Galenica AG (GALE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Dear members of the media, dear guests, a very warm welcome to our media and analyst conference for the first half of 2025. Our CEO, Marc Werner, is going to give you an update on our strategy before we then take a look at the figures for the first half year. And of course, we'll be available for questions afterwards.

Thank you, Julian. Ladies and gentlemen, so wonderful that you found the time to take part in this conference call. Allow me to start off with a quick look back at the past half year, which advance on it -- went well. Over the first 6 months of 2025, we consistently continued our growth strategy in a positive market environment and strengthened our market position further. Once more, we posted a strong 5% growth in sales. And beyond that, during the first half, we managed a clear-cut increase in profitability, and we saw major improvements in cash flow. So we are confirming our guidance for sales with a growth of between 3% and 5%, and the dividend at least on the previous year par. Due to a strong first half growth and positive one-off effects, we are increasing the EBIT outlook from 4% to 6% to 7% to 9%. Our CFO, Julian Fiessinger, will give you more details as to the figures right after that. Let us talk about the first half year milestones. We have a broad-based portfolio of integrated solutions and a strong focus on the needs of our patients and customers. That is how we leave our mark in the development of our health care system. We have strengthened our position in the market once more, have come up with innovative services and implemented efficiency gains. Also, we were able to announce we've entered the diagnostics business. Allow me to single out these highlights. In the first half year of 2025, the Galenica network grew by a net 5 pharmacies to a total of 381 locations and has continued to expand its presence in all the Swiss linguistic regions. Amavita reached a special milestone in its 20th year when opening the 200th Amavita pharmacy in Morbio Inferiore. Galenica opts for informed pharmaceutical consultations and the initiative Consultation plus. The demand for in-pharmacy consultations and health services has continued to grow at a 16%-plus. Consultations have increased both for acute pain and when it comes to prevention health checks or vaccination. OneDoc enables customers to make online appointments in more than 90% of Galenica's pharmacies now. We're also pleased to see that parliament passed the second cost containment package in March of this year. This package is acknowledging and strengthening the pharmacy skill further. In the future, additional preventative and interprofessional services rendered by pharmacies will be remunerated directly by basic insurance. One of our core topics focuses on a consistent increase of digitization in the health care system. We're doing that with our own solution that we develop ourselves as well as through cooperation with our industry partners. In February 2025, we launched our Prescription Manager. That is a new omnichannel solutions for our customers and patients to manage their permanent prescriptions online and reorder medication digitally for home delivery, or pickup in a selective pharmacy. More than 10,000 people are already using that service and the number is rising steadily. Patients with chronic illness, especially who need medicine on a regular basis, find valuable support in that digital service. When it comes to patient safety, one of our most crucial goals now and in the future, digital help is essential. Our expert, HCI Solutions is one of the crucial trendsetters in that field. HCI acted as a competent partner to support, for instance, the professional associations, FMH and pharmaSuisse, when e-prescriptions were launched. As many as 6,000 e-prescriptions a month are already being issued via Documedis. Another contribution to patient safety are the Clinical Decision Support checks, CDS. They help health care staff check patients' medication. More than 240 million CDS checks have been carried out since the beginning of the year, up 38% on the previous period. We can also report a pleasant growth and progress when implementing efficiency boosting measures in logistics also for the first half of the year. In our wholesale business area, we managed to win further market share in the first 6 months, both pharmacy wholesale and also with medical doctors. In March 2025, we also implemented the crucial ERP system switch at our Lausanne-Ecublens location. In the second half of 2025, the focus will now be on continuously increasing our efficiency and fully supplying our customers in the west of Switzerland from our Lausanne-Ecublens location. Our pre-wholesale expert, Alloga, already went through the ERP switchover in 2024, which translated into an efficiency boost in the first half of this year. Since January 2025, Verfora has exclusively marketed the products of Cooper Consumer Health, among them the former [indiscernible] OTC products. They're well-known OTC brands like, for instance, Kamillosan or [indiscernible], but also prescription brands like Duphalac or Legalon. Verfora managed to strengthen their consumer health business and expand their offer for specialists, pharmacies and drug stores. In figures, Verfora's market share in the consumer health care market was up to 11%. The further development and promotion of brands Spagyros and PADMA also figured prominently in the first half of the year. Spagyros is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2025. Another development has taken place in home care. Bichsel Home Care and Lifestage Solutions will be bundling their strengths as of October 2025 and will create a powerful sales organization to cater to the home care market as a one-stop shop going forward. That is a meaningful step to pinpointly develop the broad home care service portfolio and to gear it even more towards the needs of our customers and patients. Together, in one sales organization, we will support care home and outpatient home care organizations when caring for patients' individual needs revolving around clinical nutrition and the supply of consumable materials. Bichsel Home Care has year-long technical expertise and a well-established network, while Lifestage brings the digital platform to the mix. To flesh out the network spirit even more efficiently, the safe and efficient availability of medication is crucial, and we can provide that through our pharmacies. All in all, we can say that our networks spirit has come to be well established across our entire company and has become a crucial success factor in cooperation within the Galenica Group as well as with external partners. Our corporate culture is characterized by active participation and a high degree of responsibility. Our leadership approach is one servant leadership. That way, we get ever more efficient, innovative and increase our attraction as an employer. Latter is, for instance, illustrated by the fact that for many of our jobs vacancies, we get excellent applications today. Also, many of our top positions were filled internally. For instance, recently, the General Counsel, where Cecile Matter is going to succeed Barbara Walchli as per November 2025. Our progress in canvassing talents was recently recognized by the official Swiss Best Recruiters ranking. We're now among the top 30, and we managed to improve by more than 100 ranks on the previous year. Another milestone that we're especially looking forward to in the second half of 2025 is the launch of our Diagnostics business that we announced in July 2025 when acquiring the Labor Team Group. This will help us continue on our growth path and will boost our health care network with a new business area, Galenica Diagnostics. The acquisition is strengthening our portfolio in the doctor segment and will, in the long run, open up potential for added pharmacy services in the field of diagnostics. Labor Team fits the strategy and culture of Galenica to a T. Together, we intend to push for health care innovations. The acquisition is the result of a longer strategic project where we analyze possible fields for development that would flank out our portfolio ideally. And we managed to seize the opportunity with Labor Team Group is also the result of meticulous planning and the network buildup effort. In future, Labor Team will be led as the individual business area, Galenica Diagnostics. The old management will continue to bear operational responsibility and will continue to write Labor Team's success story together with more than 330 personnel. The Board of Directors is also opting for continuity and will staff it with lab competency and management competency from the Galenica Group. The transaction is subject to the approval of the Swiss Competition Commission, COMCO, And Is Expected for the Second Half of the Year. To sum up, we can say thanks to a sustainable and clear cut strategy, its consistent implementation and a unique business model, we've managed to continue to play a major role in the Swiss health care market. was also rewarded on the stock market given the very positive development of the Galenica share in the stock market over the first half of 2025. We'd like to thank you and our partners for your trust in us. And we'd like to thank all our staff who, day after day, are giving it their all for the health and well-being of the people in Switzerland. And I'd like to now pass the floor to Julian.

Thank you, Marc. Before I present the half year figures, let's take a closer look at the diagnostics market and the acquisition of Labor Team. What is Labor Team? Labor Team is a private medical laboratory. So we are in the field of laboratory diagnostics. The range of services includes basic tests such as blood and urine analyses as well as advanced diagnostics, including cytological and histological in the oncological field, molecular genetic analyses and tissue tests. The Swiss laboratory market is worth around CHF 3 billion. Around 1/4 is accounted for by hospital laboratories, a further 1/4 by physician labs that is tests carried out directly by physicians and around half, that is CHF 1.4 billion, by private medical laboratories. The market is subject to the familiar trends in the health care sector. So on the one hand, we have the cost pressure or scaling pressure due to expected reductions in rates. This increases the pressure on poorly utilized or less automated laboratories and leads to market consolidation. The trend towards outpatient care more and more with more treatments outside of the hospital will intensify this effect. We, therefore, expect private labs to gain market share within the laboratory market compared to physician and hospital labs. The market for private medical laboratories has already consolidated considerably in recent years. The 4 largest labs account for around 2/3 of the market. So it was, therefore, the last opportunity for Galenica to enter the laboratory market. Labor Team is #4 with a market share of 8%. The clear leader is the Australian laboratory group, Sonic, followed by Unilabs and [indiscernible] with smaller laboratories accounting for around 1/3. The Swiss laboratory market is a growth market and has developed steadily over the past 10 years with an average growth rate of 3% to 4%. As far as future developments are concerned, we expect the market to continue to grow. Although price pressure will continue, there was last price reduction in 2022 with more to follow in 2026 and 2027. In future, too, we expect there will be price pressure and regular price adjustments. However, when we talk about volume, demand is increasing due to population growth, the aging population, greater health awareness and ever new testing options. There's a lot of innovation available in the market. For this reason, we assume that despite constant price pressure, we will see a market growth in future, too. A key question that we have analyzed in the diagnostics sector is the success factor in the market. So what does it take to win in this market? To convince our customers, to win over customers, we need 3 skills: First, excellence in service, which also includes a user-friendly IT connection; secondly, we need a wide range of tests on offer; and lastly, speed. How quickly do the results arrive? How reliable is the gathering of the information? How efficient is the logistics and how automated is the test process. So to be cost efficient in this market, we need to consider the scaling effect. That is to say we need a high degree of automation combined with high capacity utilization, which will make us successful in the face of increasing cost pressure. We believe that Labor Team is very strongly positioned in this environment. First, Labor Team offers a large test range. Second, Labor Team has a very high degree of automation combined with efficient and sustainable logistics. The samples are collected from the doctors by bicycle courier, transported by the Swiss railway services to eastern Switzerland and analyzed in the central laboratory in Goldach in a state-of-the-art facility. The test tubes are there on conveyor belts. Robots bring the samples to the devices and the results are transmitted digitally. This ensures a very efficient process and laboratory results within 5 hours of collection of the data. So we have a very high turnaround time. It's clear we want to develop the business further together with Labor Team management and also want to continue to grow; on the one hand, inorganically through the acquisition of other smaller laboratories; and on the other hand, we also want to drive organic growth, where we hope to achieve synergies in conjunction with our strong Galenica network. We can act as a door opener with GPs and specialists where we have a market share of some 31% in the sale of medicines. And this must certainly be our focus as a first step. All in all, we are convinced with Labor Team, we can significantly improve our range of services for physicians and thus be seen as an even more relevant partner. In the long term, however, our broad pharmacy network will also offer points of contact and potential for synergies in combination with the health care services we offer. However, we might need some regulatory adjustments in the field here. So therefore, we are convinced, deeply convinced that with Labor Team and our entry into the diagnostics business, we now have the opportunity to help shape an exciting growth market. So let's now turn to our business update to our half year results of 2025. And let's start with the market update. The pharmaceutical market grew by 4.8% in the first half of the year. Growth in the first half of the year was driven by a high demand for prescription drugs, including GLP-1-based weight loss products and drugs in connection with a strong flu epidemic at the beginning of the year. Local pharmacies, in particular, benefited from the growth this year with strong growth of 5.2%. The physicians channel grew by 4.4%, while the hospital channel also grew strongly at 5.1%. Growth in the first half of 2025 is significantly higher than in the same period last year despite 1 fewer day of sales. In the previous year, the Federal Office of Public Health measures to promote generic substitution and in particular, a weak June had significantly slowed growth. Let's now turn to the consumer health care market. This is always dependent on seasonal effects, this year, too. OTC segment with all the traditional range like cough and flu suffered in the second half of last year and saw a flat growth of 0.5%. However, non-medication range in pharmacies and drug stores is up to the degree of 0.8% this year, particularly due to the sunny early summer with sales of sunscreen products. In this friendly market environment, we achieved growth of 5% with both the Products & Care, 4.6% and logistics and IT, 5.5%. That also contributed to our growth. So let's now take a closer look at the main drivers. Our local pharmacies grew by 5.4%, which is a combination of good organic growth and successful expansion. We increased our pharmacy network by a net 5 locations, which had a 1.8% impact on sales growth. The organic growth of the local pharmacies thus amounted to 3.6%, which means that we developed roughly in line with the market. Growth was driven by high demand for prescription medicines. In addition, the high demand of nutritional supplements, dermatological products in the area of sun protection also developed well, which is very welcome. In the field of Products & Brands, in this division, we achieved a slight growth of 0.9% in the first half of 2025 with sales growth of 5.3% in the Swiss market and a decline of 12.6% in exports. This decline in sales is due to the exceptionally high prior year sales in connection with the one-off buildup of bridging stock inventories as a result of regulatory adjustments in the European Union. Sales growth in the Swiss market was supported by the product of Cooper Consumer Health, whose distribution, Verfora, has been responsible since the beginning of the year. Wholesale grew strongly by 5.6%, outperforming market growth of 4.8%. In particular, when it comes to the doctor segment with a growth of 5.8% and in the pharmacy segment with growth of 5.6%. So we were able to gain further market share here. Now let's take a look at profitability. In the first half of 2025, EBIT was influenced by positive special factors, one-off factors amounting to CHF 5.4 million. Without these effects, adjusted EBIT would have risen by 5.4%. This is due to competition proceedings for which expenses were recognized in 2023. The sanctions from these proceedings are now significantly lower than originally assumed with a correspondingly positive effect on the logistics and IT division. Adjusted for this effect, the EBIT margin remained constant in both segments. Investment decreased in the first half of 2025 compared to the previous year. This is primarily due to a timing effect. For the overall year of 2025, we continue to expect an investment volume of between CHF 70 million and CHF 80 million. Cash flow changed very positively in the first half of the year, which is a combination of 3 factors: First, a strong operating result; second, as I've just mentioned, low capital expenditure in the first half of 2025; and thirdly, a clear focus on net working capital. We continue to have a strong balance sheet. Adjusted net debt ratio remained stable compared to the previous year. The debt ratio at the end of the first half of the year was 1.9. As to the guidance, we confirm the 2025 outlook for consolidated net results -- net sales, excuse me, that is to say, growth of 3% to 5% and the dividend at least on par with the previous year. Due to the positive one-off effects of CHF 5.4 million, we now expect EBIT growth of between 7% and 9%. Previously, growth of between 4% and 6% was expected. The acquisition of Labor Team is not yet included in the outlook as the closing date of the transaction has not yet been set. So Galenica had a successful first half year. We are clearly on track with our medium-term guidance and are entering the second half year with a tailwind. So much for the results. We are now looking forward to answering your questions.

Gian-Marco Werro has asked a question.

Two questions from me on Labor Team, if I may. First, now that you've talked about the sales. Could you give us a feel what kind of EBIT you are going to generate for the company? So that should be about CHF 15 million to CHF 16 million in EBIT. That's a bit optimistic, I think, and also the realization costs, how much would they amount to? Second, you also mentioned that the new business area will also be developing by inorganic growth. Do you have any goals as to how many millions you are going to invest in the future buying private labs?

Thank you, Gian-Marco, for your questions. On Labor Team, yes, in 2024, Labor Team came up with CHF 114 million. And I have to say that it's a dynamic environment also. And you can see that also from the web pages. So they gained new customers. So we expect a dynamic sales development in 2025. Now on the EBITDA, on profitability, there were a few figures between 17% and 20% by analysts. And that's a good range, I believe. And in terms of the EBIT profitability, that will always strongly depend on the adaptations of the purchase price allocation. So I cannot give you a statement at this moment in time. The acquisition costs have been quite low, about CHF 1 million. In terms of the inorganic growth that you mentioned, we'll have to see. So we'll really team up with the Labor Team and management directly. We're trying to really follow the activities in the market, and we haven't yet established a budget for that yet. But of course, we want to opt for growth and want to see reasonable acquisitions in the market.

Now you said CHF 1 million, but what was the final price value? I would be interested in hearing that if that is possible.

The enterprise value of the entire acquisition, well, there were assumptions between CHF 240 million and CHF 260 million, and we know that, that is a good range.

Sebastian Vogel with UBS.

Hope you can hear me.

Yes, we can hear you.

Wonderful. Apologies. Products & Brands on the Swiss part, not the international part, if I may. Now if I've calculated that directly on a monthly basis. During the first 4 months, that was CHF 14 million on average in sales and in May and June, CHF 11 million on average. So that went down 23% sequentially. You said that the market environment was difficult. So you might want to elaborate on that, if you can. So could you drill down a bit? That would be my first question. The second question on the guidance, 3% to 5% -- so you already came up with a 5% during the first half. Now what are the building blocks that you have to have the 3% and also on the EBIT side, quite far ahead when it comes to the growth. So what would have to happen for the second year? And my third question. Now in terms of the capital, you said that you made good progress. So you're on the right track in the EBIT side. And would things return to normal? Or what would you envisage for the future? Those are my three questions.

Thank you, Sebastian. Yes, you saw that correctly. In May and June, we saw a downturn in sales and products and brands. Of course, that has to do with the fact that we do not have linear sales just like in retail, it hinges on orders. And as we saw in the market in the second quarter, there was a clear downturn in the segment when it comes to the influenza or cough or something like that, which is where we are strong and lower order volume for Verfora. That's why temporarily, we generated lower sales and had a stronger effect for that short period. But we do not see that as a sustainable trend for the entire year. Then on the guidance, quite obviously, the target would have to be that we end up with more than 3% at the end of the year. So now 5%, why not higher? Well, we need to have a like-for-like basis for the second half. So the 5% plus will be more difficult to achieve than in the first half. Now the drivers for that to come to the 3% downside case is market dynamics, which is based on different causes, various causes. But in general, we do not believe right now that we'll end up at the lower range. Then on the net working capital, we would say that we've created sustainable effect, not a onetime effect.

A follow-up, if I may...

Sorry, the gentleman is breaking up. Sebastian, can I interrupt you? You're breaking up. Please restate your question. You were breaking up.

Yes, on the EBIT guidance, I had a question. What would it take?

Well, we'll clarify that later on. Now I think I understood what you -- now on the EBIT development in general, so the add-on background that I should mention for the first half. And now in the first half, we saw the gross margin slightly down, has to do with the product mix with more expensive drugs, GLP-1 medications spring to mind, then the share of distribution product and branch, Cooper Consumer Health and strong growth for wholesale. On the other hand, we compensated that slight downturn in the gross margin with excellent management of personnel costs that went down from 15.5% last year to 15.1% this year, especially because of the good personnel management in pharmacies. And these are the main 2 drivers that would drive EBIT in turn. Quite obviously, given that if there is a lack of sales dynamism, then EBIT will come under pressure. And the second part, that's what we are opting for ourselves, and that's personnel costs.

The next question, Jan Koch, Deutsche Bank.

I hope you can hear me.

Yes, we can hear you.

I have three questions. The first question, the Labor Team. In the past, we've seen some price reductions in Switzerland in that field, and they had a negative bearing on the margin or possibly so. Could you see in the future further price reductions that are implemented than the permanent prescriptions? Is there competition between Galenica and MediService? And do competitors also offer this, might be difficult for smaller pharmacies, but maybe some of the chain pharmacies have that. And what about the potential of Galenica to make headway here?

Okay. First of all, the price reductions in the laboratory. You're right. It's a cyclical market. Every other year, there's a price reduction maybe, and they have a bearing on, of course, profitability. The last price reduction we saw in 2022. At that time, there was a 10% price cut on all the tests and price cuts over all tests was given by the Federal Office, for instance, the FOPH. Then in 2022, the vitamin D tests were only reduced to medical cases. And these cases certainly hit hard on the laboratory market, and they led to a market consolidation. It is true. We expect some price adjustments here, in particular, for 2026 for the introduction of Target and the pathological aspects will also be hit, that's to say, some 15% to 20% of our sales. And in 2027, the [indiscernible] project is expected to come about by the Federal Office of Public Health. It's not really quite clear as in 2022, whether there will be a general price cut on all tests or whether certain aspects will be treated differently. But it's the tendency of the office to [indiscernible] reductions.