Baxter International Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Baxter International's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Your lines will remain in a listen-only mode until the question and answer segment of today's call. At that time, if you have a question, you will need to press the star 1 key on your touchtone phone. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then 0 on your touchtone phone. As a reminder, this call is being recorded by Baxter and is copyrighted material. It cannot be recorded or rebroadcast without Baxter's permission. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Kevin Moran, Vice President, Investor Relations at Baxter International. Mr. Moran, you may begin.

Good morning and welcome. Today we'll discuss Baxter's second quarter results along with our updated financial outlook for the full year 2026. This morning, A press release was issued with our preliminary earnings results and updated outlook. The press release and investor presentation are available on the investor section of the Baxter website. Joining me today are Andrew Hider, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Anita Zielinski, Interim Chief Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Controller. During the call, we will be making forward-looking statements, including comments regarding our updated financial outlook for the full year 2026 and the anticipated drivers of the third quarter and second half 2026 performance. The anticipated impact of various regulatory and operational matters, including ones related to our infusion pump platform and ongoing supply chain challenges and commentary regarding the global macroeconomic environment Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. On the call, we will reference organic growth, which excludes the impact of foreign exchange, MSA revenues from Vantiv, and the impacts associated with business acquisitions or divestitures. Unless otherwise noted, all financial results on today's call reflect continuing operations and exclude Baxter's former kidney care business, which is reported as discontinued operations. Finally, Andrew, Anita, and I will take questions following the prepared remarks, and we kindly ask that you limit yourself to one question and one brief follow-up so that we can give as many people in the queue an opportunity. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Andrew.

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. I am encouraged by our second quarter financial results that came in ahead of expectations. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. Let me provide some highlights of our performance in the quarter. Second quarter global sales totaled approximately $3 billion, representing an increase of 5% on both a reported and organic basis. We saw growth across the portfolio, led by advanced surgery and drug compounding. Every segment and division contributed, with sales increasing in both the U.S. and internationally. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. We continue to expect margins to expand in the second half of the year, driven by higher volumes consistent with typical seasonality, benefits from our cost structure actions, and the roll through of higher cost inventory. Shifting now to our turnaround efforts. We continue to show progress on our three strategic priorities. The first of those priorities is stabilizing the business. Thank you for joining us. Overall, we are seeing encouraging progress and are focused on building greater consistency across the portfolio. As part of our efforts to stabilize and improve performance, earlier this year, we brought together our pharmaceuticals and infusion therapies and technologies businesses under a single leader. Our new reporting structure reflects that change, with a combined business now reported as infusion therapies and platforms, or ITP. We believe the combination will support stronger coordination, execution and innovation across businesses that share common customers, capabilities and workflows in the pharmacy space. Moving on to our second strategic priority, which is strengthening the balance sheet. During the quarter, we again saw positive free cash flow generation. Bringing our year-to-date total to $257 million. This is another positive step forward and reflects our continued focus on improving working capital and strengthening cash flow generation across the organization. There is still significant work ahead. The strides we have made in the first half give us increased confidence in our ability to achieve our net leverage target of approximately 3x by the end of the year. Achieving a stronger and more flexible balance sheet unlocks more optionality to drive shareholder value, including strategic tuck in M&A that enhances our customer offerings and growth profile, as well as the option to return capital through share repurchases. Turning to our third priority, driving continuous improvement. Now in its third quarter since deployment, The Baxter Growth and Performance System or Baxter GPS has taken hold in the company culture and is becoming increasingly embedded in how each division operates. Through the first half of the year, we have completed over 400 continuous improvement events held across Baxter. We have nearly 200 in flight and another 400 planned in the pipeline. While no single event will define our future, Small improvements over time should lead to big improvements. Cross-functional teams are using Baxter GPS tools to identify execution risks earlier and implement mitigating actions sooner. Continuous improvement activity is supporting working capital, commercial, manufacturing, and R&D priorities with early examples of improved efficiency and simplification across the business. We are also making focused investments in innovation to drive growth across the portfolio. We recently launched Peerview, a differentiated digital benchmarking application that enables hospitals to compare infusion data and drive infusion therapy best practices. This is strategically important for the ITP business. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for watching. In care and connectivity solutions, early momentum for Dynamo, our smart hospital stretcher, continues with a strong commercial funnel and positive customer feedback. Additionally, we recently launched Dynamo in Canada, our first international expansion of the stretcher. And beyond product development, innovation is being advanced broadly across the company. Thank you for joining us. and conversations with our customers have validated the opportunity I saw when I decided to join the company. Baxter sits on a foundation of good businesses with leading positions and time trusted brands with clear opportunities for more rigorous execution to unlock our full potential and deliver consistent and sustainable earnings growth and long-term value for our shareholders. I will now turn the call over to Anita to provide more detail on our second quarter results, including segment level performance, as well as our 2026 guidance. Anita, over to you.

Thanks, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. I'm happy to be joining the call this morning to cover the details of Baxter's second quarter financial performance, as well as commentary on our updated outlook for the remainder of 2026. and many more. and second, an unfavorable comparison to the prior year period, which benefited from a change in estimate that resulted in a reclassification between SG&A and cost of sales. These two headwinds were partially offset by a 11 cents per diluted share benefit related to an IEPA tariff refund. Now I'll walk through our results by reportable segment. Commentary regarding sales growth will be on an organic basis. As a reminder, beginning with our reporting this quarter, our pharmaceuticals business has been consolidated into the former Infusion Therapies and Technologies or ITT division within our medical products and therapy segment. The combined division is now named Infusion Therapies and Platforms or ITP. In addition, certain sales previously reported within other, primarily related to products and services provided through manufacturing facilities aligned with ITP, are now included within the division. Sales in our medical products and therapy segment, or MPT, were 2.1 billion and increased 5% in the quarter. Within MPT, sales of our new infusion therapies and platforms division totaled 1.7 billion and increased 4%. Growth was driven by drug compounding and IV solutions. This growth was partially offset by lower sales within infusion systems and injectables. Within IV solutions, performance reflects growth off the new lower baseline of demand following clinical practice changes in the market. In infusion systems, results in the quarter reflect the net impact of lower sales due to the ongoing shipment and installation hold of the Novum IQ LVP, customer returns, and transitions to Spectrum. Importantly, demand for Spectrum IQ remains steady. Consistent with the first quarter, we did not see a material impact from Novum LVP-related returns in the second quarter. Performance in the quarter also reflects continued strong demand for our drug compounding services, which grew double digits. This strength was partially offset by lower injectable sales due to supply constraints and continued softness in certain premixed products. Sales in advanced surgery totaled $331 million and grew 12%. Results reflect continued strong demand and increased volumes from our global portfolio of hemostats and sealants, strong commercial execution across regions, and steady procedure volumes. NPT's adjusted operating margin totaled 19.3% for the quarter, decreasing 350 basis points. Results reflect higher manufacturing costs, including lower absorption and the unfavorable impact from the Section 122 tariffs. Performance also reflects the unfavorable prior year cost timing comparison, as well as a lower contribution from pricing. These were partially offset by the benefit related to the IEPA tariff refund, as well as increased sales volumes. In our healthcare systems and technology segment, or HST, sales totaled 801 million and increased 4% in the quarter. Within HST, sales of our care and connectivity solutions, or CCS division, were 502 million and grew 5%. Within CCS, performance was driven by strong patient support systems volumes globally, including execution against the U.S. backlog and growth across international markets. Today in the U.S., we have not observed any change in hospital capital spending and our order book continues to reflect solid demand. However, given broader macroeconomic uncertainty, we continue to closely monitor the environment. Frontline care sales were 299 million and grew 2%. Performance in the quarter reflects continued momentum from Connex360 and the timing of large customer deals relative to the first quarter. Partially offsetting these benefits were planned global product exits in the portfolio. HST adjusted operating margin totaled 20.3% for the quarter, flat compared to the prior year period. Results benefited from the tariff refund as well as increased sales volumes. These benefits were offset by the previously discussed unfavorable year-over-year comparison related to cost timing. Finally, other sales, which now solely represent MSA revenue from Vantiv, totaled $83 million. As a reminder, these sales are included in our reported growth, but they are not reflected in our organic growth. Now moving through the rest of the second quarter P&L. Adjusted gross margins were 38.6%, a decrease of 210 basis points driven by the previously discussed headwinds and cost of goods sold. These impacts were partially offset by the tariff refund benefit. Adjusted SG&A totaled 648 million, or 21.9% of sales, a decrease of 80 basis points. This reflects the benefits from previously implemented cost actions. Adjusted R&D spending totaled $125 million, or 4.2% of sales. TSA income and other reimbursements totaled $52 million in the quarter, which came in favorable versus expectations. This favorability was offset by higher TSA-related expenses and therefore did not have a material net impact to earnings. Altogether, these factors resulted in an adjusted operating margin of 14.2%, Thank you for joining us. In total, adjusted earnings were $0.56 per share for the quarter. Before turning to our 2026 outlook, I want to comment on cash flow and liquidity. Second quarter free cash flow was $181 million, improving sequentially from the first quarter and reflecting continued progress in cash generation. This progress was driven by improved operational performance and focused execution across targeted areas of working capital. We remain focused on strengthening cash flow generation and improving the balance sheet. Reducing leverage remains our top near-term capital allocation priority, and we continue to target approximately three times net leverage by year end. Now turning to our updated outlook for the full year 2026. For the full year, we now expect total sales growth to be 3% to 4% on a reported basis. This reflects current foreign exchange rates, which are expected to contribute approximately 100 basis points to top-line growth for the year. In addition, reported sales are expected to include a headwind of approximately $25 million from MSA revenues from Vantiv, representing approximately 30 basis points of impact on reported growth. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange and MSA revenues, we now expect organic sales growth of 2% to 3% for 2026. This reflects the stronger performance year-to-date and our expectation for continued growth in the second half. As it relates to the segments, in MPT, we now expect full-year organic sales to grow low single digits. This reflects stronger year-to-date performance, including in drug compounding. As a reminder, the year-over-year comparison in infusion systems improves in the second half as we lap the shipment and installation hold of Novum LVP. Our outlook continues to incorporate potential customer uncertainty surrounding the Novum ship and installation hold. In HST, we continue to expect full-year organic sales to grow low single digits, supported by anticipated contributions from both the CCS and frontline care divisions. Turning to our outlook for other P&L line items and key assumptions beginning with tariffs. We continue to expect approximately $40 million of impact net of mitigating actions in the second half of the year. TSA income and other reimbursements is now expected to range between $155 to $165 million. Higher TSA income is expected to be offset by higher TSA-related expenses and therefore not expected to have a material net impact to earnings. We continue to expect full-year adjusted operating margin to range between 13% to 14%. We now expect our non-operating expenses, which include net interest expense and other income and expense, to total between $260 to $280 million. Thank you for joining us. While we are not providing quarterly guidance, I will offer some additional color on how we expect performance to progress over the remainder of the year. Overall, we are reiterating the framework we have consistently laid out for 2026. Known mechanical headwinds in the first half, followed by expected improvement in the second half. The drivers of this improvement remain consistent with what we laid out last quarter. We continue to expect higher volumes in the associated operating leverage in the second half of the year relative to the first half. This is consistent with our historic seasonality and aligns with our updated outlook for sales. We continue to expect to see the benefits from the cost structure actions taken earlier this year. As I noted in the quarter, we have already begun to realize these. and third, as previously referenced, the higher cost inventory produced at the end of 2025 has now rolled through our P&L. With respect to free cash flow, our performance through the first half represents meaningful progress and supports our expectation for improved free cash flow generation in 2026 relative to 2025. In closing, I'm also encouraged by both our second quarter results as well as the continued traction we are seeing across the organization from Baxter GPS. With that, we can now open up the call for Q&A.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star followed by the number one on your touchtone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, press star one again. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset to ask your question. so that we may be respectful of everyone's time, please limit your comments to one question with one brief follow-up. We appreciate everyone's consideration as we would like to provide as many of you as possible the opportunity to ask a question. We will pause for a moment while the list is being compiled. I would like to remind participants that this call is being recorded and a digital replay will be available on the Baxter International website for 60 days at www.baxter.com. Your first question from the line of Robert Marcus of JP Morgan. Robert, your question, please.

Oh, great. Good morning and congrats on the nice 2Q. I'll ask both my questions up front here. Clearly a better than expected result on the top and bottom line in second quarter. I'd love if you could speak to some of the drivers of the acceleration on the top line. and the confidence in the guidance raised. Same question on the bottom line, but it does appear like there were a number of one-time items in 2Q and you did raise the EPS guide less than the 2Q beat, implying perhaps softer second half underlying EPS. And then on 2027, given the one-time items, do you still feel confident you'll be able to grow EPS next year? Thanks a lot.

Yeah, hey, good morning, Robbie. Look, if I do a step back, I'll walk this through in pieces. First, we're pleased with the quarter. This demonstrates continued steady progress on our strategic priorities and improved execution across the business. Now, even more importantly is we saw broad-based operational performance improvement and all segments and divisions were growing. A couple call-outs. In MPT, we saw strength driven by double-digit growth in drug compounding. We also saw continued strong performance in our advanced surgery business. And also, while the baseline was lower, we saw strong performance in our IV solutions organization. In HST, CCS benefited from strong patient support systems demand. and within our FLC business, our Connect 360 product line continues to resonate well with customers and we see improved performance on our funnel and our ability to execute. Now, as a reminder, and I did walk through this or we did walk through this in our prepared remarks, there was a tariff refund that was not contemplated initially. It's about 11 cents. Absent this, We continue to be focused on how we're going to strengthen the organization and continue to perform. As we look at 27, the path to 27 is through execution in 26 and especially the second half of 26. While certainly pleased with a quarter, it's one quarter. Our team is focused on driving the business and continuing to execute through the remainder of the year. Now, as we know, the non-recurring tariff benefit won't flow through next year. And we're going to give you additional color on 27 at the appropriate time. Right now, we're focused on executing in 26.

Travis Steed of Bank of America is on the line with a question. Travis, please state your question.

Hey, congrats. I guess Q2 is a pretty high say-do ratio, so it's nice to see. Maybe I would start with the Q2. Chris, how big the drug compounding was in Q2? How much of that? Was that 20% plus? Is that something that drove more of the upside this quarter? Just given the mix on gross margin was a little bit light. So if there's anything you could say on drug compounding this quarter and how much that was of the beat.

Hey, Travis. This is Kevin. Thank you so much for joining us.

are pleased with the double digit growth. Additionally, this business has favorable cash conversion and there is some improvement on where we're focused on driving margin in a better place. So overall, again, pleased with this. We have some work to do to get this more in line with the overall Baxter performance.

Makes sense. And then I do want to push a little bit more on the guy that earnings beat 19 cents this quarter. Tax, the tariff refund, 11 cents, TSA, 4 cents, low interest, 2 to 3, only raising by 10. Is this just being conservative on the second half? And then curious how you're thinking about the TSA income dynamic and the headwind for next year. Is that something you can offset or have to lap?

Travis, let me start real quick just on the TSA and then I'll turn it back to get to Andrew on kind of the overall confidence in the second half. So we did see higher TSA income in the quarter than we were expecting. But importantly, we also saw higher TSA related expenses. Thank you for joining us.

To your point, say-do ratio, we are very focused on executing for the second half of the year, getting ready for 27, and aligning the organization around how we perform. And at its core is how we align GPS and action, and that becoming our driver across the organization.

Larry Beagleson of Wells Fargo is on the line with a question. Larry, your question, please.

Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Congrats on the progress here, Andrew. Maybe a little bit more of an update on NovumIQ. You talked about it, you know, early in the validation process. What are the kind of the next steps here, Andrew? And if you don't get Novum back on the market, how durable is SpectrumIQ as a workhorse pump?

Yeah, good morning, Larry. And a couple items here. Punchline is we're making progress. Now, we continue to closely work with regulatory authorities. and we support our current Novum LVP customers and they're working with the mitigating actions that are in place. As we do a step back, we like our total pump portfolio. We have Novum Syringe, we have Spectrum LVP and they're on the IQX platform and as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, We've even launched Peerview that enables these to really bring higher value for our customers. So overall, we're pleased with our total offering. We're pleased with the value proposition it brings to customers. And we're continuing to drive to when it's ready, launch LVP, that said, or Novum LVP, that said, we're very focused on bringing that value to customers today and continuing to expand our value proposition.

That's helpful. Andrew, obviously compounding was strong. You talked about that earlier. Talk about injectables and anesthesia, what the plan is to turn that around. When we had visibility on that, those were declining, I believe. Thanks for taking the question.

Absolutely. Look, this business, look, it remained pressured due to ongoing supply constraints and continued softness and premix. Now, we are taking very specific actions to improve some supply conditions, select products. and there's an area and I've talked about this in the past and we're staying very focused on a contract manufacturer and that does remain constrained. We are working extremely close to them on how to improve operational efficiency, how to align around product and continued high level of quality within the solution set. As just outlined, our full year guidance does have this built in. So we are in our stages around how do we execute and continue to perform in this space. We have taken that into account our full year.

Vijay Kumar of Evercore is on the line with a question. Vijay, your question, please.

Hi, Andrew. Good morning and congrats on a nice sprint here. Maybe just on this performance within second quarter, Andrew, some questions around were there any one-timers? Was there any restocking benefit from Ivy Flood? I know the market went through a rebasing effort, if you will. And also, any quarter-end phenomena, talk about phasing in the quarter, anything that stands out to you?

Yes, so let me take those in two areas. First, in IV solutions, we didn't see a massive restocking. So I would say it's not material in our overall IV business. That said, this is the new norm. And we've talked about how this is the baseline and how our product set and our alignment with customers, we bring a high value here. And so we're... Thank you so much for joining us. and the second piece of your question throughout the quarter, look, you know, all I can say is we saw broad-based strength across the business and certainly when we look, and I called out a few of the areas that we saw some additional increase throughout the quarter, we're pleased across the board. That said, we've got a lot of work to do to finish the year strong and our teams are very focused on rolling our sleeves up, continuing to execute and utilizing our GPS as our guide for them.

That's helpful, Andrew. Then maybe one more product-related question, if you will, on Connected Care. There's been some concerns around maybe cautiousness by hospitals on utilization, and maybe that spills over into their CapEx outlook. So can you talk about your order book within Connected Care that business did well, and any signs of slowdown that we're seeing from a customer CapEx spending standpoint?

Yeah, so a couple items here. And I'll walk through what our teams are executing to. I'll walk through my current engagement with customers and how we view this space. But demand remains stable. And this is really supported by U.S. strong capital order book and funnel visibility across PSS and our GSS business. and so we've continued to see our ability to support our customers as they're investing for the future. That said, we are staying very close to this market and we want to ensure that we are aligned with their needs. I will also additionally add that I have met and part of my standard work as a CEO is to meet with customers on an ongoing basis. and what we're hearing from them is a few items. First, their continued focus on how they're investing to improve their workflow, improve their process alignment to our business. Number two, I've been able to see real time firsthand how our new stretcher is resonating with our customers and the excitement that they have around Pete O'Chickering of Deutsche Bank is on the line with a question. Please state your question.

Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking my question. I'm going to ask you the drug compounding question a little differently. Just looking at the organic revenue guidance raise of 200 to 300 basis points and the implied EPS the back half of the year was a little lighter than the street despite some good guys like interest. What is the margin contribution of the guidance raise that you put into guidance?

Hey, Peter, this is Kevin. So just to kind of reiterate a couple of points, drug compounding, a good chunk of the performance in Q2. And when we think about overall first half performance, Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, so I guess a little differently, you know, you're raising EPS by the tariff, you're increasing revenue in the back half of the year on continuation, but there's no EPS flow through on that despite it, you know, I think 3 cents coming from better interest rates, I guess. Can you give me like the good guys and bad guys on margins in the back half of the year versus previous guidance and things like oil and shipping costs, sort of keep with that in there as well? Thank you.

Yeah, so I think the punchline is from an operating margin standpoint, we've been pretty clear about first half headwinds followed by expected improvement in the second half. The new item this quarter is the tariff refund, which is non-recurring. And so if you're thinking about kind of modeling on a sequential basis for the balance of the year, you normalize for the tariff benefit in Q2. And then you think about the drivers for sequential improvement that we've talked about higher volumes in the second half. benefits from the cost structure actions. We've already seen that start to manifest in our Q2 results. And then rolling through the higher cost inventory produced at the end of 2025, which importantly, we saw that recognized in the first half of the year. And so that item specifically is gonna be a Q2 to Q3 sequential improvement. And so I think, again, as kind of an overall, The framework we've laid out is consistent. Obviously, the first half of the year from a top line has come in a bit stronger than we expected, but we are still very confident on the full year guidance and reiterated the same underlying operating performance that we had before.

And just to add additional minor color around the supply question, Look, it's something we continue to closely monitor. And like everyone else, we've seen some pressure here, but it has been manageable and it's within our guidance. So to be very clear, it's within our guidance. And so overall, I would say we're taking a very proactive approach on where we might have challenges and then we take mitigating actions and align around what actions are going to get us back in line. On oil prices, I've talked to that quite a bit with the Vantive spin. It's obviously lesser of an impact on our business. Therefore, we're continuing to monitor it. That said, we've been able to offset.

Patrick Wood of UBS is on the line with a question. Please state your question.

Beautiful. Beautiful. Thanks for taking the questions. I'll ask them both up front. I guess first one, if you could unpack a little bit more on the advanced surgery side, the hemostats and sealants growth. I mean, that's stayed a lot stronger for a lot longer than at least we had anticipated. So that's one. And then the second one, just, you know, I know you're not guiding on 27, but as we contemplate 27 and the TSA income that comes out, Is that still EPS neutral in that year, or is this something that we should at least be conceiving could be a factor to put into our models for next year?

Thanks. Yes, so to walk through advance surgery, look, pleased with the progress here. Strong, strong performance for the team, strong alignment with customers. And, you know, having traveled with this team and having been seeing firsthand with our customers, our product set, our enablement and how our customers really look to us to help in the patient. and having high patient care really aligns with our mission. And, you know, saving sustained lives at Baxter is very important to us. And this business is front and center on that. So strong performance, strong growth. The team continues to align around strong demand and increased volumes for our global portfolio and execution and staying very close to our customers through this. As far as 27, look, you know, the only thing you're going to add on this, and of course, there's a lot of moving parts. We're laser focused on finishing 26 strong. We have aligned around the actions we have to take as an organization and being very focused on what those align to for getting us ready as we finish the year and get ready for 27. And we will provide more color on and 27 as the year comes closer. You know, that includes TSA, that includes, you know, a continued view on markets and ensuring that we've got clear focus on how we want to execute to finish the year out.

Joanne Wunsch of Citi is on the line with a question. Please state your question.

Good morning and thank you for taking the question and really nice revenue results. I have two quick ones. The first one has to do with just the overall hospital environment and procedures. There's a pretty active debate out there on how much changes to the ACA is impacting procedures. And with your presence in the hospital, I suspect you have a frontline seat. And then the second one is I just want to make sure I understand the moving parts and gross margins, impact of tariffs on the second quarter specifically, and then how should we think about full-year gross margins and that strength of recovery. Thank you.

All right. So I'll take the first part of that. And look, you know, if I just do a step back overall, we're not seeing any changes with behavior from our customers and the overall environment. And we're staying very close to this. And, you know, we're not immune. That said, we have not seen a change in behavior and or view on our product set. We are staying very close around this. And as a reminder, I visit customers often. We align around understanding what their needs are. And we're launching new products to expand that and to truly support their focus on patient care and also workplace optimization. And Baxter has a strong ability to support that.

And then as far as gross margins for the full year, we haven't provided explicit guidance at the gross margin level. But when you think about some of the items we've talked about and some of the moving pieces mostly focused on operating margin, they're obviously relevant to gross margin. So obviously, the tariff refund in Q2 was a positive, rolling through the higher cost inventory. That was the largest headwind this quarter. And as we've noted, importantly, we've now cycled through that. And so if you're looking at Q2 as kind of your starting point after normalizing for the tariff refund, you should expect sequential improvement for the balance of the year.

Rick Wise of Stiefel is on the line with a question. Please state your question.

Hi, good morning, Andrew. Two questions. My first is on frontline care. Up 2% in the quarter. Anita, you highlighted planned product exits. My question is, what can you quantify the specific 2Q impact on growth? What would it have been X that, or maybe it wasn't large enough to really quantify, but when do we get past that? and maybe a bigger question is how do we think about frontline care growth going forward? Or what are you aspiring to? Is this a mid-single visitor grower? Is there something in the innovation pipeline that's going to change the trajectory? And then I have a follow-up. Thank you.

Hey Rick, this is Kevin. Maybe let me start here just talking about kind of the Q2 and then I'll turn it back to Andrew for kind of a broader innovation discussion. So as it relates to Q2, Connect360 did contribute to the growth year-over-year of frontline care. Obviously in the context of Total Baxter, it's less of a contributor, but for frontline care, It was impactful in the quarter. Andrew, maybe a little more on the second part of his question on innovation more broadly.

Yeah, and the piece on planned exits, I would say they're not material, but we do monitor these. And I'll just say a couple items on this business and overall. We We are focused on really alignment to where we have value creation for customers. And part of that is going to be strong portfolio management. And look, I'm a markets first person. And so we want to understand where we have value for customers, alignment that value is, and ensure that we're not only launching products to meet that and expand that, we sustain our solution set that's going to keep our customers in a good place. Think about this as base hits, that constant drive to always get better, be better, and be in front and relevant in front of our customer base. Overall, long-term within this business, we've seen improvement. It's early days, and I would say the leadership team is really laser-focused on how to execute and the right value creation for customers, and ultimately then what that means for the business growth.

Yeah, and Andrew, this is more for you and sort of a big picture question. Obviously, these are your words you said earlier. You've made continuous positive progress. It's impressive. It's good to see the quarter. And I know you're pleased with the progress. I suspect my sense of you is you're, I doubt you're satisfied. But my question is, where has it gone better, faster, bigger than you? What's the biggest better thing Thank you for that.

You bet, Rick. And let me just walk through a couple items. And, you know, I've been very pleased with how GPS has taken shape across the organization. And, look, having done this before, and I've, you know, been a part of many organizations that have lined, this, the team at Baxter's really embraced this. And if I were to coin a phrase, you know, boring inconsistency, brilliant execution. We want to be consistent and we want to continue to execute. And so the nuance that I want you to think through is, and I reference this, we have done, and think about this, year to date, we have done over 400 continuous improvement events. We have almost 200 in flight and we have another 400 planned in the pipeline. And when we think through that, that is the driving force. And if you look at the flywheel, of our GPS system. It starts with strategy. It starts with understanding the markets, understanding the position, understanding the products. And then it aligns to what are the breakthroughs that we want to drive within each business, within each segment. Then it goes to how we're going to measure KPIs. And we look at annual. We look at quarter. We look at monthly. We look at daily where possible. And then it's on our teams, actually. And I travel a lot. I get to see firsthand how the teams have embraced this concept, this drive, their passion for making tomorrow better than today. I can go reference point after reference point. I can give examples after examples, but to me, that's how we think about the future. There's no one innovation that will define our future. There's no one continuous improvement event that will define. It's the accumulation and combination of all of them that puts us in that position. Thank you for joining us. Now, you nailed it in the question, which is, am I ever satisfied? No, I'm that constant drive to always get better, but I am pleased with our progress. That said, one quarter is one quarter. It's that drive to finish the year strong, get ready for 27, launch new exciting products that are base hits, and build the team's momentum around how we continue to perform, continue to drive. Thank you for the question.

Matt Taylor of Jefferies is on the line with a question. Please state your question.

Good morning. Thank you for taking the question. So first, I wanted to ask a follow up on the operating environment, because there are several places in the release and the materials where you talked about stable demand for patient support for your products. It really seems like you're saying nothing's changing with capex spending. So could you be specific? Are you seeing any impact from ACA, your HIC subsidies, and or Medicaid. And do you expect any impact from that? If you could help to frame that risk at all, that'd be great.

Yeah, so a couple items here. Look, we are not immune. We stay very focused on this. And it's a part of, look, we assess customer base. We go through all the external documentation. And what I can tell you is net net, Thank you for joining us. That said, we're staying very, very close to this to ensure we've got alignment with customers on their buying behaviors and their needs. So overall, no update on our expectation. That said, it's something we are continuing to monitor and continuing to assess.

Got it. Thank you. Could I have one follow-up on 27? I know you're not going to be specific, but previously you had talked about confidence and at least being able to grow the top line in earnings. in 27. Can we still assume that's the case, or maybe you have more confidence in that now that you've produced good results here in Q2?

A couple things, and I'll just walk through it. Look, we are pleased with our progress. Thank you for joining us. and so we'll give update in color at the appropriate time but right now we are laser focused on executing for the remainder of the year.

Okay. Josh Jennings of TD Cowan is on the line with a question. Please state your question.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. You know, Andrew, I know Baxter's had some comp variability as we're trying to assess the Each business unit and the go-for-it, as Matt's question addressed, about 2027. But I was hoping to just get an update on your team's view on the way the average market growth rate of the portfolio, various business units, many different product lines. But historically, we've thought of the way the average market growth rate of Baxter's portfolio around 3% to 4%. Does that hold true when comps stabilize and as you look forward? And where do you see Baxter's portfolio, which business units are are primed to gain share as you reach that steady state and maybe in 2027 and beyond. Thanks for taking the question.

You bet. And look, if I just do a step back, we view this as a low single digit area and that's overall. Now, if we then piece this apart and we go into different areas of the business, we've obviously seen and continue to see strong areas. And, you know, I'll just call it a couple. We've seen strong performance in our advanced surgery business. Compounding has obviously been a strong grower. That said, all of our businesses are focused on executing and bringing value and innovation to our customers and alignment to that cadence around that. And what gets me excited as we continue our execution journey is how, and I know we didn't talk about this, but how we're looking at leverage. And we talked in our prepared remarks around getting to approximately 3x by year end, obviously gaining confidence in that, gaining our ability, and what that means for our future. and how we think about capital allocation with our alignment to internal investment as well as potential tuck in M&A as well as other opportunities that are going to really be part of the future narrative. That said, it's about execution. It's about how we align. It's about GPS being at the core of everything we do and our people to align to that future. Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Andrew for closing remarks.

Thanks, operator. We are encouraged by the progress you're making and remain focused on the work ahead. Our turnaround is gaining traction. Execution is improving. We're building momentum across the business. We believe this positions Baxter to deliver more consistent performance, sustainable growth, and long-term value for shareholders. Thank you for your time. Appreciate the interest. Stay safe and goodbye for now.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call with Baxter International. Thank you for participating.