, we are actually also pretty pleased. What you see here on this curve on the right side is how are we doing in the German community segment for gelling fibers. This is one where we have a very big competitor that has been owning this category for a long period of time. And we have, even under corona circumstances, been able now to tap into more than 10% of this category, a category we never have been in, a category we just launched into, as I mentioned, even though we were under corona circumstances and are taking 10% of that category. That is something we are pretty pleased about. And we can also see from the other markets where we have launched Biatain Fiber that the uptake and the feedback from our customers is very positive. And as you can see, that has given us confidence, confidence in terms of what the product can do from a clinical point of view, but also confidence in terms of what we can do with it from a market share gaining point of view. And as you can see here, internally, we can see that our frontline right now is increasing their expectations for what we can do with Biatain Fiber quite dramatically. So with that, let's go to the conclusive slide for what we want to talk about when it comes to Strive25 and the Wound & Skin Care business. So the heading is we want to grow because we want to scale the business and we want to improve the profitability. The proxy for that is that we are growing faster than the market. And in particular, our focus will be on U.S. and China. And in particular, within our key geographies, we want to win within the Silicone segment with 3DFit technology and our fiber solution, but we are also going to bring more products into our portfolio by driving a new and exciting pipeline. And we will definitely keep an eye on what we can do from a nonorganic point of view both in terms of channels, technologies and other geographical opportunities when it comes to nonorganic moves. So in conclusion, we feel that we have a lot to capitalize on and we have a lot to aim for in the new strategy. And we believe that we now have clarity around what we need to do to take this business to the next level. So with that, I think we are ready for the Q&A. And what we're going to do here is we're going to have Rasmus Hannemann join me for the Q&A session. So operator, we are ready to take some Q&As. And I will just move a little bit here so we can get Rasmus into the picture as well. So hey, Rasmus, so before we go to the Q&A, why don't you give just a short intro to yourself so our audience is acquainted with your background?

Definitely. So nice to meet everyone. My name is Rasmus Hannemann, and I've been with Coloplast for 15 years. I have worked in -- mainly in our headquarters here in Denmark in Chronic Care, but I've also worked in our U.S. subsidiary for a couple of years. So I've been on, you can say, both sides of the commercial spectrum. Some highlights from my career at Coloplast has been working with the ostomy care business with the launch of global launches of SenSura Mio and Brava and also starting the consumer journey for Chronic Care. And I'm very excited to join Wound & Skin Care and be here today.

Great, Rasmus. So operator, we are ready for the questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Veronika Dubajova of Goldman Sachs.

I have 2, please. One is on the gelling fiber and just your thoughts on kind of how replicable the experience you've had in Germany is in the other markets. Obviously, pretty impressive performance in a fairly short amount of space, but I just wonder how realistic you think you can replicate this as you go into other geographies. And maybe if you can remind us which markets are on the hit list for the remainder of the year and as we move into 2021, that would be helpful. And then my second question is sort of a bigger picture on M&A. I appreciate you like to be more active, but I think it's been an ambition of the company for a fairly long amount of time, and it's been quite difficult to find the targets that are suitable. Maybe, Nicolai, can you talk a little bit to sort of how your priorities are changing in terms of what is it that you're looking for on the M&A front? Is it -- are we looking at sort of distribution on a regional basis? Are we looking at new technology? Are we thinking bioactives? Sort of what is it that you are now looking for?

Thanks, Veronika. Super good questions. So let's start with the fiber. So first of all, yes, we are super pleased with what we are seeing in terms of clinical feedback, but also in terms of the shares we are gaining in the markets where we have launched it. As we also talked about last year at the CMD and ANDA, we are right now having a non-antimicrobial solution, and we are catering also to bringing a antimicrobial solution for Biatain Fiber into the market as soon as possible. So right now, our rollout kind of reflecting those markets where we, in particular, can cater for the non-antimicrobial gelling fiber segment, and that is driving our rollout plans for now. And that is actually also something where we, in particular, in Europe see a pretty big potential for. Now in terms of M&A, that's, of course, a super good question as well, Veronika. As you can see here from our strategy, we have a couple of geographies that we are super focused on. So what we're also doing in each of these geographies is of course to find out are there local things we can do there that really can scale our business. So we're keeping an eye on not just thinking about M&A from a global point of view, but also from a regional or geographical point of view. And here, there are different opportunities per geography. So in some markets, it might be more -- and in some geographies, it might be more channel-oriented while in other markets, it could be pipeline or technologies that we are focused on. Now we are not going to enter into the so-called prescription markets, so the biologics. That is not on our radar, that is not on our strategic frame for this strategy period given that it's a very different regulatory environment than the one we operate in today.

That's great, Nicolai. Can I quickly squeeze in a follow-up, which is, when do you think you will have the antimicrobial gel? What is the time line for the launch there?

Well, we will have it as soon as we get it to the market, of course. And exactly what that means, we're not going to go into -- and actually, I also think there is sometimes a benefit in not having the entire portfolio from day 1 because that means we can maximize within the subsegment, the non-antimicrobial segment, and get the whole category established. So I think there is plenty of things to do with Biatain Fiber, as we know, today. And that's what we are pursuing and that's what we are striving for, but of course, we want to have a complete portfolio down the road.

Our next question comes from the line of Annette Lykke of Handelsbanken.

Nicolai, could you address how you see some of the European markets like France, Italy, Spain right now in terms of COVID-19, the resurgence in infected patient, is that having any effect? Or do you feel that -- I understand that mostly see recovery from April and May, but do you feel that the recovery to normalcy will take longer time also because the hospitals has a lot of precautions to take when taking in patients?

Yes. Thanks, Annette, for your question. There is no doubt about that we do see an impact on patient inflow to both the hospital, but also to the community channel across the geographies you talk about. We have seen as -- let's say, as France started to open up, although we now can see that things are probably going to go a little bit backwards in terms of things being closed down. But as we saw France opening up, we clearly saw that the community access started to open up faster than on the hospitals. And we still see that, even in the hospital channels in France, that access is limited from our side. And we also see that there is simply less patient traffic than they used to be, but getting closer to normal. Also, I think that is the case when we talk about, both I think you mentioned Italy and Spain. However, a market where we saw things actually getting fairly quickly back to something as close as normal in terms of patient inflow was in Germany. However, access from our point of view is still, let's say, restricted to a certain degree when it comes to the hospital channel in Germany, while in the community and the home care channel, we feel things are pretty good from an operational point of view. Did that answer your question, Annette? It sounds like we did.

Yes. And another...

Annette, do you have another question?

Yes.

You were fading in and out. I couldn't hear if you had additional question to the first one about geographies.

Yes. No. I don't have anything on the geographies, but I would like just to add on the M&A side. Is there any -- are you have a preference for smaller things or for -- or would you be a part of the, I would say, consolidation win in the Wound Care segment, which is pretty fragmented?

I think, as you've heard Kristian saying, we are open. We have a very different capacity today in our organization in terms of doing M&A. And I think that means we can cater for everything from smaller ones to bigger ones. End of the day, what determines what we go for is what makes strategic and financial sense. And that's what will be sort of the lens we will use for our considerations.

And then maybe adding to that, Nicolai talked about how we have a very focused agenda. And M&A that can advance that agenda is, of course, interesting versus a purely opportunistic approach.

For sure.

Our next question comes from the line of Kit Lee of Jefferies.

I have 2 questions, please. I think the first one is more of a further question. Do you feel the need to have a broader product portfolio today to win some competitive accounts? So I guess, for some accounts, do you feel that you are at a disadvantage against other bigger competitors? Or is that not the case? And my second question is just a clarification on the gelling fiber. The 10% market share that you disclosed in Germany, is that just for the non-gelling category? And can you just remind us how big is this gelling category segment within gelling fiber?

Yes. Thanks for those questions. They're super good. So if we start with the first one, I sincerely believe we have the breadth and the depth in terms of what we need to do within the silicone category. So no, I do not see that there's a need for, let's say, there is gap in that portfolio as it is today. We need, as we mentioned before, to make sure, within the gelling fiber, that we also bring in the antimicrobials, and that's already in our pipeline and that is advancing in our pipeline. So this is a question about time, when that will hit the market. So also in that space, we believe we'll be very competitive in the coming period. So we do not need to do, let's say, more on those 2 fronts. If there are other new categories that are coming up that suddenly seems to be growing fast and stuff like that, that's probably something we will then will be considering. But for now, our focus is on Silicone Foam segment and the gelling fiber. In terms of the size of the gelling fiber segment, then it varies a lot from country to country. So in some markets like, for instance, in France, there is no reimbursement for gelling fiber with antimicrobials because there is no reimbursement for antimicrobials in France overall. So in France, we don't need an antimicrobial. Now for instance, in other geographies, we see that there is a bigger, let's say, segment for antimicrobials than non-antimicrobial secular products. And of course, it varies from country to country. So it's difficult to speak about a general perspective. There's a lot of geographical differences, and that is also what is reflected in the way we want to rollout the products.

And is that 10% market share in Germany for the overall gelling fiber category? Or is that just for the non-antimicrobial?

This is for the plain gelling fiber, so without antimicrobials. So the category we play in a category of non-antimicrobial.

Our next question comes from the line of Oliver Metzger of Commerzbank.

My first one is on intellectual property. So you showed, if you combine the 3D technology and silicone, that it has some superior results. Is there any kind of patent protection for the combination? So if not so, how evaluate the risk that competitors might take the approach if the clinical data is so good? That's the first question. The second one is on the wound care market from a global view. So in general, the wound care market is comparatively mature. The silicone and gelling fiber appear as a attractive growth niche. How long do you think might this niche be attractive? Do you see an increasing competition going forward? And also in that context, do you think that some other technologies might become more important? Also back to this multiyear discussion about negative pressure, whether it eats up some of this traditional wound care, that would be great.

Can you just repeat the first question again? Oh, the patent protection. Yes. Sorry.

Yes.

Yes. Okay. Yes. So the first question around patent protection, yes. So our Biatain Silicone is fully IP-protected due to the way we have patent protected our foam. So it will not be possible to create a foam similar to ours, which is embedded in our 3DFit technology. So that is fully protected. In terms of how much growth we see going forward in terms of those categories that we are focused on, we believe right now that within the foam category as such, we see that no matter where we go, that the markets are converting to silicone solutions because they simply, from a clinical point of view and from a usability point of view, are more attractive and more relevant. So the market will be converting from, let's say, nontraditional foam products towards silicone. And there, there is still a lot of potential and a lot of momentum. So I think within this strategy period, you will still see the Silicone Foam segment being a quite substantial segment of the total value pool within Wound Care. Also for gelling fiber, we also see that the gelling fiber makes a lot of sense that's why it's one of the, let's say, heavily used product solutions out there for those wounds that are deeper than 2 centimeters. So that's why we're also entering into that. So by catering to both the Foam segment and to the gelling segment, we are addressing almost the majority of the wounds that are out there. Now in terms of disruptive technologies that may enter, that's a good question, but it's also a very speculative question. We are keeping an eye on what's going on. We believe that given, let's say, the role we play in wound care and the role we play in general as a player in Coloplast, we are contacted by a lot of, let's say, developers and other companies, be it small or bigger ones, in terms of new technologies. So I think we are in good contact with the market in terms of what's going on out there. And if there are interesting things, we will, of course, evaluate them and consider as part of our future offerings. But for now, we do not see, for instance, you mentioned NPWT as being an area we want to start to invest in. We believe we have some very attractive deltas to be made within gelling fiber as well as the Silicone Fiber segment. And as I just mentioned, don't forget, we have 2 distinct geographies, China and the U.S., where the silicone opportunities are significant for us. So tapping into those 2 growth streams will give us a lot of attractive growth. And by the way, it's also a very profitable segment to be in because they are priced higher compared to some of the other categories. So it's also important from a profitability point of view.

Our next question comes from the line of Scott Bardo of Berenberg.

So you highlighted then that you believe that around 45% of the advanced wound care market is silicone foam and gelling fiber. Can you please give us the proportion of your current business mix for these 2 combined categories? What percentage of Coloplast current wound business relates to those categories, please? And I think, Nicolai, you mentioned that there is one very significant competitor in the gelling fiber category, which you're displacing somewhat. Can you remind us who that competitor is, please? And are you aware of any alternative launches, if you like, that, that or other competitors have to maintain position in this industry?

Yes. Scott, thanks for the questions. So obviously, we do know that entering into gelling fiber is basically a new category for us to play in. So of course, we have a very low proportion of our total revenue attached to the gelling fiber category yet. But when it comes to foam, we -- as we just talked about, we have 2 types of foams out there right now. So we have the silicone and the non-silicone foam solutions out there. And almost 50% of our total franchise is attached to the foam, be it in silicone or non-silicone. So I think that's as close as I get to that. Well, in terms of competitive responses, I think -- don't get me wrong, I don't want to come across in the wrong way. But I think the best one to answer that would be competition themselves. So I think they can answer better than I can. But there is no doubt about, as we also presented on the previous slide, we are very, very happy that the things we saw when we created the product as distinct benefits of Biatain Fiber versus the leader out there is being proven not by us, but by our customers. And the feedback we are getting from our customers is that it is different. It is not just another gelling fiber product. And I think also there is a big desire to try something else, given that you have had a single player who have been dominating this category for a long period of time, that there is a sincere desire to try something else. Now when we then offer Biatain Fiber, what is very important is that we not just end up in a lot of people who try it out, but actually are coming back and expanding their use and repeating their use of the product, and that's what we also are seeing. And that's, of course, what also gives us a lot of appetite on this product. And as I mentioned before, what is also super great for us is that it doesn't mean we are taking focus away from our frontline. It is about being able to sell Biatain Silicone in combination with Biatain Fiber makes a lot of sense also for our customers.

Nicolai, that makes sense. And are we allowed to know who the main competitor is in gelling fibers? Can you disclose that?

Yes. That's ConvaTec and the brand, Aquacel.

Our final question for this session comes from the line of Jannick Denholt of ABG.

Just a quick one. I think you noted that in the U.S., in particular, you basically used -- aimed to become a wound care business rather than a wound and skin care business. Just some thoughts on how you see the skin part. Is that potentially something that's even -- ought to be spun off later on? Or how should we view that component, please?

I think the point here being that we have a big skin care business today and not so big wound care business. So of course, the aim in this strategy is to make our wound care business significantly bigger. We do, however, see that there's a lot of synergies by having both wound and skin care because a lot of the customers that are big on skin are also big on wound. So there's a lot of go-to-market synergies by being in both a wound and a skin care player. And on top of that, remember, we are catering to the acute channel. And in acute, it's very much about winning IDNs. And IDNs have often a lot of contracts where it's a combination of wound and skin care. So we actually believe that our ability to compete in the market in terms of winning IDN contract is enhanced by having both a wound and a skin care franchise. And I think that was the last question. So first of all, a big thank you for the questions and thanks for dialing in. And with this, I also want to wish Rasmus all the best in his new position. So once again, we will move on and have a small break. And the next session will be on IU for the U.S. Thanks, guys. [Break]

Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Steve Blum. And I've been with Coloplast for about 4 years. I joined Coloplast as the Head of Growth for North America. And then about a year ago, assumed the role of President for what we now call Interventional Urology. I've been in medical device, specifically in implantables and surgical, for about 20 years. So I'm excited to talk about our 5-year plan for IU. So for this segment, we're going to cover several things. We're very excited, and we feel like we're going on offense. We expect to deliver upper single-digit growth, and we expect to continue our increase in profitability. So we're excited about that. Some things are going to change, and you're going to hear some different focus areas... [Audio Gap] this call may be heard about Endo to the U.S. over the past many years, and we have not delivered on that. But that's going to change, and it's already changing. We're excited about the trajectory for that, and I'll tell you more about that in a bit. And then a couple of things you've not heard about in the past, Innovation and M&A. And we've got a game plan that's going to drive value for the organization in IU on all fronts. And so we're excited about that. So at the core of what we do, it's all about patients. We try to take that into consideration when we hire people and we look at their value system, look at their motivation for joining Medical Device. We know there's debilitating diseases around the world, and we've got good solutions for all of those. So when we design clinical trials or education programs or products and innovation, we listen to the voice of customer and the voice of patient. Here, you see below actual patients in the primary spaces that we play in. We got erectile dysfunction. For Women's Health, we have stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. And there we have kidney stone disease. So we'll talk about each one of those in detail. So if we look across the business areas, we actually have a lot in common. You see the prevalence of endosurgery as far as kidney stone disease. 11% of the world's population on the men's side will have that. And we've got a portfolio that really we can scale across the globe and really drives value in the mature markets that we have it. And then if we look at Men's Health and Women's Health, they're very similar. They're unmet needs, there's very low awareness, single-digit awareness, and we've got great solutions to drive patient awareness and education for that. And then in the past, you maybe heard the fourth business that we have, Specialty Interventions or General Urology. And those names didn't resonate with us. And so we decided with that franchise to go ahead and focus more on our strong suits and that's Folysil Catheters and drainage systems. So we now call that Bladder. So before I talk about the future, we always need to reflect upon the past. And I'm using the fiscal year '18/'19 as our baseline here just because COVID was so disruptive for us. And I'll talk about that later. But if you look at Urology Care and now Interventional Urology, we've actually had a very nice run. But as Kristian mentioned last week, it's been a bumpy road. And we now feel the full support of the Coloplast organization and are very excited about the opportunities that we have. So we are a very low single-digit player. Our growth was good. It was modest. And we weren't really professionalized as a business, but we still had that growth. And over the last 5 years, we've had even more impressive growth, largely due to the professionalization of the business and also expanding in North America. This is a slide that is a little bit busy, so please allow me to kind of navigate you through it. But if you look in the upper left-hand corner, you see our role within Coloplast. We're about 11% of revenues. And if you look in the lower left, how do we get there? And you see 2 circles. One is by business, and you can see that each segment contributes nicely to Interventional Urology. Men's Health is the largest, Women's Health is the #2, but quickly followed by Endo. And then if you look at the circle to the right of that, you'll notice the geographical split. The slight majority of our business is in North America. Europe continues to be a stronghold for us, and we think great things are to come for Emerging Markets. So if I could guide you now to the upper right-hand side, the urology market, we're about a 15% player, but that's a little distorted in a negative way because we don't play everywhere. And so you see the circles below. They show our different business areas. And we have a very strong #2 or #3 position in each of these segments, but that's only where we play. So part of our plan for growth is to play elsewhere, and I'll talk more about that as well. You see the market sizes below that. They're impressive. We've got a bigger appetite for more. And then if you look at the lower right, you see how we performed with the market. And we're pleased to say, over the last several years, we've outperformed in each segment, specifically so in Men's Health and Women's Health. This is a visual depiction of Coloplast against the world. And if you look at the competitive landscape, on the mental side, it's a duopoly. It's us and it's Boston Scientific. And we're growing the market, and we're taking some share, and we feel pleased about that. On the Women's Health side of the business, we've got 3 players. Johnson & Johnson has a huge legacy in this space. They're considered the gold standard. We've also got Boston Scientific and Coloplast. Our growth has been strong there, and we'll continue that in the next 5-year period as well. And then it gets a little cloudy if you look at our Endo and our Bladder businesses. A lot of competitors, sometimes local competitors. We've got stronghold markets, especially... [Technical Difficulty]

We apologize for the interruption. We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. We will resume the call as short as possible. Once again, we thank you for your patience. We have resolved the technical issue. I will now hand back to Steve to continue with the presentation.

Thank you, operator. I actually do not see the slides presently. So if you could reengage those. Thank you. And my apologies to everyone. I know your time is valuable. And so I hope you can hear me now okay. I wanted to talk a little bit about COVID as I've attempted to do a few times. And so we had a very strong beginning to this year, almost 2 quarters where we're executing our plan. We're growing into the double digits, and we are very excited about the outlook. And then as we all know, everyone on this phone was impacted by COVID in some way. And we saw that elective surgeries around the world were postponed or canceled. So we did all the right things as a business, and we ceased what we could, and we kept our listening systems, our quality systems alive. But at the end of the day, we're very pleased with where we are right now with respect to our return to the market. We're seeing very nice growth around the world. We're seeing very nice growth around the world, and we're seeing inconsistencies, though, in where we are growing, but we had a very strong August, much better and earlier than expected, where we were almost to Index 100 and we're actually pleased with September as well. So here's where it gets exciting, and I'm really glad that we had the technical issues figured out because this is our 5-year plan and our strategy. And if you look at the Strive25 wheel, you've seen this from others as well, but it's customized for Interventional Urology. And so I'm going to start in the lower right with invested employees. They're the foundation for why we do what we do. We've got great employees who are highly engaged. We've been bringing new competencies into the organization, and we're excited to develop them and take us to a different level than we've been in the past. And then if I can see you to the upper right, the top line growth. We will continue to execute on the programs that have been working, and that comes to that upper single-digit growth. And we've got plans to go ahead and kind of fortify that trajectory there. But where it gets new and very exciting for Interventional Urology is on the upper left, and that's the Innovative Solutions. We've not had that in the past. We've got a very robust portfolio on the organic side, so innovation internally, and we're also very active with distribution opportunities and presently with M&A as well. And all of that would be for naught if we didn't continuously improve. And so that's in the lower left-hand side. And you see operationally, we're continuing to professionalize, get smarter, get better and faster and nimble. And we look forward to executing to that as well. So this next slide talks about the different businesses, and we've prioritized a pipeline that is customized to each business. But if we look at the common threads, we've got health care systems around the world that are largely wanting the same thing. They want minimally invasive. They want desire for faster procedures. Physicians want to be able to do things outside of a hospital setting. And then finally, physicians want to be able to do more procedures. And so we take that consideration into each of these business areas when we think of innovation. So my apologies, this slide is a little busy, but it's very important for us. And if we look in the upper left side, we see strengthening the core. And because we've not had innovation in recent years, we've got gaps. We know we have gaps. We know about the solutions. We know what to do. We're already working on them. And so within the Endo space, the Men's Health space and the Women's Health space, we have solves for those, and we're working on those right now. And then where it gets exciting for us is in that middle section, and that's our portfolio expansion. And that's where we have new technologies that we're going to bring in that are gap fillers. So the enhancements that I just talked about are very important and they're acute, but the gap fillers will allow us to be much more competitive in the spaces we already play in. And then finally, at the bottom, you see things that are transformative. And so these are breakthrough technologies that we've got concepted that we're excited to get going on. This slide is busy. So once again, allow me to navigate you through it. But if you look at the concentric circle here, this is our view of the world of urology. And in the center of the world, you see core. And that's where we play and we play well. We bring a trusted expertise to our physicians. They like us, we like them. We know their disease states. We're very strong in erectile dysfunction, stress urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse. And then if you look at the bottom of that, that's our Endo side of the business. We've made a determination that we want to be in scopes and lasers, but we think it's a better opportunity for us to work with distribution opportunities there. And then if you look at the blue circle in the middle, you see target adjacencies. That's where it gets very exciting for us. So earlier in the presentation, I showed you the market sizes of where we play, but that's not enough for us. We want to go ahead and capitalize on the physicians that we know and the other diseases that they treat. So we've identified 3 that we're focusing on. There's many that we could, but we're focusing on overactive bladder for women, prostate health for men and the sphincter for men as well. And so we're excited about those opportunities. And as Kristian alluded to last week, we're very active in that space right now, and we're very engaged in looking at the M&A landscape. And then the outer ring is opportunistic. And that's where we know enough about the disease states and we have established relationships with the physicians, but they're probably a couple of years away. You recently heard last week that we did make an investment in Francis Medical. We like this therapy. We like this technology. We respect the management team, and we see the market for bladder and kidney cancer as very significant in the years forward. So although that's a couple of years away, our excitement level has started already for that. So geographically, if I could just tell you how we're going to focus. In the United States and Canada, it's largely executing on what we've said on the implantable side of the business, so Men's Health and Women's Health. But then we are finally bringing Endo to the U.S. -- to the U.S. market. I'll talk just briefly about that in a moment. And then in Western Europe, we look to do the same thing, but better. And so that will largely be focusing on our Endo portfolio and also Men's Health. We do see upside opportunity in Men's Health. And once we get some of these portfolio gaps into our bag, we feel that the Endo business will begin to thrive even more so there. And then the Emerging Markets are a wonderful opportunity for us. We are focusing on them. We've identified a series of countries that are very targeted and very specific. We know the business there. We're developing an infrastructure there. We see opportunities, especially in Latin America, Middle East, Russia and Brazil. So excited about what that brings. And then finally, you have been hearing about Endo in the U.S. for a long time, it's my understanding about 10 years. And we didn't have the portfolio to do that. And because it's a strong contract play, we've not had enough products in that portfolio to make that business thrive. And so I'm actually pleased to be able to say that we've recently dedicated a field organization to that business. We've made hires. We plan on making many more hires. And to the right-hand side, you see that we're actually looking at the portfolio, but we're also looking at the distribution opportunities I mentioned a few moments ago on both lasers and then scopes as well. And so that looks to have a very bright future and be a bright driver for growth in North America. And then finally, when I think about our people and I think about our operations, I'm very proud. We've got an organization where we've got highly-committed individuals. Going forward, we'll be focusing more on inclusion and diversity. We'll be focusing more on bringing new competencies into the organization. We'll be focusing more on getting smarter about what we do and how we do it. And then operationally, we've made major strides. We can always be leaner. We can always be more smart and nimble in what we do. And so we look forward to getting contributions from that side of the business as well. So finally, when I think about Strive25 for Interventional Urology, I truly get incredibly excited. The opportunity is there. We have the wherewithal. We've got the right people with a growth mindset, a winning orientation. We look forward to bringing that high single-digit growth and increase profitability back to Coloplast. So at this time, I'd like to go ahead and open up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Christian Ryom of Nordea Markets.

Steve, this is Christian from Nordea. A couple of questions for me. So the first is if you could please clarify the comments you made on the potential expansion into adjacencies for your Endo portfolio, particularly the expansion into scopes and lasers. Was that to be understood that you want to do more partnerships along the lines of the series product that you have already? Or are you also willing to pursue this in terms of organic R&D investment or R&D expansion? And then the second question is on the impact of COVID and what your perception is on whether people getting diagnosed, particularly in Men's Health and getting referred for surgery, whether that has also picked up to near-normal levels? Or whether the sales that you've seen here is really sort of clearing a backlog of procedures that wasn't able to get done during the lockdown?

Yes. Thank you, Christian, and great question. So I'll welcome answering the both of those. So for the first, we've identified that it's probably better for us to not build the incompetencies internally on scopes and lasers. And so we're actually quite happy with the trending right now with Isiris, but we do see the opportunity in the marketplace for scopes to be a bigger part of the portfolio with Endo and then also with lasers as well, laser fibers as well. And so we're actively engaged in seeking out opportunities there. And then with COVID, you asked specifically about Men's Health. And so it's a tale of countries here. We've seen Men's Health bounce back very strongly in North America, but we've not seen a bounce back in Western Europe at all. And then we've seen spotty bounce back, inconsistent bounce back, in Emerging Markets. And where we had strongholds during the COVID period -- during the early months of COVID period, we're in the Bladder and the Endo businesses. Those continue to perform. As we know, a lot of the products are more for general surgery, and we didn't see as much of a hit to that side of the business where we did on the Men's Health and Women's Health side. But overall, we like the trends. We like what we've seen, but we do expect some of the implantables outside of the U.S. to bounce back probably a few quarters after they have here. Thank you, Christian.

Our next question comes from the line of Ed Ridley-Day of Redburn.

I also have a question around adjacencies. Given your strength -- I understand the areas you've highlighted. But given your knowledge and strength in particularly Women's Health, would you consider gynecological endoscopy because the space has been interesting, private companies in that space? And also, maybe what the time line is around moving into wider adjacencies around, for example, GI instrumentation and endoscopy? That would be my first question.

Yes. Thank you, Ed. So as I mentioned earlier there, when we landscape our future, when we kind of architected what we think the next 5 years like -- looks like, we've actually narrowed down on those 3 areas identified. And so the overactive bladder is probably the biggest opportunity that we feel is the best fit for Coloplast. And so in the women's space, there's a lot of things with fibroids and polyps and bleeding that we could do. But right now, they're de-prioritized. And so we're pretty well aware, I think we've assessed around 40 different opportunities out there, but we've narrowed in on these areas I've discussed. And so we do look at some point when we fast forward, maybe 5 to 10 years at areas that you just mentioned.

Fair enough. That's helpful. And also in terms of the scale, we all know the strength of your company's balance sheet. Have Kristian given you the green light for some decent acquisitions? Or we should really be just thinking about bolt-ons and early investments?

So we feel fully supported by Coloplast. We went through a strategic review. And as Kristian mentioned, it was a bumpy ride with Interventional Urology or formerly Urology Care. And right now, I would just say that we've opened a new chapter. We feel very good about the support that we're getting. We feel very good about our appetite for looking into other adjacent areas. And everything is on the table, but we are focusing in on those 3 disease states that I mentioned. But I would just say that you saw it reflected in the investment with Francis Medical. That's an early stage asset, but we like it. We like the disease state. We like the opportunity. There's not a lot of good -- there's not a lot of good therapies out there right now. Radical cystectomy, yes, and radiation are the 2 alternatives so.

Our next question comes from the line of Veronika Dubajova of Goldman Sachs.

Very helpful. A couple of questions for me, if that's all right. First one is just on BPH. And I guess, if you can kind of talk about ideally what you're looking for there. Obviously, there is a one very large and successful player in the market and then there's lots of things on the periphery. So I'm just kind of curious, what is it that you find attractive about the space and how you think you guys can win? That would be very helpful. My second question is just slightly bigger picture. You said kind of the Endo rollouts in the U.S. Obviously, let's hope this time it delivers. But I'm just curious sort of when you look at the size of the organization, do you think you need to really expand the feet-on-street that you have? And if you can maybe talk about your size from a commercial perspective today and where you kind of hope it gets to? One of the things that has struck me always as you're competing with some much, much bigger players, and is that part of the challenge here and do you really need to put the dollars into the P&L first before you guys could truly win? Or am I overthinking too much and you don't share that assessment?

Yes, you're not overthinking. So I'll respond to that one first, and thank you. And I'm here to tell you that we finally feel confident in delivering the Endo message, because we've not had that portfolio. We do now. We know Endo. We've been around Endo for 125 years. And so you're right, there's a lot of players. The dynamics are different. In this space, it's a lot of commodity trading, right? And so what we've tried to do is -- and we have a dedicated sales organization that literally, most of them started last week with the beginning of our new fiscal year, but we finally have a compelling portfolio to offer. And so you asked about what do we think that looks like? We think at the end of the 5-year period, we'll still be single-digit in the market share, probably somewhere hovering around the 5%, but we think we've got some inroads. Many of our customers have wanted us to get in this space in the U.S. and now we finally have a very compelling bag for that. And then when I think about BPH, I'm actually going to zoom out a little bit into -- and maybe look at it as prostate health. It's an area -- and you're right, there's one big player, and there's a couple of emerging technologies. We like those. We wanted to be in that space as well in those shoes. We see the market as significant and growing, and as the technologies become -- fulfill more of the unmet needs, that market will continue to grow. And so when we think of it, we do think of BPH, absolutely. But we actually think a little bit broader, and that's the prostate health side of the business. So thank you, Veronika.

Our next question comes from the line of Scott Bardo of Berenberg.

So I wonder if you could make some comments or reflect upon the relatively decent growth that you've had over the last 4, 5 years, about 10% growth in Urology, and square that with some of the comments about portfolio gaps and maybe being slightly under-invested in innovation versus peers and versus your desire. I mean, has a good proportion of that growth been supported by price increases? Or is it simply a case that the market is very dynamic? And I just wonder if you could give us a little bit of commentary there.

Yes, Scott. Thank you for your question. I'll provide a little bit of color. And as I mentioned earlier, most of the growth, when we start talking that 10% for overall Intervention Neurology, most of that actually came from the U.S., and that would be Men's Health and Women's Health because our Endo business, as we just talked, was essentially in its infancy And so there were a couple of structural things that we did. We also created expansions and we've created dedicated field organizations, but we have seen some uplift in pricing. So we're pleased with that. And then we've actually gotten a lot better at contracting. And so when I spoke earlier about how are we professionalizing the business, when you look at all of those different levers, they've allowed us to kind of propel us to that 10% threshold for overall IU. Thanks, Scott.

Our next question comes from the line of Oliver Metzger of Commerzbank.

My first one is on growth contribution over the next 5 to 10 years. So you have 4 fields right now. And also, you mentioned a lot of growth opportunities. So if you talk about the growth contribution over the next decade, what is your idea about where growth comes? Comes more from -- do you see if the major share comes from the existing businesses where you'll still hold the #2 position and can increase market share? Or do you see a major share coming from the new areas, which are basically, potentially, more attractive from an underlying perspective due to higher underlying growth, but are not explored to the current stage? And my second question is a quick one on recovery post-corona. So your chart showed a very strong decline with minus 70%, then a comparatively flat development. So what's, in general, your view about the potential pent-up demand as even the development from June to August can be described rather as disappointing than as encouraging? So what's your feeling? When are the people coming back, who basically waited for a penile implant, but it was postponed, when do we see this recovery?

Great questions, Oliver. And I'll go ahead and answer the second one first with COVID. We've used so many different data sources around the world to try to project out when we think the business will stabilize. And even in our best case scenario, we did not expect it to be in the state that it is now. And so as I mentioned earlier, we're very happy with where we are right now. And we see upside opportunity, of course, going into this new fiscal year because we also know that in some markets, the elective procedures have not returned. And so they're half of what they were. And so what we're seeing right now in the markets where they have returned, it's actually strong. We've continued to be strong in our Endo business and our Bladder business. And so we feel quite good, but I do think that we're going to see, over the next 2 or 3 quarters, different markets turn on again and turn off. To answer the first question about growth. So that's a great question. So when I talked about our pipeline, if you recall on the slide, I talked about some of the enhancements and then the gap fillers. Those products will largely launch within the strategic time frame, some of them may be towards the end. And so we see the real contribution coming in years 5 through 10. But when we look at some of the distribution opportunities, as I mentioned, we're working on those actively right now. And so we look at those contributing earlier, and they'll be significant. And then also with our focus on emerging markets, just as we're doing Endo to the U.S., we're actually taking our Men's Health and our Endo portfolios into some of these new markets. And so the acute opportunities will be with existing portfolio and then the enhancements on the gaps. And then longer term, everything innovation. So thank you, Oliver.

Okay. I have one follow-up question, potentially, just in this context. So the history has shown that, in particular, Interventional Urology is -- can be also a little bit more tricky if we think about the whole mesh litigation processes. So if you enter new areas which are, in the most case also to a stronger extent, medically regulated, do you expect for your whole Interventional Urology business a higher business risk going forward if you grab towards these opportunities? And how do you want to manage that?

Great question, and I have 2 words and they're very, very important words, and they're minimally invasive. And so everything that we've identified, and I know I received another question from Scott about other therapy areas and disease states. We are all about minimally invasive right now. And that's, frankly, internally with our organic development, but also at opportunity areas. So we're trying to mitigate all risks. That's the right thing, absolutely, to do, and we do that today. But when we think about the landscape of opportunities that we think would fit nicely within our portfolio, they'll definitely be minimally invasive. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Niels Leth of Carnegie.

So my first question would be about your entrance to the U.S. market with your Endo portfolio, which we, as you mentioned, have heard about before. So which products exactly is it in your product portfolio that will be funding this effort? And where do you think that you have a competitive edge in your Endo portfolio? And then, secondly, in terms of buying U.S. technology companies. Now when it comes to Francis Medical, here you share, I think, a 13% ownership stake or so with Boston Scientific. And doesn't that exactly show the challenge that you're up against the local, very large, U.S.-based companies, which may already be very well connected to these smaller technology companies?

Yes. Thank you, Niels. So I'll address the first. And when I look at the Endo portfolio, we have a lot of SKUs, it's access, it's catheters, it's baskets. We have what we feel is a very compelling number of those SKUs for the entire procedure. That was our big challenge before, is we only had SKUs or products for part of the procedure. And so we actually feel much better poised. We've actually had some recent successes with conversations with some of the buying groups for that. And so we feel very good about that. And then Francis Medical, this is the first for us. And what I can say is we're very familiar with the parent -- the former parent company of this platform technology, NextEra. We like the technology. We like the mechanism of action. We like the market, and we like the management team. And we're a small investor in this right now. And so what you said is accurate. But right now, we've got a seat at the table, and we're very excited about that. And we wouldn't have done that had we not been excited. And so I am also appreciative to Coloplast for thinking that way and looking at the vision that we have into some of these opportunistic areas that we believe in. So thank you, Niels. And I think just one more question here. So we may have the final question coming.

There are currently no further questions on the audio.

Okay. Last chance at all? No? Okay. I would just like to say -- please.

No, there are still no questions on the audio. I will now hand back to you.

Okay. Thank you. And I would like to say on behalf of Investor Relations in Coloplast and Interventional Neurology, I appreciate your time. Apologies again for the technical delays, but I appreciate you staying online and allowing us to tell our story. We're very excited about the Strive25 horizon and the road map that we've designed to get us there. So thank you again for your time.