Recordati Industria Chimica e Farmaceutica S.p.A.

Good afternoon, this is the conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Recordati 2024 first half results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Miss Eugenia Liz, Vice President of Investor Relations of Recordati.

Please go ahead, madam. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to be here today with Rob Cormans, our CEO, and Luigi Licorte, our CFO. Together, they will present results for the first half of 2024. Also joining for the Q&A session will be Alberto Martinez, Executive Vice President of Specialty and Primary Care, Scott Pescatore, Executive Vice President of Rare Diseases, and Milan Stroskovic, Executive Vice President of R&D. As always, the presentation is available in the investor section of our website. It is now my pleasure to pass the call over to Rob. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Eugenia, and good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. I'm very pleased to share once again excellent results for the first half of the year with net revenue of 1 billion, 185 million, up 30.5% versus last year, or 10.2% on a like-for-like at constant exchange rate. This reflects strong growth across both our specialty and primary care and our rare disease business. Specialty primary care was up 7.6% on a like-for-like constant exchange basis and rare disease 15.9% on a like-for-like at constant exchange rate business. Luigi will talk through in more detail what the Business units have been performing and give you more details in just a moment. But I would like to emphasize that our results are not only outstanding in absolute terms, but they also highlight our consistent outperformance in expanding markets, which is truly remarkable. We continue and consistently delivered sector-leading EBITDA margins of 38.2% for the first half, a clear reflection of our strong revenue and operating leverage, and despite facing a bit less positive products and country mix. This, coupled with the consolidation of Avodat and Comodat, slightly impacted the gross profit margin in the second quarter. Our adjusted net income was 301 million, up 4.7% versus previous year, effectively absorbing the increase in the interest expenses and tax rates. Thanks to these results and the strong crash flow, we ended the quarter with leverage of just below 1.8 times EBITDA pro forma. In terms of R&D, we are delighted to announce the submission of the Isterisa S-NDA for the Cushing's Syndrome label extension in the US in June. This is ahead of our schedule and expectations. We expect a regulatory decision by mid-25, And I'm very excited about the overall opportunity in Cushing's. And with this strong momentum across our business, we are pleased to adjust our full year 2024 financial targets upwards across all absolute metrics, reflecting our confidence in continued growth and success. And now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Luigi.