Galenica AG (GALE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, cordially welcome you to the presentation of the half year results 2024. We have prepared the following program for you this afternoon. Firstly, Marc will present the highlights of the first half of the year. He will give us an update on where we stand in the implementation of our strategy. I will then present the figures, the business performance in the first half of the year and the outlook for the end of the year. Finally, you will have the opportunity to ask questions. With that, I would like to hand over to our CEO, Marc Werner.

Thank you, Felix. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, also from my side, and welcome to this conference. I'll start with a brief review of the first half of the year. We faced several challenges in the first half of 2024, both from the market, which developed much less dynamically in the last 2 months of the first half of the year as well in the implementation of one of our major IT projects at Galexis. Nevertheless, we can be satisfied with the first half of the year, we grew faster than the market and achieved a solid result. And we also made great progress in many areas, particularly with regard to the implementation of our network approach. We look with great confidence in the second half of the year and confirm our outlook for 2024. We expect significantly stronger growth in the second half of '24 than the first and confirm sales growth of between 3% and 5%, EBIT growth of between 8% and 11% and the dividend at least at the previous year's level for 2024. Our CFO, Felix Burkhard, will provide you with more details on the figures below. I would now like to briefly mention a few highlights in the first half of 2024. After 4 years of transformation, we are now closer to our customers than ever before. We are well networked throughout the industry and are a valued partner. We work together across the company and have a much flatter organization than before. We are very well positioned with our core business, pharmacies, our logistics and products and the home care sector. As a network, we are shaping the health care sector by contributing our skills and broad expertise to solving major social challenges. After 4 years of intensive change, we can say the transformation is succeeding. Today, as the Galenica network, they're not only the largest but also the most efficient health care provider in Switzerland. With our products and services, we offer patients a wide range of integrated solutions and can meet their needs of today and tomorrow in a more seamless, efficient and personalized way. We achieved this by working closely together as a network, both within the Galenica Group and with external partners. We contribute our expertise and use synergies to offer a broad range of products and services from a single source. In the first half of 2024, the pharmacies of the Galenica Group that able to further expand their important role as the first point of contact for health care issues and once again demonstrated the central function in health care provision. The services are easily accessible for patients and customers and make a significant contribution to reducing the overall treatment costs and thus curbing rising cost in the health care system. The concept Consultation Plus has been successfully introduced and we will continue to develop it further. The figures show that there is a strong demand among customers for consultation and health care services. In the first half of '24, 93,000 fee-based consultations and serves are conducted in Galenica's pharmacies, 32% more than in the previous year. The high level of acceptance of the pharmacy service is reflected in customers' willingness to pay for the service themselves. Galenica has successfully committed to reimbursement of services on the basic and supplementary insurance plans for the benefit of the entire sector. In the first half of '24, AXA and Galenica concluded an agreement that covers the cost of pharmacy consultations as part of AXA supplementary insurance. [indiscernible] are also integrated numerous health care services such as heart and diabetes checks and vaccinations into their supplementary insurance models in 2024. With Book a Doc, Galenica pharmacies now also have a valuable additional tool at their disposal to treat more complex cases directly by consulting a doctor digitally. Since the successful pilot project, 250 of Galenica's approximately 370 pharmacies are now in the test phase to quickly organize telemedical consultation, if necessary. As mentioned at the beginning, we grew faster than the market in the first half of '24 both the Products & Care and logistics and IT segments contributed to this. We also achieved the following positive developments and milestones. Verfora performed well and was able to further expand its market position. Sales of Verfora products in the pharmacy and drug stores market grew by 4.5% in a difficult market environment, outperforming the market as a whole and enabling it to gain further market share. In terms of digitalization, Alloga reached an important milestone. It was able to migrate all customers to their new ERP solution. This example shows that we can successfully complete ERP rollouts. We are focusing our effort on ensuring that we succeed in doing the same at Galexis as soon as possible. [ CDSC ] has also performed well. By the end of June, around 174 million clinical decision support checks had been carried out, an increase of 30%. This refers to checks carried out by specialists from doctor surgeries, hospitals, pharmacies, nursing homes and homes for their patients medication. With these checks [ CDSC ] contributes significantly to patient safety in Switzerland. One of our growth area is clearly home care. The growing need to be cared for at home, wherever possible, the increasing aging of society and the associated cost pressures are increasing the need for outpatient services and treatment options. Galenica is actively shaping the change towards more solutions in the home care sector and offers simple solutions to both patients and the carriers, such as nursing homes, [indiscernible] organizations or relatives. In additional to [indiscernible], our offering also includes the patient-specific blister packaging of medicines by Medifilm, a mobile home doctor from Emeda and the digital platform for the fully automated ordering and billing of consumables and care products from life stage. This business sector will play a central role in the network in future. Galenica plans to bundle all its services for professional services providers on the live stage solution digital platform thereby not only enabling efficiency gains for health care professionals, but also positioning the entire network offering from a single source. I would like to conclude with a thought that has moved me time and time again over the past 6 months and which I share on behalf of the entire industry. Around 400,000 professionals put their heart and soul into our well-being and health every day. Despite this public discussions about our health care system involves almost exclusively around the issue of costs. In Switzerland health care system where a company, it would achieve top score in Net Promoter Score. In every study, people in this country are very satisfied with the work being done. We have one of the best health care system in the world. And yet, we never talked about incredible social and economic benefits it generates. It's clear to me that we have major challenges to overcome. However, I'm firmly convinced that we can only shape the health care system of tomorrow if we all work together. Together with the other players in the sector, hand-in-hand with politics, business and associations so that this results in the best services for our customers and patients. At Galenica, we are committed to this and take responsibility. In this way, we not only leave the network concept within the company, but also communicated to the outside world. By working together with all the service providers in the health care sector, and entering into strong partnerships because we are all there for our customers and patients every day. And together, we are strong. This is how we are shaping the health care system of tomorrow, personal, secure and networked. Before I hand over to our CFO, Felix, I would like to say a few words about the organizational changes communicated this morning. We have achieved a lot in the last 3 years or since the start of the transformation and already for the next step, bringing even more customer focus in the organization and growing in a more focused way. Structure follows strategy. The result is the logic consequence of this. Let's start with the pharmacy business. We're gearing towards even greater customer orientation and expanding the management team. With Stephan Mignot, marketing for our pharmacies will have a direct feet on the Executive Board. This underlines the strategic elements and central role of customer focus and the implementation of our strategy. With the right range of products and health care services, the 3 members of the Executive Board are expanding the positioning of pharmacies as the first point of contact in the health care sector. The strategic objectives remain to increase market share, boost health care services sales and profitability and improve customer satisfaction as measured by the Net Promoter Score, NPS. We are also strengthening our third-party business. As of September 1, '24, we are combining the majority of network partners into a single unit on the products and home care headed by Thomas Szuran. The focus will be on the further development of the strategic growth areas of products and brands and home care. The Verfora Group, the Home Care division and all the strong network partners will now be managed on the products and home care. With the adjusted organizational structure, the expansion of products and services is consistently designed for all sales channels means omnichannel. The progress we have made in digitalization over the past 3 years is thus taking effect. We are also creating the conditions for the best possible market cultivation and focused growth and paving the way for the development of a data-driven organization. Another change is coming to the CFO position. Our long-standing CFO, Felix Burkhard, who has been with the company since 1996, will hand over his responsibilities to his successor, Julian Fiessinger at the end of this year. Felix will continue in his role as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Galenica Pension Fund. Julian has been Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance Galenica since '21 knows the financial market and the company inside out and will ensure continuity while bringing in fresh ideas. I would like to thank Felix warmly for his excellent work of almost 30 years for Galenica. And I am also very much looking forward to walking with Julian. This is an optimal long-planned succession solution. With this brief update, I now hand over to you, Felix, business as usual for the moment, but we will come back again to your personal change at the end.

Thank you, Marc. A great start with a rainy finish. This is how the first half of the year can be summarized in a nutshell. The bad weather in early summer has a variety of effects on our business. The most obvious consequences are the lack of sales of sun creams and allergy products. Also other outdoor products such as ANTI-BRUMM or Perskindol realized significantly lower sales compared to a normal summer. This development is also reflected in the market figures. We have seen strong growth until April with holiday-related shifts between March and April, then a weak May and a significant drop in June. However, the reason for this weak finish was not only the poor weather. But in particular, the constellation of sales days. Until end of April, we still had one working day more than in the previous year which we also communicated with the publication of our sales figures. But then the month of June had 2 working days less than June 2023, meaning that by the middle of the year, we had 1 working day less cumulatively, which in purely mathematical terms equates to minus 0.8% growth. It's already balanced out in July and at the end of the year, thanks to a favorable constellation of sales days in December, we will have one working day more than the previous year. This, in turn, should lead to 0.4% additional growth calculated poorly mathematically. In summary, we expect strong market growth in the second half of the year than in the first half, simply due to the daily constellation. Market growth overall totaled just 1.7%. The strongest growth was recorded by the physicians channel at plus 4%. The growth came from specialty physicians due to the trend from inpatient to outpatient, which is also reflected in the low growth in the hospital channel. The market for local pharmacies grew moderately by plus 1.5%. The mail order pharmacy channel declined again at minus 3.3%. Overall, market growth was dampened by a sharp increase in substitution with generics and biosimilars. This slide shows the development of the market shares of reimbursed medicines on the specialty list, in the pharmacy channel over the last 4 years. Let's start on the right with the development of the number of packs, the volume. The share of patent-protected medications, dark blue, remained more or less stable at 6.1%. Nevertheless, the share of the value on the left-hand side of the slide, increased significantly from 41.9% in 2021 to 47% in June 24. This part was responsible for the market growth and thus for the cost increase every year. In contrast, the generics enabled market has contributed to cost containment in recent years. This includes products with active ingredients for which at least 1 generic or biosimilar is available. In the chart, these are the original products in green and the generics and biosimilars in orange. This share has increased in terms of volume in recent years from 47.2% in 2021 to 48.3% in June 2024. In the value on the other hand, on the left of the slide, we see the savings realized in this area with price reductions and higher substitution. The share of value decreased from 38.5% to 32.8% despite higher volumes. Let us now look specifically at the substitution. The yellow part on the right of the slide show the development of the number of packs of generics and biosimilars. The share of the total volume rose by 1.1% each year from 2021 to 2023 from 27.7% to 29.9%, thanks to increased substitution. In the first half of 2024, this share jumped by 3.1% to 33%. The main reason for this development was the increase in the co-payment if patients prefer a more expensive original preparation. This led to a further significant increase in substitution with a corresponding reduction in costs. Let's move on to the consumer health care market. The bad weather in early summer left a clear mark on the market of -- on the market development. Growth of 1.9% was still recorded until the end of April. Weak sales in May and June turned market growth into a slight decline of 0.2% for the first half of 2024. In June alone, the market was 7% lower than in June 2023. The personal care category suffered the most with a decline of 4%. OTC still achieved a slight growth of 1%. The entire nonmedication region, pharmacies and drug stores declined by 2.2%. Let us now turn from the market figures to sales growth at Galenica. As in the whole market, Galenica growth momentum was slowed considerably in May and June due to the bad weather and, in particular, the unfavorable daily constellation. While we were still growing by 4.8% at the end of April, growth at midyear was just 2.6%. This is a pleasing growth as we are ahead of the pharmaceutical market, which grew by 1.7% and the consumer health care market, which even declined by 0.2%. Our local pharmacies grew by 2.7% with 9 acquisitions, 1 opening and 2 restructurings, the pharmacy network of Amavita and Sun Store was expanded by a net 8 locations with an impact of 1.2% on sales growth. The organic growth of local pharmacies, therefore, totaled 1.5%. This is good growth compared to the market. The pharmaceutical market grew by 1.5%, while the market for nonpharmaceutical product ranges declined by 2.2%. The new regulation on copayment also gave our sales of generics and biosimilars, an additional boost. The substitution rate increased from 75.2% at the end of 2023 to 80.8%. The Products & Brands sector realized pleasing sales growth of 7.8%. The main driver was exports with exceptionally high growth of 28%. And high demand for Verfora products such as Perskindol in Asia as well as earlier product deliveries abroad due to an upcoming regulatory change led to this high growth. Verfora grew by 2.5% in the Swiss market. Adjusted for the expansion effect due to the integration of PADMA in early 2023, organic growth amounted to 1.5%. Sales of Verfora products in the pharmacy and drug store market grew significantly faster at 4.5%. The difference between market sales of 4.5% and Verfora sales growth of 1.5% is the result of destocking in the market, at wholesalers, pharmacies and drug stores. At 4.5%, Verfora's product grew significantly faster in the first half of the year than the entire consumer health care market, which declined slightly by 0.2%. This enabled Verfora to gain further market share. The prorated and particularly the unfavorable daily constellation in June left a clear mark on wholesale. At the end of April, growth still totaled 5.4%. Weak sales in May and especially in June, halved growth to 2.7% by middle of the year. In the physicians customer segment, market share was gained with strong growth of 6.4% against market growth of 4%. At 1.7%, growth in pharmacies was also slightly above the market which grew by 1.5% in the local pharmacies channel. Let's have a look at the results. In the previous year, EBIT was burdened by extraordinary costs of CHF 9.8 million. Compared to previous year's EBIT of CHF 100 million, excluding extraordinary costs, EBIT decreased slightly by 0.9% in the first half of 2024. In the Products & Care segment, EBIT improved by 3.9% and to CHF 75.9 million. The EBIT margin increased from 9.1% to 9.2%. In the logistics and IT segment, EBIT decreased by CHF 3.4 million to CHF 25.4 million. The EBIT margin declined from 1.9% to 1.6%. The reason for this decline in EBIT was, on the one hand, lower-than-expected sales growth. On the other hand, Galexis started the modular introduction of the new ERP system at the beginning of the year, which led to a temporary efficiency losses and additional costs. The first milestone in this ERP project was reached in the first half of the year, with the last customer at the Alloga being migrated to the new system. The project in pre-wholesalers thus completed. At Galexis, in wholesale, we are only in the initial phase of introducing the new system. According to previous assumptions, the project was scheduled for completion in 2025. To minimize the risks of the system changeover, and ensure smooth operation in the highly automated and complex distribution centers. The new system will be introduced module by module which will extend the project duration by 1 year into 2026. Across the group as a whole, personnel costs rose by 5.1% in the first half of the year. Around 2% is accounted for by salary increases. The expansion with the integration of new pharmacies and companies account for around 1% of the cost increase. The remaining approximately 2% in was invested on the one hand in building up skills for the further development of the Galenica Group, particularly for the omnichannel digital infrastructure. On the other hand, temporary loss efficiencies in the logistics operations led to higher personnel costs. Measures have been introduced to increase efficiency again. We are therefore confident that we will be able to stabilize personnel costs in the second half of the year, at least at the level of the first half. Adjusted for the extraordinary costs in the previous year, other costs rose by only 1.2%. The improvement in the gross margin by 30 basis points to 27.9%, made a positive contribution to the EBIT development. The main drivers were the strong growth in products and brands and the higher proportion of low-priced medicines in the retail business area. The increase in investments by CHF 3.8 million to CHF 38.4 million is mainly due to investments in the digital omnichannel infrastructure and the ERP project in wholesale and pre-wholesale. For the entire year, we expect investments to be in line with the previous year. Cash flow from operating activities before changes in net working capital increased by CHF 10.3 million to CHF 97.8 million in the first half of 2024. Due to seasonal factors, Net working capital was CHF 80.2 million higher at midyear than at the end of 2023. The increase was reduced by CHF 29.2 million compared to the same period in the previous year. The investments in participations totaling CHF 14.2 million are mainly due to the increase in our strategic participation in Redcare Pharmacy. At midyear, we held a stake of 8.4%. By 22nd of July, we had increased our stake to 10%. A further increase is not planned. After deducting the investments in M&A, this resulted in a negative free cash flow of minus CHF 45.3 million. Our balance sheet remains strong. Compared to the previous year, net debt increased by CHF 31 million to CHF 534 million. The seasonally higher leverage remained unchanged at 2.1x EBITDA. Let's conclude with the outlook. We expect significantly stronger growth in the second half of the year than in the first half, simply due to the constellation of sales days. We, therefore, confirm our guidance for sales at plus 3% to plus 5%. EBITDA at plus 8% to plus 11%. And the dividend at least at the previous year's level. I will summarize our outlook for the second half of the year as follows: with tailwind, full speed ahead. We have made a good start into the second half of the year. We are benefiting from tailwinds and are confident that we will achieve the goals we have set ourselves for 2024. Thank you for your attention. Now we are happy to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] So first question from Gian-Marco Werro, ZKB.

First of all, my congratulations to the impressive achievements of the last years, Felix. It was a pleasure working together with you. And now to my 2 questions. The first one is on the increase of the personnel costs. You said you want to remain it on the same level now in the second half of 2024 versus 2023. You mean there in relation to revenues, am I right? Then the second question is the increase in your stake in -- sorry, I always see myself because of the background noise. Maybe if you can reduce that. But the second one is on Redcare -- you are increasingly grew 10% from 8%. Can you tell us the average share price that you paid for this 2%?

Thank you, Gian-Marco. The first question regarding the personnel costs. Our assumption is that in the second half, we should be more or less at the same level of staff costs, personnel costs as in the first half of the year. So there, I don't speak in terms of percentage of revenues, but in absolute figures. We have realized last year the same. We were there and even able to reduce staff costs in the second half compared to the first half. It's clear this year with higher sales in the second half expected. It will be more difficult to achieve this, but we are confident that we should be able to realize it. Then the average acquisition price of the Redcare Pharmacy shares, the first 8% we acquired a year ago at EUR 71. And the second part, the 2%, bringing us to 10%. We acquired on an average share price of around EUR 127.

Next question from Jan Koch, Deutsche Bank.

Can you hear me?

Yes. Yes.

Perfect. I have 2 questions, please. The first 1 is on your guidance considering where you stand after 6 months, is it the full range of your sales and adjusted EBIT growth guidance still achievable? Or are the lower half of the range is more realistic now?

We confirm our guidance. And in terms of sales, as I mentioned, just because of the number of sales days we should really be able to grow stronger than in the first half. If you look at the share of sales days, working days in the year, we had this year, 49% in the first half and 51% in the second half. Last year, the share was even more close to 50-50. It was, I think, 49.6% and 50.4%. So just because of this 49% to 51% in sales days. Normally, second half of December is stronger than the first half. We are convinced that we will achieve the sales guidance. And with this additional sales in the second half and by a good cost management, we are also convinced that we will reach the EBIT guidance. And I can't give you an indication if we are on the upper side, on the lower side of the guidance, the guidance is clear, 3% to 5% in EBIT and 8% to 11% -- 3% to 5% in sales and 8% to 11% in EBIT.

Okay. Great. And then secondly, you mentioned in your prepared remarks that the increased sales of generics and biosimilars, the negative impact on your group sales growth. Are you able to quantify this impact? And did that headwind accelerate over the last 6 months? Or was it rather still the beginning of the year?

We believe that this headwind continues. So we believe that the substitution rate, the trend towards more generics and biosimilars will continue with over 80% of substitution rate. That's a very high level. So there is -- we expect a stable development of this now higher substitution rate. The impact on sales growth was somewhere something below 0.5% on sales growth.

Okay. Perfect. And then one final question, if I may, on your pharmacies at Home business. You mentioned in your report that you streamlined your offerings. Could you speak a bit about your offerings that you have stopped there? And why have you done that? Is that driven by unsufficient demand or related to the joint venture with Redcare?

Not related to the joint venture, not related to demand. It was really purely a profitability thoughts behind these decisions. Firstly, we stopped selling on Galexis, Sun Stores, the Sun Stores sold before Galexis. We stopped this. Secondly, we closed a small web shop of the web shop, which was integrated before in these figures. And thirdly, we stopped one therapeutic area [ Pixel ] Home Care, which wasn't profitable. It was a special antibiotic treatment. This was stopped also due to profitability reasons. So these are the reasons for this streamlining our offerings in the pharmacies at Home business.

All the best for you, Felix.

Thank you.

Next question from Urs Kunz, Research Partners.

In the future outside of Galenica and the [indiscernible] first of all...

We could not understand...

Yes. First of all, for your future outside an already made. Then the question, our first [indiscernible] might guess you going to think of growing that business again in the future? Or do you see anything that would hold against that being that more online sales will go towards your joint venture with Redcare. And on another question on the ERP system and the patents there -- can we expect that the temporary the efficient system and the additional problem at 1 or we have to expect a negative impact on the second half as well. And with the competition 2026, that's about when you select to go on what's the 2% EBIT margin? And then a question on regulatory. The impact on the lower that new lower debt will come, I guess, that's neutral on you and MediService kind of has some positive impact, which would kind of compensate for the disadvantages of the changed distribution margin. Is that correct?

Thank you. I'm not sure if I understood all questions, right, but you can interrupt me if there was a misunderstanding. The first question, it's clear we want to grow with our pharmacies at home business. And we have really great offerings there with Pixel Home Care, the clinical nutrition really growing a very strong position there with growth potential. On the other hand, we acquired Cannaplant, which has also an important growth potential and also, we found the omnichannel strategy, we believe that with our web shops and mail order pharmacies, we will grow in the future. And not to forget, an important element in this omnichannel strategy is also click and collect, which isn't accounted in pharmacies at home. This is accounted in the local pharmacy business, but also this part of the omnichannel offering is growing, and we see additional growth in future. And it's also clear that this pharmacies at home business is also in competition with our joint venture, Redcare MediService. The second question with regard to the efficiency losses because of the start of the ERP implementation in the first half of the year. It's clear in the first half of the year, we expected first of all, higher sales growth in the first half in May and June. And we knew and we planned to start this ERP integration. That was the reason why we planned to hire staff -- and now for the second half, we are optimistic with the learnings in the first half and with the expected higher sales growth, we are confident that we will again increase efficiency in the wholesale operations. But for sure, the pressure on efficiency because of the implementation of this ERP project over the next years will remain. And if I understood the question right, you asked if our midterm guidance is still valid with this expected project duration of plus 1 year to 2026. Yes, we confirm our midterm guidance, and we are confident that we will reach these objectives even with this longer project duration expected for this ERP project. And you are right, we expect that the new law or regulation will be cost neutral. That's also a condition from the authorities. It's clear that the new law our fees shouldn't be higher than the existing. So Therefore, our assumption is cost neutral. And it's still the same. The introduction of the new distribution margin, which was introduced first of July. Also there, we expect no impact, not positive, not negative in average on group results.

Next question from Sebastian Vogel, UBS.

Can you hear me?

Yes, very clear.

Great. I've got 3 questions. I will ask one by one. First 1 is like on what is baked in, in your sort of implied growth for the second half on the top line in terms of flu season? Do you have taking a sort of a normal flu season, a bit of more active one or more of a normal one? Second question is on product and brands. You mentioned there was some pre-buying ahead of regulation and generally a lot of international demand. How sustainable is that one? Are these 2 effects or how much of these ones be most likely will see also in the second half of this year? And the third one with regard to the wholesale service business, that it seems like the wholesale services with physicians seems to be growing quite actively despite your bad experience, which you had made last year, I was wondering, is that you sort of put the foot away from the brakes again and are growing in that business again more vividly? Or what's the plan there?

Thank you, Sebastian. We always calculate if we do a guidance with a normal flu season. So if the flu season will be bad or better, this could be an upside or downside to our guidance. But it's clear -- we expect a normal flu season. Then products and brands export. It's clear the earlier sales of product because of this regulation change. This will be compensated in the next years with lower sales. So it's really our distributors stay increased their stocks in order to be able to sell over the next years, these products until the new product formulations will be then delivered. So a part of this will be -- will impact the sales in the future, in the near future. The other dynamic for the good demand for our products, we believe will remain. And physicians, we are very happy with this strong growth, but I can guarantee you that we really look very, very close to the healthiness of this additional sales growth. So we are really very cautious with this customer group. We really learned from the mistakes we have done last year.

Got it. If I may slip in one small follow-up with regard to the tax rate, it seems to be a bit larger than usual in the first half. I was wondering, is that more like a one-timer, so to say, and that we will see you coming back in the second half and next year also to the more normal levels? Or is there something more structural behind?

So it's normal. Don't ask me why, but it's normal that in the first half, our tax rate is higher than at the end of the year. So that's a seasonal impact. I don't know why. I have to ask my expert. But I expect a slightly lower tax rate at the end of the year. If you compare it with last year, last year, it was positively impacted by one-offs. So this 16%, 17% last year is not sustainable. We believe in a sustainable tax rate around 18% to 19%.

Then 1 question from Maja Pataki through the Q&A tool. First question, can you please remind us how the billing for Book a Doc works also how quickly can a meeting be set up.

The meeting normally, if you are in the pharmacy and the pharmacist is doing the call to my -- to Book a Doc tool normally it goes between 0 and Max 15 minutes. Should be a doctor in the call then -- that's the normal call -- that's normal meeting duration. I don't know about the billing.

Well, these consultations, the advice consultations are normally paid out of pocket by the patients. We expect to have some additional insurance solutions where it's reimbursed. But normally, it's paid out of the pocket and this Book a Doc and additional advises is included then in this fees.

Then the next question, can you please also break out the negative sales impact from the bad weather as well as the impact from the greater generic substitution.

The second question, the impact of the great generic substitution, I already answered some questions before. I said it's something below 0.5%. Then the impact of the bad weather very difficult to answer. But if we make a simple stupid calculation, end of April, sales growth consolidated on the group was 4.8%. And we said then we had 1 selling day more, which represent about 1%. So adjusted for this 1 supplement, 1 additional sales day growth would have been 3.8%. Now mid of the year, we are at 2.6%, and our calculation says that the missing sales day accounts for around 0.8% sales, that means adjusted for this, growth would be around 3.4%. That means the adjusted sales growth would have declined from 3.8% to 3.4%. So that's my best guess that the 0.4% is mainly the bad weather. But that's just a calculation. I don't know if the reality is it's 0.4%, but it's a good calculation.

Then we have 1 question from Dmitry Osokin regarding the OT liberalization. If there are any news and what initiatives are taken by the industry to -- in favor of the liberalization?

We don't have any news. It's still -- we believe it's about the '28, maybe '29. When I started the company, it was mentioned that it will be -- the liberalization will be there at about '22, '23, '24. Now we talk about '28, '29. And all what we are doing is on the business side because on the political side, I guess that's just a normal process. We can change this process. We just have to accept it. all what we do, of course, is to build up our omnichannel infrastructure, our marketing, our marketing performance, our knowledge about our customer, our online performance and all this to be prepared if the liberalization will be here but the political process is not so easy to push or to decline or to give more power on the process. It is as it is.

There are no more questions. I now hand back to Felix.

Thank you for these interesting questions. This was my last analyst and media conference at Galenica. After 30 wonderful years at Galenica, I have decided to step down as CFO at the end of the year. I have been very fortunate to have been able to build up a great successor over the last 3 years. And I'm delighted that Julian will be taking over from me at the beginning of next year. I have greatly appreciated working with you, dear analysts and investors. I've always felt a very high level of trust from you. And for that, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. From next year, I will be focusing on nonexecutive mandates, and I'm looking forward to have more time for private projects. And who knows -- perhaps we will meet another occasion, I would be very pleased. Thank you. I wish you all the best.

Thank you, Felix. It was the official part of the conference call. And I would like to address a few personal words to Felix, and I would like to do this in German.