Getinge AB (publ)

Welcome to the Getting the Q3 Report 2023. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing star 5 on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers. CEO Matthias Perjos and CFO Lars Sandström. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much and welcome to today's conference. This is Mattias Pergers, CEO of Geringe and with me CFO Lars Sundström who will present the financials in a moment. We can move directly over to page number two please. So let's start by looking at the key takeaways for the third quarter of 2023. Getting a sales rose organically by 5.7% in the quarter. The order intake declined organically by a total of 1.9% in the quarter, which was exclusively linked to acute care therapists, where we still have a large order book that we're working through. In the quarter, we worked intensely to address the challenges that we have in cardiac assist and cardiopulmonary, and improvements have been made, enabling us to gradually increase delivery volumes, mainly for consumables in cardiac assist. However, the challenges are continuing to have a negative impact on our order intake, on our delivery capacity, and also on our costs. The margins improved versus last quarter to a large extent due to higher deliveries of consumables, mainly in cardiac assist. It's also worth mentioning that we completed two important acquisitions just after the end of the quarter and we continue to have a stable free cash flow and a solid financial position with a healthy safety margin when it comes to leverage. Which is also the case when we include the acquisitions into the equation and we will talk about that a bit later in the presentation. We can then move over to page number three please. So if we start by looking at some of the key activities and events in the quarter, and we begin with sustainability and quality. Carbon dioxide emissions, our energy consumption and the share of renewable energy continue to develop in a positive direction for Geringen. The science-based targets initiative also validated getting us near and long-term targets of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions across the value chain. So it's good evidence that we're on the right track with this, that we have ambitious but reachable targets. There's also been a change in the executive team where Jeanette Tidén-Carlsson decided to step down from her role as executive vice president brand and communication. Jeanette has done a really good job during her six years with Geringen and under her leadership, Geringen's brand recognition has increased on our key markets. I've appreciated her as a colleague as well and I wish her all the best in her next career step. The process to recruit a successor has been kicked off and is ongoing. When it comes to our offering to customers, I'm happy to note that FDA granted clearance for a new ventilator in the US market that expands our leading offering there. Getting a Life Science launched Apliflex STGMP, a customizable single-use bioreactor that enables customers to move from research to full-scale production within the same safe system. It is designed to meet all requirements for clinical cell and gene therapy as well as mRNA application. So this is a very important step for our customers. And as I mentioned initially, we completed two important acquisitions just after the quarter end. Healthmark and High Purity New England complementing our infection control business and our offering towards customers in the biopharma segment in an almost perfect way with minimal overlap and extensive growth opportunities. We can then move over to page number four and take a closer look at the most recent acquisition which is Healthmark. So I'd like to spend some time on this one just as we did with High Purity New England in the previous quarter. We're truly happy about this acquisition, and there are many reasons for this. First and foremost, Healthmark has built a strong brand in sterile reprocessing in the US since late 60s, with a true customer-centric approach in everything that they do. Through this acquisition, we broaden our consumables portfolio significantly, for example, within cleaning verification and packaging, where we have minimal overlap with our current offerings. This acquisition also means that we strengthen our U.S. presence, both when it comes to our customer base and also our infrastructure in the U.S. This will help us augment the attachment rate to our existing and appreciated capital equipment, and in addition, we will leverage our global reach to drive Healthmark's international expansion. I'm also happy to declare that we will retain key management with vast experience from building the Healthmark success story. Hedmark will make a noticeable impact in surgical workflows also from a financial perspective. Net sales for the financial year ending last October is expected to be around $126 million and growth in the end market is expected to be at a healthy mid to high single digit level. The business operates at mid-teen EBTA margin and from a group perspective we expect a positive contribution on EPS adjusted for PPA in 2025 and on reported EPS from 2026. We can then move over to page number five and the status when it comes to improvement efforts on cardiac assist and on cardiopulmonary. Let's start with the slide for cardio pulmonary that we introduced last quarter. I won't go through all the data here rather focus on the changes since last quarter. On quadrups there are no big new events here besides making progress according to plan and the same goes for HLS PLS with one important difference that by the end of September we received an extended exception that permits deliveries according to the European Union MDR article 59 until September 30th 2024. This gives us a good margin now to have an approved packaging solution in place before then. We can then move over to page number six please. So focusing then on cardiac assist. Again, I won't spend time on basic facts about the business here either, rather cut straight to the core of the business that we deal with. When it comes to the balloons, we had an issue with a third-party component in the insertion kit. Early Q3, we identified the root cause of this. We received corrected components and resumed global deliveries, taking us to a growth year on year. So this particular issue is now out of the way. On the pumps, we received good news in the quarter that the CE certificate was reinstated. We have continued with the ongoing field corrections expected to be resolved in full during 2024, followed by regulatory approval. So a slight facing due to additional testing and design verification, among other things. Most important here now is that we can sell and deliver the pumps globally as of today, as we had the CE mark reinstated. However, we stay with the message from last quarter that we expect to ramp up delivery volumes gradually during the second half of 2023, so basically the final quarter now, and we expect less constraints during next year. As we all know, these challenges have the highest possible priority in getting at the moment, why it's good to see some positive traction and results, and we will continue to report on progress on this in the coming quarter. We can then move over to page number seven, please. Looking then at the top line evolution, as I mentioned earlier, order intake declined by 1.9% and net sales increased by 5.7% organically in the quarter. The lower organic order intake for the quarter was exclusively attributable to acute care therapists with mainly cardiac assist contributing to the downturn. The effects from this is something that we can see in all geographic regions. On the other hand, we had a positive development in all regions in net sales in acute care therapists due to a large extent thanks to delivering on the backlog in cardiac assist consumables, so the balloons themselves. The surgical workforce also had a strong quarter with growth in all regions, so that's also worth mentioning. We can then move over to page number eight, please. So if we summarize this into an outlook, it takes us to a situation where we expect organic net sales growth to be 2% to 5% for 2023. And this is basically repeat, no change in the overall outlook compared to what we said earlier. We can then move over to page number nine, please. So we had weaker order intake in acute care therapists, as I mentioned in the quarter. It was down 7.6% organically. The lower order intake for the quarter was mainly related to cardiac assist, as I mentioned. This was largely the results of customers waiting for deliveries of previously booked balloon pumps before they placed new orders. This pattern was seen in the order intake for all regions. If you look at the order book for the business area as a whole, it was just over 10% higher than last year. Life science then, we had 8.5% organic growth. So life science increased its order intake in all key categories except for sterile transfer, where the customers still have sufficient numbers of DPTE beta bags in stock. The trend in the US was overall strong while the order intake in China was weak in the quarter. The order intake increased in all product categories in America. Looking at surgical workflows then, we had a 3.6% organic order increase and the order intake for surgical workflows increased organically in both infection control and also in surgical workplaces. The order intake remained positive in the strategically important US market. Growth was also healthy in Germany and Japan, while the order intake in Latin America declined for surgical workflows. We can then move over to page 10, please. Looking then at the sales perspective in acute care therapists, we had a 6% organic increase in sales. And this was thanks to large deliveries of consumables in cardiac assist, which contributed to the sharp growth. Growth was also healthy in ventilators and in cardiac surgery products in the quarter. Life science was flat in the quarter, completely unchanged, with large deliveries in steam sterilizers. Sales of sterile transfer products for customers in the biopharma segment continued to decline in the quarter. The performance in China during the quarter was especially weak while sales to UMP and customers increased for life science. In surgical workflows we had a 7.4 organic increase and this was in all product categories and all regions. The performance in Southeast Asia and also Japan was particularly strong while sales in China fell for surgical workflows. Currency had a 271 million SEC or a 3.9% positive impact on net sales for the group in the quarter. Looking at recurring revenues, this grew by 6.9% in the quarter, positively impacted by strong deliveries in inter-optic balloons. We can then move over to page 11, please. So one step down the P&L, our adjusted gross profit increased by 298 million SEK to 3,890,000,000 SEK in the quarter, where a positive FX effect accounted for 114 million SEK. For the group as a whole, the adjusted gross margin declined by 0.7 percentage points due to unfavorable mix effects, lower absorption, cost inflation, and currency. These effects were partly offset by price increases. For acute care therapists, the adjusted gross margin declined by 0.6 percentage points, mainly due to mix and also higher costs related to ongoing improvements in cardiac assist and in cardiopulmonary. The margin was also impacted by negative currency effects, higher costs for input goods and for personnel. This was offset by price increases, strong sales, mainly in consumables and cardiac assist, and continuing productivity enhancements. For life science, the adjusted gross margin declined by 4.5 percentage points as a result of negative product mix and higher cost for input goods, personnel, and also currency effects. Price increases in life science contributed positively to the margin. Certical workflows suggested gross margin increased by 0.9 percentage points, and this was primarily a result of price increases and higher sales volumes. This was offset by higher cost for input goods and personnel and also here negative currency effects. So with that, we can move over to page number 12 and I leave over to you Lars.

All right, thank you Mattias. Adjusted EBITDA decreased some 69 million compared to the same period last year. Adjustable currency, GP, had a minus 0.3 percentage point impact on the beta margin due to what just what Mattias said. Organically, S&A increased by 8% versus previous year. The difference is mainly explained by a lower level of variable pay last year, creating a delta of some 30 million year on year. In addition, we have some 25 million of extra costs relating to the challenges in cardiac system cardiopulmonary. When looking at underlying OPEX, it is negatively impacted by cost inflation and a higher level of activity versus last year. This is to some extent mitigated by restructuring efforts. The change in R&D is related to somewhat higher activities, including costs for EU MDR. And the minus 77 million on other OPEX was mainly attributable to currency effects related to operating receivables and liabilities in foreign currencies. When putting it all together, we end up with a reduction of operational leverage of minus 2.3 percentage points impact on the margin. Adjustable currency, DNA, had a positive impact of some 0.5 percentage points on the margin in the quarter. And FX had a slightly negative impact on the margin in the quarter. All in all, this resulted in just a bit of 1,101,000,000 and a margin of 14.5%. Over to page 13, please. Free cash flow amounted to 1.1 billion and was impacted by a higher operating profit, including a net effect of some 250 million compensation from insurance related to mesh litigations in the court. Looking closer at working capital, the negative change was mainly due to changes in inventories. And working capital days continued to be well below 100, and we are now at some 96 days, down a bit more than 33 days from the peak in Q2 2018. We continue to be somewhat below trend on operating return on invested capital with 11.3% on a rolling 12-month basis. Let's move to page 14. The change in net debt year on year was positively impacted by the operating profit and support free cash flow, taking us to 3.8 billion in net debt at the end of the quarter. If we're just for pension liabilities, we are at 1.5 billion. This brings us to leverage of 0.7 times EBITDA. If we just for pension liabilities, leverage is at 0.3 times EBITDA. Cash amounted to approximately 5.3 billion at the end of the quarter. If we then add the acquisitions closed and paid for since the end of the quarter and use perform on the debt side on the equation, we end up at 8.7 billion in net debt or 6.4 billion if we exclude pensions. And that is leverage of 1.6 times EBITDA, actual rolling credits or 1.2 times if we exclude pensions. Let's move to page 16 and back to you, Mattias.

All right, thank you Lars. So just to summarize some of the key takeaways from the quarter. We leave the quarter with a lot of hard work leading to tangible improvements and a strong net sales and based on this we reiterate our guidance for the full year based on order book and the trends that we see. The margins improved versus previous quarter to a large extent due to improvements in cardiac assist and cardiopulmonary. We've also completed two important acquisitions, and we continue to have a stable free cash flow and a solid financial position with a healthy safety margin on leverage, which is also the case when we include the acquisitions into the equation, as you just heard Lars talk about. So the current priorities for us are addressing the remaining challenges that we have in acute care therapies, working then on sustainable productivity improvements across the company, and of course, continue to create additional value for our customers. So with that summary, I open up for questions.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Oliver Rainberg from Kepler Chewbacca. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much for taking my questions. Matthias, you talked about obviously that the balloon sales have contributed to the performance in the third quarter. I guess there has also been a certain catch-up effect. Can you just give us any kind of flavor to what extent balloon sales exceeded sales that you would find in the normal quarter? And also, can you specify when you talked about growth year-on-year, was this related to Q3 or the nine-month period? That would be question number one. And question number two, just on products, you obviously have received this kind of covered standard approval. So can you just provide an update what you see there in terms of demand trends? And also with regard to the approval of the non-invasive ventilators in the US, can you just talk to the potential you see here during the market space when the kind of key competitor faces a challenge? And then the third question just on China, can you just talk about what kind of impact you see from the anti-corruption campaign? And also, can you give us any kind of flavor What kind of faith do you see in China in the nine months period? Thanks very much.

Okay. Okay, thanks, Oliver. I'll start from the end, and I missed some of the bits and pieces in the middle, but we'll come back to that. So we start with China when it comes to the anti-corruption campaign. I think we don't see any major impact in terms of numbers short term on this. We do see that it's a little bit more difficult for our commercial people to get meetings with customers and so on, but that's really the only impact right now that we see. On China overall, I'd say as well, as I mentioned in the presentation, it is a weaker quarter. We do see that bioprocessing investments, for example, are on a very low level right now. We're hoping that it's kind of bottoming out now, but that remains to be seen going forward. We can see some more impact also from the bi-local initiatives, especially on surgical workflows, whereas on acute care therapies, I mean, there's a less problematic situation because of the competitive position that we have with some more products. So that's kind of the overview on China. Then when it came to the ventilators, I didn't quite hear your question, so if you could repeat that, please, we'll be...

Sure, I was just on this kind of product approval. You obviously got a kind of FDA approval for non-invasive ventilator. So the question was just like, what kind of potential do you see here from the issues in the industry?

We see really strong potential with this addition to the portfolio. We haven't quantified it in numbers, though. We would like to get it properly launched and see what traction we get. But we believe this is a significant addition to the portfolio and our offering in the US for critical care inside ACT. And then the first question was related to balloon sales. And I think we haven't quantified any kind of additional boost from this. I mean, there is a slightly higher sales than normal when it comes to balloons, given the weakness that we had in Q2 and our inability to deliver. But it's not something that we've quantified in terms of numbers or backlog or anything like that. So we prefer to keep those numbers to ourselves.

Okay, understood. Just in China, can you just provide any kind of flavor as Chinese sales in the first nine months declined by more than 20%?

No, we don't break this down on individual geographic markets. We stay with the numbers that we disclose on a regional level.

Understood. And then the last question was on the covered stand, any kind of update what you see here in terms of demand?

No, it's a little bit too early to say. I think we're just in the launch phase here. Everything's kind of prepared from a packaging and production standpoint, but it's a little bit too early to talk about the demand for this. I'd rather come back towards the end of the year or beginning of next year when we see the traction and momentum that we get.

Okay, enough. I hope I can look you. Thanks very much.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Eric Castle from Danske Bank.

please go ahead hi morning all um so another question on the the balloon pump consumables um i mean i i heard that you won't quantify anything but would you say that the restocking of customers were finalized during q3 or do you see that continuing into q4 and then also if there can be any sort of pull forward effects that you're seeing from customers maybe increasing safety stocks above normal levels that's the first one

Yeah, we don't really have a big, I think, stocking effect when it comes to the balloons. That's been more on the beta bank side in life science. I'm not aware of any quantifiable stocking or destocking effect on the balloons. Most of the situation is that we've had a big backlog of deliveries of balloons to deliver to customers. And we were able in the third quarter to deliver a little bit ahead of the plans that we had. So that's the situation.

All right. And then on the output of hardware in Cardiac Assist, when do you think you're able to get the backlog down to normal lead times again?

Yeah, I think we're gradually making steps in the right direction there as well. We had agreed with the FDA that we would prioritize service orders to make sure that the installed base is up and running properly. So the components that we have got when it comes to the ones where we've had quality and supply chain challenges, They've mostly gone to service and the installed base in the quarter. We have agreement now to start also delivering new pumps. So we'll be able to gradually work this out now during the fourth quarter, but it will take a quarter or two into next year as well before we have kind of a normalized situation. That's the current prediction, at least when it comes to the hardware side of cardiac assist.

Okay, perfect. The last question from my end. In ECMO, what has happened in terms of scrap rates and delivery capacity there? I'm still hearing anecdotally of still increasing shortages in the US even for the HLS and PLS. Is this what you're seeing as well?

It's improved for sure compared to earlier. We have less scrapping in this quarter than we've had before. We're also a little bit less constrained when it comes to the production capacity. But I think as we mentioned earlier during this year, we've had some hurdles when it comes to increasing capacity. production based on resolving the packaging challenge that we're working through right now but again not possible to quantify this but I think from the trend perspective it's slowly but surely heading in the right direction okay thank you thank you the next question comes from Matthias Vadsden from SEB please go ahead

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. First one on the quality issues within cardiac assist and cardiopulmonary. Just if you could share some few words of your, you know, proceeding according to plan or maybe slightly ahead of plan when it comes to seed corrections and new packaging solutions within ECMO. And then perhaps just a few words on the magnitude of costs connected to this you carry today. And yeah, sort of when we should expect this to fall off. That's the first one.

When it comes to the improvement initiatives ongoing, I'd say that it's been in line with or slightly above what we had planned for the quarter when it comes to cardiac assist. Like we mentioned, it's slightly higher deliveries of balloons. It's also good that we have agreement now that we can start shipping a little bit more hardware here gradually during the fourth quarter and onwards. So in line with or slightly more positive than we had expected a quarter ago. When it comes to Kodjo polymer we are also working intensively with the different packaging solutions. It's kind of digital, either they work or they don't. We're not at the point where we can say that we have an approved and working solution yet. I think again from an activity standpoint there's been a lot of work going into this. We feel comfortable that one of the alternatives that we are working with will function properly. I just can't give you any indication of timing today on this.

So no magnitude of the cost you carry connected to this sort of improvements?

It is significant. Lars mentioned some of the costs here when we talk about the 25 million related to challenges in cardiac assist and cardiopulmonary. This is 25 million which is mainly related to additional people and external resources that we need to work through the challenges. There's of course impact, cost impacts when it comes to productivity overall and so on, but these are the only costs that we quantify and communicate externally.

Perfect. Thank you. Next one. I mean, all this seems to be solely the inserted workflows and the legacy part of life science. This suggests the investment appetite for most of it seems to be overall okay at least compared to last year so you know any color on outlook for hospital CapEx or activity among customers going forward would be very helpful.

Yeah, I think you summarized it yourself to some extent. I think the momentum continues to be quite positive. If you look at the service of hospitals, it looks like from a CapEx perspective, it's also flat to slightly positive. It doesn't seem like anyone's planning for any significant reductions or anything like that. And when we talk about life science, you're absolutely right that the legacy business, so our washers, sterilizers, and sterilizers primarily are doing really well at the moment here. So the headwind in life science is more from smaller companies and from the bioprocessing segment. perfect and then the last one a quick one on price increases what you expect for the full year 2023 and if you can share any thoughts around what you plan for in the budget for 2024 that's the last one yeah i can i can share that we expect to land around three percent overall price increase for 2023 when it comes to 2024 i'll come back to that once we've closed out this year thank you very much Thank you.

The next question comes from Angchal Verma from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. This is Angchal Verma from JP Morgan. I had two questions, please. First one, given your year-to-date sales growth is 5%, why would you not narrow the full year guidance to the top end of the range? Because if we just do the calculation 2%, the bottom end of the range, would actually imply a contraction in Q4. How likely is that? And then question two would just be, given that you have some preliminary insight into the rest of the year, what are you seeing in terms of order development across the businesses, especially within life sciences? Do you expect the orders to remain flat or slightly improve? Any more color on the order dynamics for the rest of the year would be helpful.

Yeah, thanks. I'm not sure I can provide a lot more color on this. Mathematically, you pointed it out yourself when it comes to sales, given the growth we've had in the first three quarters. That implies a more flattish fourth quarter. We decided not to attach any probability to one part or the other of the range of the span here. So we remain with the 2-5% guidance for the full year. There are still a lot of moving parts as you've seen both in our two sub-areas in acute care therapists and also in life science while surgical workflows is certainly much more predictable I'd say both towards the end of this year and into next year. order development on life science we don't guide forward on order order intake but i think the overall dynamics are that the larger pharma companies seem to be investing quite well the us market we feel pretty good about as well we've had some some pretty good progress when it comes to emea as well and in in asia and particularly in china it is more challenging overall for life science and particularly related to bioprocessing. So that's the color I can give on the order perspective.

That's helpful. Thank you.

Thank you.

Please state your name and company. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking the question. My name's Aisha North, dialing in for Rob Davies from Morgan Stanley. My first question was a follow-up on China, where you mentioned before the kind of magnitude of the weakness. From a product perspective, could you give some color as to whether the weakness was more on equipment orders or also on consumable sales, and whether there was a slowdown in elective procedures that could have driven that weakness? And then a follow up on that would be the broader topic around the buy local initiatives that you talked about. That sounds more like a longer term headwind for you. Is that changing how you're thinking about your manufacturing exposure for that business in China? Just some thoughts that would be helpful. The second question was a follow up on the prior question around 2024. Given that your nine month order trend this year is slightly negative following a year in 2022 where orders were also negative, And it sounds like you expect some of the pullback in cardiac assist to recover. So I guess the question is, what gives you the confidence in coming in the range of the 4% to 6% organic growth for 2024?

When it comes to China, if I start with the bi-local bit, we do see this gradually being more rolled out and reinforced. For us, it mainly has an impact on surgical workflows, even if there may be some impact going forward on other categories as well, but the main headwind is on surgical workflows. We've been aware of this and it's something we've expected for quite a while, so we have adapted our strategy as well to this. We have a manufacturing presence in China since about 20 years now. So we're gradually moving from the products that make sense there and make them in China for the Chinese market to mitigate this. So that's really the main approach that we were using to mitigate the impact. When it comes to China overall, we talk about life science. It is a rather widespread weakness, I think, when it comes to investments, but it's particularly noticeable when it comes to bioprocessing. So I can't break it down any further than that for you. And as you pointed out, when it comes to the order of development, the last quarter and also end of last year, I think we will need to see a momentum change to be more comfortable with the 46% growth for next year. And that's also why we refrain from giving any further guidance right now. We need to work through the challenges in cardiac assist and cardiopulmonary. We need to see the destocking of DPT beta bags kind of bottom out and start moving in the right direction as well. And we need to see investments start to pick up also in bioprocessing broadly and China specifically. When it comes to your question on procedure volumes, I don't have any particular data on that that I can share on this call.

That's great. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Christopher Liljeberg from Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Thank you. It's Christopher from Carnegie. Three questions for me. First, coming back to the full-year sales guidance, and if I heard you correctly, you alluded to a little bit of flattish development in Q4. And if that is the case, I'm wondering... what's behind the weakening trend versus what you have seen with almost 5% growth in the first nine of the months. That's my first question. Then maybe if you could explain about this positive trend shift we have seen for life science orders. You talked about the legacy business, but I think that has also seen some weakness earlier in the year, if I remember correctly. So it seems something positive is happening here maybe. You could comment on that. and finally on the surgical workflow margin that continues to be weak despite good volume development so i wonder really what what you could do to improve margins there and the possibility to do any more significant price increases to compensate for uh for um for inflation thank you

Yeah, all right, thanks. When it comes to the guidance bit, you've seen the order intake yourself. The evolution, I think, at some point, this does impact sales as well. So we're just being mindful of not being too optimistic towards the end of the year here. We think there are still quite a lot of moving parts, and we do need to see the order pattern change a bit, like I mentioned in the answer to the previous question here. So there's nothing else, no other color I can give in that. When it comes to the life science trend shift, it's very much related to sterilizing type of products. It's mostly in Western Europe and the US that we see this, whether it's really a trend shift or not, maybe a little bit too early to say, but the momentum has at least been positive lately. When it comes to surgical workflows margin, there we need to work now to reinstall the operational leverage that we had created going into and also out of the pandemic, actually. If you look at the inflationary pressure that we've had now, first on materials, on logistics, and now more when it comes to salary inflation. We have both direct salary inflation impacting us, but there's also an indirect component in this, in the components and parts that we buy from suppliers. So this is the main reason. So we basically need to rework some of the initiatives that we've had ongoing when it comes to our supply chain. And this is factory productivity related. It is purchasing related. It is related to logistics and warehousing. It's related to our quality value engineering initiatives that we've had successfully implemented for a number of years. So it's a bit of a restart and re-ignition of these types of initiatives that will gradually, I think, restore the operational leverage that we've had in surgical workflows. There is also, I think, a mix shift ongoing as well, and this will be reinforced also by the acquisition of Healthmark. So these are the main kind of believers for margin improvement in surgical workflows.

I think we can also mention there in the pricing that you asked for, Kristoffer, on the SW part. We have seen a gradual improvement when it comes to price during the quarter series. That positive trend has also continued here in Q3.

How do you see the possibility to get back to double-digit margins in that business next year before I guess, the positive effect from the acquisition.

I think we are on that trend, and there is no magic to this. It's a lot of hard work, and I think what Mattias mentioned there, these kind of activities when addressing the cost base as such, that takes a bit of time to work through to get the full impact of those activities. So it's a gradual focus on that. Okay.

Yeah, I think when it comes to, yeah, thank you. All right.

Thanks.

The next question comes from Ricard Anderkrans from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

All right, good morning and thank you for taking my question. So you highlighted sequential improvement in margins here in Q3. Should we expect that trend to continue into Q4 or can you help us figure out how we should think about this sort of margin evolution into next quarter?

Yeah, we don't guide forward on margins, and you're probably aware there are quite a few moving parts here, so we're highly dependent on the continued deliveries of consumables for cardiac assist. Life science, as you know as well, is also very sensitive to mix, so depending on the bottoming out of the destocking of the beta bags is also an important factor when it comes to margin. General leverage as well. Price interaction is one of the things that I think we have better visibility on. So the 3% that I mentioned before is something that we kind of factored into to our plans here. But having said all that, we don't give a specific guidance when it comes to margins.

All right, fair enough. I was just thinking also on the acute care therapies. You called out that the order bookings for the business area was just about 10% higher than last year in the quarter. Should we interpret this that there's still some sort of backorder and delivery on the balloons or is it the balloon pumps? Or can you add any more commentary around that sort of call out in the report?

The backlog is made up of both hardware and consumables in both cardiac assist and cardiopulmonary.

A final question if I could. There's been some discussions in the market around an FDA warning letter and some quality issues regarding the Impella pump. Do you internally think that this is A tailwind potential, if so, what type of magnitude? It would be interesting if you could comment on that development and what you're thinking regarding it.

Yeah, I prefer not to comment on the impact of competitors' quality issues here, so I refrain from making any statements here.

Fair enough. Thank you for taking my question.

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star 5 on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

great thank you it's good that we were able to exhaust all the questions in the call so thanks everyone for taking the time to be with us this morning and look forward to now the last quarter of 2024. thank you very much