Getinge AB (publ)

Welcome to the Jettinga Q4 Report 2025 presentation. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO Matthias Peerjus and CFO Agneta Palmer. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much and welcome everyone to today's earnings call here with me I have our CFO Agnetha Palmin. We will start the conference today with our performance in the fourth quarter and then reflect a bit on the full year and our expectations for 2026 and onwards before ending with a Q&A. So we can move directly to page number two please. So let's first look at the development of our longer term strategic KPIs. You can see that we continue to clearly track in line with our plans to increase the share of sales from recurring revenue, accelerating the share of sales from high margin products like our Paragonics offering, our ECLS portfolio, the consumables with infection controls, and also beta bags inside our sterile transfer segment in life science. This is all supported by solid and effective quality processes as well, which is extremely important in our industry, obviously. So sales from recurring revenue now makes up about two thirds and high margin products a little bit more total revenue. When it comes to quality, the number of field actions in relation to sales has decreased significantly. And we see this positive trend also sequentially continue in the fourth quarter. These improvements should, of course, be achieved through responsible leverage and an attractive long-term return on invested capital. We can move to page number three, please. So if we then zoom in on the fourth quarter of last year and some of the key takeaways from the quarter, we managed to beat last year's record quarter and grow top line organically, which I think is really good. Net sales grew by 1.2% organically with positive development in most BAs and regions, and our order intake increased 2.3% organically. We then look at adjusted gross and EBITDA margins. They were down in the quarter mainly due to the strong headwind from currency and tariffs. And adjusting for the over 1 billion second currency and tariff headwind in 2025, the EBITDA margin for the full year was considerably higher than 2024, signaling that the underlying performance of the business is strong and developing according to plan. We have solid cash flow and we remain in a very strong financial position with our financial leverage well below 2.5 times EBITDA. And the Board of Directors has proposed a dividend of 4.75 SEK per share. We can then move to page number four, please. So we then look at some of the key activities and events in the quarter and start with what we offer our customers. It's usually our strongest quarter and last year's significant amount of shipments that went out in the last week of the quarter, last week of the year. So really good collaboration with our customers overall. And this is the reason we managed to reach record high organic sales in the quarter as well. I'm also very happy to see that our intense product development efforts have resulted in several important product launches during the quarter. In life science, we have announced the integration of Siemens Open and Flexible User Interface in the new generation of washer sizes, and this will support streamlined operations, efficient data management, and secure data integrity for our customers. And also in surgical workflows, we launched the utility-efficient Aquadis 44 washer-disinfector, which helps hospitals reduce costs and meet their environmental targets. And within surgical workflows, we also launched Automatic, which is a new family of next-generation automated solutions. which combines smart robotics, intelligent conveyor systems and advanced software to achieve both safer, more consistent and less labor-intensive sterile processing. If we then look at the sustainability and quality aspect of this, we continue to make good regulatory progress in the quarter. In our implants business, we received pre-market approval for the high cost covered stent in large diameter for two new lengths. So this will help us become more competitive in the US market. Our PLS set, which is used in extracorporeal circulation for cardiac and pulmonary support, received CEA certificate under the EU MDR. And also happy to see that PICO, our minimally invasive hemodynamic monitoring system, is now included in the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine's guideline on circulatory shock. I also want to highlight again that our quality KPIs such as audit findings per audit for quality systems and also field actions in relation to sales continue to trend positively. So those are the main activities and events for the fourth quarter and we can then move to page number five. So looking at then our top-line performance, we can see that we had solid progress in acute care therapies and in surgical workflows. Order intake grew 2.3% organically, and in acute care therapies, this increase was mainly attributable to good performance in ECLS consumables, in transplant care, and we also saw growth in endoscopic vessel harvesting and in intradict balloon pumps. Life science organic order intake declined in the quarter due to softer development in WIS, which is our washer, isolator, and sterilizer business, and also within bioprocessing. The organic order intake for surgical workflows grew strongly in the quarter, mainly on the back of strong development in infection control consumables and also operating room equipment, generally within surgical workplaces. From a sales perspective, we had a 1.2% organic increase in sales, and we had both acute care therapies and also surgical workflows showing low single-digit growth in organic sales. Acute care therapies, the growth came mostly from good performance when it comes to ventilators globally. We saw transplant care with good momentum and also ECRS therapy. In surgical workflows, organic net sales increased primarily thanks to growth in operating tables and in infection-controlled consumables. And when we look at life science, we had an organic net sale decrease, mainly due to lower sales in bioprocessing and in the WIS business that I mentioned that was on order intake. Growth in sterile transfer, which is our most important subcategory in life science, continued strong. We can then move over to page number six, and I'll hand over to you, Agnetha.

Thank you, Mattias. It's positive to see that our activities come through a strong underlying performance. Despite very negative impact from tariffs and ethics in the quarter, we managed comparatively well with decent margins. On adjusted gross profit for the group, adjusted gross profit amounted to 5,037,000,000 SEK in the quarter, primarily on the back of currency and tariffs. Adjusted gross margin was down by 1.1 percentage point in total, in spite of healthy contribution from price and mix. On adjusted EBITDA, adjusted gross profits effect on the EBITDA margin was minus 0.5 percentage points due to what I just mentioned. Adjusted for currency, OPEX had a slight impact on the margin in the quarter. FX impacted severely by minus 1.2 percentage points in the quarter. And all in all, this resulted in an adjusted EBITDA of 1,809,000,000 SEK and a margin of 17.8%. Let's move to page 7, please. We remain in a solid financial position. Free cash flow amounted to 1.2 billion SEK in the quarter. Compared with last year, free cash flow was impacted by changes in working capital. At the end of Q4, net debt was 9.8 billion SEK. If we adjust for pension liabilities, we are at 7.5 billion SEK. This brings us to a leverage of 1.5 times adjusted EBITDA, which is well below the 2.5 times which we have set as an internal threshold. If we adjust for pension liabilities, leverage is at 1.1 times adjusted EBITDA. Cash amounted to approximately 3.4 billion by the end of the quarter. So all in all, we can conclude that the financial position continues to be strong. Let's move to page eight, please. And back to you, Mattias.

All right, thank you, Agneta. Before looking at the full year and ahead, I'd just like to take the opportunity to quickly shift from financial KPIs to some other impactful figures. So at Geringe, my colleagues and I have a lot to be proud of, I think. If you look at our products and services in the hands of clinicians and pharmaceutical staff, they really make a true life-saving impact globally every minute. So this slide just lists a few figures describing some of that impact. And it really explains some of the reasons for the strong customer loyalty that we see year in and year out. So for example, if you look at our operating table business, every fourth operating table globally is from Göttingen. These are used in more than 20 million major surgeries annually. If you look at our new washer in Life Science, it uses 32% less water, 25% less energy, so reducing cost and the climate footprint for our customers. And furthermore, if you look at our unique NAVA ventilation technology, this can cut hospital stays of roughly one third for adult ICU patients. So this is a significant win-win both for patients, for their health and for hospital finances. With that, we can move to page number nine, please. we take a step back and look at 2025 overall it was certainly an interesting year in many many aspects here if i sum up the year it would be in four main themes so first we have the geopolitical friction such as tariffs and the strong currency headwind that we have seen throughout the year so this has been a wet blanket not only for getting it but for most companies globally And this is something we expect to continue also to have to deal with in 2026. Secondly, more specific to getting it, we've seen really good progress in our important quality remediation work. And thirdly, I'm happy to note that our organic innovation focus has resulted in several product launches throughout the year, which really help us further strengthen our competitive positions and the support from our customers. All in all, we continue to show strong underlying performance thanks to our industry-leading products and our team's enduring efforts to, together with our customers, navigate the ongoing political turmoil. We can then move over to page number 10, please. I just wanted to take a moment to zoom in on the headwind from tariffs and FX as well, since this was a significant drag on adjusted EBITDA in Q4, and it was almost 500 million SEC. And also, of course, a drag on full year adjusted EBITDA by over 1 billion SEC. So tariffs made up almost 150 million SEC in the quarter and about 370 million SEC for the full year, which for last year was Q2 to Q4. If we exclude the impact of tariffs and currency, our adjusted EBITDA margin in Q4 would have been 20.3% and 16% for the full year. So this is right at the beginning of our longer-term guidance span of 16% to 19% set for the end of 2028. So this really shows that the underlying improvement work really having good momentum here. And that's something we look forward to continue working with and implementing in the coming years. We can then move over to page 11. Thank you. So just a few comments on the regulatory uplift plan as well with some of the major milestones coming up here in the year. So at the end of 2024, if we take a step back, we reached the important milestone of clearing the quality record backlog. During 2025, several other regulatory milestones have been reached. I mentioned some examples from Q4 at the beginning of this presentation. We've also made progress in the important regulatory product updates of our market-leading devices, CardioSave, which is our endotic balloon pump in cardiac assist, and CardioHelp, the hardware for ECMO therapy within our cardio business segment. When it comes to CardioSave, in CE markets, the CE approval is reinstated with conditions since last fall. We'd hoped to initiate sales by the end of last year, but due to some delay in shipment of critical components, we've pushed starter deliveries now to the second quarter of 2026. In the US, we're currently only selling replacement pumps to existing customers, and due to the delay with critical components that I just mentioned, we've also pushed the 510 submission to Q2 2026. We had strong order growth for pumps in the quarter, which confirms the leading position in this segment and the trust that our customers have in us. And this is why the submission and the start of deliveries is really a key priority for us. We then move to CardioHelp. There are no sales restrictions in CE markets for the existing CardioHelp. We and our customers are very excited about the next generation device here, the CardioHelp 2. For this one, we sent in the submission for CE mark approval in Q4 of 2025, so last year, and we expect to be able to initiate the first shipments in Europe during the beginning of this year. In the U.S., we're only selling to existing customers or customers confirming that they don't have any other viable alternative. The work with the 510 submission for the complete Cardio Health 2 system is going according to plan and is set for the second half of this year. We can then move to page number 12, please. At the capital markets update in May 2024, we guided for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 16% to 19% by the end of 2028. And I think we're on a steady path of reaching that, and that's despite the very different normal world that we have today compared to 18 months ago. The main drivers which will enable this is related to growth, it's related to product mix, and it's related to productivity. So if we look at the growth angle of this to begin with, so from the perspective of regulatory approvals and key strategic product launches, I've mentioned some of them here. The example is the next generation ECMO therapy with CardioHelp2, having no sales restriction for CardioSafe in intraday balloon pumps and also low temp sterilization is something that will materialize during this guidance period. We also expect to get our share of the announced US pharma investments and a recovery in bioprocessing. And we will, of course, continue our diligent and successful work with realizing price increases every year. mixed perspective it is our strategic intent to steer our business towards a continued rotation to high margin products and consumables and if possible we prefer to have products that are made up of a of a competent hardware and with capital captive consumables attached to this our strong r d and innovation pipeline is set to contribute to this development And then from a productivity perspective, we've already done a lot in several parts of the business with remaining opportunities in other parts of the company. The heightened extraordinary quality costs connected to the product uplift of CardioSave and CardioHelp is expected to go down from the second half of 2026 and then be significantly lower in 2027 and 2028. So this will also support the margin expansion. furthermore we will continue with our production excellence efforts helping us to further optimize our supply chain and remain with a tight cost control across the company so all in all this supports our assessment that our target for 2028 is well within reach we can then move over to page 13 please So what does this mean for 2026 then? And here we see primarily three themes. First, unfortunately, we expect the geopolitical friction and the FX headwind to continue in 2026. And so, of course, with our mitigating efforts. Secondly, a key this year would be to hit the critical quality remediation milestones to enable the product launches that we have in the pipe as soon as possible. And thirdly, we do expect the solid underlying performance to continue and we have good momentum across large parts of our business when it comes to this. So in many aspects, a year quite similar to 2025 and setting us up for an acceleration in 2027 and 2028. Can I move to page 14? This takes us to our financial outlook for 2026. As we all know, there are some geopolitical uncertainties that we will need to navigate in the coming years. But based on the underlying demand that we see, our expectation is for an organic net sales growth to be in the range of 3% to 5%, adjusted for the phase out of our certificate profusion product category. Silicon Perfusion is expected to have a net sales in 2026 declining from about 250 million SEC to 50 million SEC. We can move then to page 16, please. So summarizing the quarter, we had organic growth in top line resulting in record high sales for the quarter. Tariffs and FX continue to be a significant headwind, but we still managed to have margins in line with the 2024 level, really confirming that the underlying performance is developing according to our plans. Our financial position remains solid. We had a good end from a cash flow perspective to 2025. For 2026, we guide for organic net sales growth of 3% to 5%, adjusted for the phase out of surgical profusion. And our priorities remain the same for 2026. So key here is addressing the remaining challenges that we have in our acute care therapist business area. We continue to focus on sustainable productivity improvements and cost consciousness when navigating the geopolitical uncertainty and addressing the impact from tariffs. And key focus, of course, as always, is to continue creating added value for our customers and really help them serve patients better. With that said, I open up for questions.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. To enter the queue, if you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Oliver Reinberg from Kepler Shoebrew. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much for taking my questions. I'll probably take them one by one. Matthias, can you just say a word on 2026? I mean, you alluded to the fact that there's obviously still the kind of headwinds from currencies and I guess also tariffs, maybe a certain analyzation effect. Can you just help us to get a kind of feeling for the magnitude of these headwinds? And I think the street is currently expecting 60 base points of margin expansion. Is that something you feel comfortable with? Would be the first question, please.

As usual, we never comment on expectations from the capital market, but from the tariff situation, assuming that they remain the way they are now, I think the maths that we have from 2025 will apply in 2026, so we will have a slightly higher level of tariffs, up to a couple of hundred million. So that's something we will need to mitigate. So we are fingers crossed for some tariff stability, at least. The best thing will be if they went away, but we expect to have to live with these tariffs now through 2026. So they will continue to be a problem. around half a billion headwind at least. On the currency side, we do expect the dollar to continue to depreciate, but I'm really in no position to make any estimates forward-looking on this. So that's an additional headwind that we will need to find ways of mitigating.

Okay, but would it be fair that you still feel that you can mitigate both, that there will be a net margin expansion at the end? Yes, that's our ambition. Okay, perfect. Thank you. And then just secondly, on this kind of midterm guidance, which you also already reiterated in the last call, I mean, can you just give any kind of flavor as the upper end as likely as the lower end so the full range of the whole guidance still applies?

I'm not really in a position to dissect the guidance span now and narrow it down, but I think it's really encouraging to see that without the negative effect from the geopolitical consequences of tariffs and headwinds, we would already be within our guidance range. So the momentum underlying in our business is good. We do feel okay about investment climates among our customers as well. I think treatment needs will continue to grow slowly. but support our business growth. And like I mentioned in the presentation phase here, our productivity measures across the business is also really showing good momentum. So overall, we feel good about the traction towards the higher end of the margin span, but I'm not prepared to make any more detailed analysis or break this down with the probabilities right now.

Okay, fair enough. And the last question, just because we're full here, it's always probably a kind of good opportunity to discuss capital allocation. I mean, you brought the leverage down quite significantly. Can you just talk about priorities? I mean, in the past, you were more leaning towards M&A. Can you just provide some kind of color how open you would be to any kind of share buybacks at this kind of point? And I think there was some time ago always this kind of discussion to what extent life science is a kind of long-term fit, given that the industry is going to normalize. I mean, do you feel that there's a lot of people knocking at your door for any kind of potential offer, any kind of flavor here would be great. Thank you.

Yeah, I think we definitely have continued inbound interest regarding the life science business, but it's not something that we have on the divest list here. We feel like good owners. We like the exposure to this end market and we continue to invest in this part of the business as well. When it comes to capital allocation in general, M&A remains one area, but we have a share buybacks as well. It's a discussion that is continually going on in the board. Given the uncertainty that still remains, I think we've seen some examples of this already in this year with tariffs coming in or threat of tariffs coming in and then being withdrawn. Until this settles, I think it's good to be a little bit prudent with how we allocate.

Thanks so much, Mattias. Thank you.

The next question comes from Mattias Vadsten from SEB. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for the questions. I have three. I'll take them one by one as well. First one, if you could talk a bit about sort of phasing through the year. For example, assuming perhaps Q1 is one of your transfer comps during 2026 from the perspective of a couple of things. And also quality cost, it sounds like they should come down foremost towards the second half. So maybe if you could give your view there, that's the first one.

Yeah. No, we're not prepared to make any kind of quarterly guidance here, but the dynamics you describe, we agree with. I think it's the maybe best way of putting this, but we've guided for three to 5% growth in 2026. Our ambition is to continue to expand the margin as well, but I can't really break this down by quarter.

Okay, then it appears ventilators, has been very strong, of course, and strength continued also into Q4, perhaps driven more by outside US markets. But could you give us your overall sort of thinking for the business in 2026, perhaps, you know, without going into too much of a detail, but more how you think about it going forward? Are comps sort of tougher, or is the momentum strong enough to make it continue to grow strongly also in 2026?

Yeah, I think I'll describe it the way we've done it during 2025. We've had over a year of good momentum now in this business. I think definitely compared to our market share pre this shift, we've been net beneficiary when it comes to market share grabs. So very thankful for the support from our customers and the great work by our teams to make this happen. I think that there is a mix of replacement cycle, a normal replacement cycle going on in this business, and there is the continued withdrawal of some of the remaining incumbents in this business as well. But needless to say, the tailwind will be much, much milder than it was during the end of 2024 and the whole of 2025.

Okay, thank you. And then... On the situation on the supply side in IABP, what is your sort of level of confidence to have that sorted in Q2? And also, is it fair to say that sort of cardio save in the US would be sold without restrictions towards the end of 2026? Or how do you view that?

I don't think we will be able to sell without restrictions towards the end of 2026. This is now first about submitting the updated 510K that we've said now is in the second quarter. It still hinges on making sure that we have the critical components fully available, that we can do the validation and testing needed and prepare for this. So there's still some uncertainty related to this, but we feel obviously more confident about Q2, otherwise we would have said something different. So some remaining work, but also steady progress towards this.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

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

Yeah, hi, good morning. Also take my questions one by one. First, are you able to comment on paragonic sales level here for 2025? Maybe how much it's growing right now and margins?

I don't think we will disclose the exact growth figures of Paragonics, but we are very happy about this development. And as is visible in our report, we will end up with a bit of a higher earn out also based on this. And margin wise, it is also developing according to our expectations or a bit better.

But would you say it's still dilutive on margin?

It's slightly diluted on margins overall, on the EBITDA margin.

Okay. For the group or for ACT?

For the group.

Okay.

And consequences of ACT.

Yes. Okay. Then my second question, Mattias asked before about phasing effects. Just wondering about Q1 and the flu season. I think that was quite a good benefit for you last year. It seems the number of cases is dropping quite fast in the U.S. Could you maybe give a little bit of flavor how much a good or a strong or weak flu season impacting sales in a given quarter?

No, the short answer is no. This is difficult to break down. There's been a couple of years after the pandemic where we had no flu season effect, and now we saw last year that there was some. This year, look at 2025-26, hospitalizations increased a little bit earlier than they did before, so there was maybe a bit more of a December effect, but it's impossible for us to speculate about the impact of this in Q1, unfortunately.

Okay, and finally, when it comes to the quality cost, is it possible to say approximately how much lower they were in 2025 versus 2024, or if they were still at this 800 plus level?

I think we will stick with the information that we have provided before. We had sort of a peak level that is, we are remaining on high levels and it will slightly then come down, but we will not give any exact amount.

But you can confirm it was less than 800 million in 2025?

Yes, that we can confirm.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Ludwig Germunder from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Ludwig Germunder from Handelsbanken. Thank you for taking my questions. I would like to start with touching upon ventilators again, like we've been talking about a bit before already. Would you be willing to give some flavor around the ventilator sales? We knew that comms were tough going into this quarter, and yet the sales come out strong now. What does the strong mean? What are the main drivers? And how should we think about this going into Q1, where dynamics are very similar?

I think the the strength comes on the back of some continued competitive conversion possibly some of the normal replacement cycle kicking in and also some some flu effect possibly but we we can't break this down even if we wanted to unfortunately but did it surprise you or was this in line with what you saw coming I wouldn't say surprise, mild surprise, maybe it was mild positive compared to expectations.

Okay, thank you. And then a quick one on Paragonics as well. It seems like it's doing well there, another quarter of a strong word. What are the main drivers you're seeing in Paragonics and what are you expecting for 2026?

But the drivers have not changed. I mean, there is this conversion from ice is still one of the ongoing things. And then, of course, we've had a good launch of the kidney vault during 2025 as well. So I'd say these are the main contributors.

Okay, and then just a final one on the outlook, given the updated definition. If my math are correct, you're adjusting for an estimated headwind of around 57 basis points. How should we think about this in relation to the other? Has anything changed given the, let's say, the estimated rest of the business, or is this the same as before?

The same as before, we have not guided before on 2026. Would you care to elaborate the question?

Yeah, sorry. I'm thinking the development example, when you guided for 3-5% in 2025, you did that on the base of something. Do you see the same market development excluding the surgical diffusion.

There are a number of dynamics in the market development, of course. If we look at our market presence, it is the same trajectory as in 2025 and strong in our key positions. Then we have different dynamics such, for example, as the one described by Mattias when it comes to ventilators and the conversion effect that is is a tough comparison now moving into 2026.

Okay, thank you.

The next question comes from Philip Omnu from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my question. Firstly, on section 232, I would love to get your thoughts on that probe and the implications of that, and what have you anticipated in terms of its outcome for 2026?

Yes, I have hopes, but I will not speculate in the outcome. What we can say about Section 232 is that we have submitted our opinion along with our industry colleagues, and we are expecting clarity on this in Q1, which is what has been said before. So let's hope for some clarity. And as Mattias mentioned before, the very least stability on tariffs. That's all we can say on this one.

Okay, perfect. And then maybe can you remind us of your tariff mitigation actions that you're playing through and what sort of impact you expect they can have in 2026?

We can just reiterate what we have mentioned before. We always work very actively with pricing, but we intensify these efforts to mitigate for tariffs. We also intensify our productivity agenda that is That has been very strong also before, but we have accelerated some areas of that to compensate for the increased cost for tariffs. And then the third bucket is that we review our structure in terms of our business partners, so to speak, with suppliers, et cetera, and in some cases also our own footprint.

Right, okay. And then just the last one for me, please. I'm not sure if someone's really asked this because my line cut out, but we saw the profit warning from Teleflex a few weeks ago, and they were talking about weakness in demand for intra-aortic balloon pumps and catheters in the US and Asia. So just wondering if you had any thoughts on that, and if you were seeing anything in your existing customers, or does it change anything with banning for CardioSafe?

Yeah, I think we've seen that as well. We can only comment on our reality. And I think our view is a bit muddled by the fact that we have supply restrictions here. But the order intake and the optimism from our customers in terms of getting shipments of balloon pumps started in Q2 now is positive, I'd say. So we have a somewhat positive picture of the demand situation and the desire from our customers to have access to this therapy.

Thank you, guys. Thank you.

The next question comes from Sten Gustafsson from ABG Sundahl Collier. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I have a question regarding the margin outlook for the year. You expect to compensate the tariffs and FX and expand margins. I think I understood you correctly. It would be good to hear what assumptions you made on tariffs and also on what type of FX headwinds you expect on EBIT for the year. Have you, on the tariff side, have you assumed the tariffs to remain unchanged or coming back to the section 232, which I think at least partly assumes higher tariffs. So if you could provide some clarity on what you have included in your sort of internal thinking for the year, that would be helpful.

Yeah, when it comes to the tariffs, we have assumed the same level as we ended in 2025. We have made no predictions on the outcome of any 232 investigation here. So it's the same tariffs that we left 2025 with that we have assumed for this year.

Thank you. And in terms of FX headwinds, I think it was 1.2 percentage points in Q4 on EBIT.

Again, we don't speculate in the FX development, and we will not give any specific guidance on this. But overall, as you know, a weakening dollar is negative for us, and we will do everything that we can to mitigate and compensate for that in the case that that continues, which has been the trend in the start of this year.

Okay. But you're not... Do you think it will be higher than 1.2 for 26 or is that sort of the proxy or what you have assumed the impact will continue to be during the year?

Again, we will not speculate on the development of the US dollar. So we work with a number of scenarios and mitigation activities and we adjust accordingly.

Sure. And finally, on price, You were successful last year raising prices. I think you talked about previously two to three percentage points. Do you think you can do the same thing this year, raise prices by two to three percent?

The ambition is closer to two than three, I'd say. It's realistic. But the price work continues actively as it has done since 2018 for us. So we will continue this work. And I think you already know the dynamics with long contracts in our industry and so on, and their limited ability to manoeuvre in the beginning of this phase. But hopefully there'll be some opportunities there. ambition is still to continue to improve prices in 2026. Perfect.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Eric Castle from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Hello. Morning, everyone. First, I want to sort of touch upon the guidance as well. I mean, as you alluded to, Mattias, excluding headwinds from FX and tariffs, you've sort of already reached the low end of the targets you set. Would you say that you've sort of managed to achieve all the improvements you set out to do earlier than planned, sort of meaning that there's not much left to do? Or would you rather say that you sort of underestimated the level of margin improvement you could achieve over time?

Yeah, we have definitely not run out of improvement initiatives. There's plenty to do still. I don't want that to imply that we had underestimated the potential either. We know that there is a lot of potential in the business and we've made some good progress now, as you've seen in 2025, but there's a lot still to do with it.

Okay, I guess that sounds good that you're not done. Then I sort of want to ask what's happening with the perfusion business in terms of drag on margins. I mean, do you sort of keep the organization there to support customers in 26 and sort of see it become loss making or have you already moved a lot of the people over to ECMO so that there's not much of an effect for ACT as a whole?

We do expect a slight marginal improvement effect coming from the gradual exit of surgical perfusion in 2026.

We have moved out people already from this business, both to focus on the ECMO business, but also there is a reduction of people related to this that we implemented in 2025.

Okay, great. And then lastly on ECMO, it seems to be doing pretty well. How much would you attribute that to just the underlying market doing well, perhaps the effect of influenza season coming early? Or is there some sort of aspect of you maybe getting back to market share that is driving the maybe above market growth?

It's not possible for us to dissect this. It's very difficult to monitor competitor performance in detail, I think. So we've definitely benefited from good overall market momentum, a little bit of a flu effect in there as well. I think it kind of confirms our competitive and that they do really life-saving work every day. That's something that's appreciated by the clinicians who are our customers. This is the main reason why we continue to see growth, but what the market growth was exactly in Q4 is not possible to say right now.

Okay, thank you. Just lastly, do you have any comments or thoughts on the long-term prospects of ECMO now? I recall you saying that there's still a risk that you're going to lose out on customers from them switching. Have you seen any more evidence of that to sort of provide support that you're really going to lose market share going forward or maintain or even improve? Do you have a different view now?

No, I think nothing has changed in our view. I think we believe still in a longer term market growth of mid to high single digit for this segment. And looking at the competitive dynamics right now, it doesn't appear that we are losing anything to competitors. So we remain strong with our customers in this segment. All the work now that goes into both launching CardioHelp2 in CE markets and also getting the 510k submission into the US is really key milestones now to continue to grow this business.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Philip Wetterquist from SB1 Markets. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I just have one question on life science and then follow up. Would you say that the weak quarter in life science is an effect of like a big farmer production ramp up last year ahead of tariffs leading to some cooler demand this year? Or is it just the lumpiness of the business?

I think it is partly natural lumpiness of the business, but we have seen also throughout 2025 that there's been a lot of delayed decision making when it comes to projects. So a lot of companies now have announced expansion plans, but they've not yet. really started to implement products so we can see that we have a similar win ratio like we've had before but there's been lesser fewer big opportunities in 2025 due to customer hesitation on the back of geopolitical uncertainty all right and then

Do you have, like, any idea how much the government shutdown affected life science in the quarter as no NIH funding was paid out during the period? No, we cannot quantify that, unfortunately. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

The next question comes from Delphine Laloute from Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Yes, hello, hi, good morning. I go again one by one. Just a clarification on the Paragonics and just willing to know how big Paragonics is now into the ACT business, how much does that represent? I know you don't want to disclose that, but probably you can give us a sort of a sense and a range of how big it is. Second question to deal with Paragonics because I didn't catch, you mentioned it was not dilutive at the group level and so if I'm hearing well and just I need a confirmation and so my question here would be what is missing or when can you achieve a sort of the ACT margin for that specific range of product and then I will continue.

I think from a volume perspective, we don't hand out details for sub-segments, but it's well over $100 million now, the paragonics business for us. And what Agneta said earlier is that it's slightly diluted to group margins and consequently also diluted to ACT margins. We don't guide for when it's going to be accretive to margins, and this is more about how we pace the expansion of the business. So we're happy with the performance right now, both from a growth perspective, and we can see that there is operating leverage in the business, but we're also continuing to invest quite a lot, both in the U.S., in the whole U.S. expansion, and in the future R&D pipeline.

All right. Okay. Thank you very much. Moving on probably to what's going on in China and any feedback you may give us regarding the grounds that you have in China on the hospital activity, on the evolution of the commercial interaction over the course of 25. Have you anything specific to tell us about that?

I think it's a year of more of the same. I think the hurdles continue to be the same ones that we've battled for a number of years now. We have some really strong positions in China and I think one of the bright we actually did grow in China was in 2025. That's not something we take for granted in our industry anymore. So that's really positive and confirms the strong positions that we have going forward. I think, again, I think the geopolitical friction and impact here will continue to be somewhat of a hurdle. And of course, there are barriers when it comes to having local presence and and so on and there's also of course an evolving competitive landscape in in china so what basically we stand by the comments that we've made before that we have a long-term positive view on on china but it's so it has changed quite a lot from five years ago when we had the goods the double-digit growth in that market

Okay, moving on to the life science. Obviously we hear from the competition and from on the biomanufacturing side speaking about that. Back to a very nice normalization and back to I think a digital double digit growth. So I was wondering on your side if you are feeling about any traction from the clients If you confirm, because you're probably a bit more late stage, that the normalization has happened and that you're hearing probably more positive coming out from the US versus Europe or any commands here either on a product or on a region would be interesting.

Bioprocessing, as we have highlighted, was a weak spot for us in Q4. It has been a weak spot throughout 2025. And we have, relative to many of our peers in the market, a higher exposure to China, which has been a more difficult market, both from an investment and competitive standpoint. But we do see on a broader basis, the comeback in other markets than China, like the US, for example. So I think that market dynamic we do see as well, but we have a slightly different exposure than many of our peers.

Yeah, OK. And just probably to be back into the tariff and into the mitigation measure that you are currently implementing, can we get your first feedback, client's reaction about the price increase and can you probably more specified over the course of the 26, how you are going to mitigate exactly the tariff and what would be the ideal target by the end of the year for 26 when it comes to the mitigation of the tariff. Would that be 50%, 70% and then thinking about 27 and 28?

I think we've continued to work actively with pricing since 2018 when we were able to reverse a downward trend to price improvement. And we've been able to do that ever since. So it's really not something new for us. So there's no new we can't talk about new customer reactions to this customers understand our perspective when it comes to the impact of tariffs but they also have of course a daily reality with their challenges so it's a dialogue with the customer by customers and very different reactions and understanding of this but we feel that we can continue to work with pricing the way that we have done the last few years successfully here so That's really the main way. And if you take a couple of percentage points price increases, you can calculate the mitigation effect of that when it comes to tariffs and, of course, currency.

Okay. Got your point. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Ludvig Lundgren from Nordia. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. So I have two and I take them one by one. First on life science. So yeah, weaker order intake here in Q4. So I just wonder what the lead times typically are for these products and how much one should look at this Q4 order intake number when predicting sales for H126.

I think on average the lead time in life science is 9 to 12 months. Having said that, I think in sterile transfer it's much, much quicker, given the beta bags, for example. But when it comes to the WIS business, it's obviously often over a year in lead time. But the average is 9 to 12 months.

Okay, great. Thank you very much. And then second one on this critical component delay, which made you push the 510k submission and CMR get launched for CardioSave. I just wonder if you can elaborate a bit on your confidence in this new timeline and if there's any uncertainty in this

There is some uncertainty still in this. We still need to make sure that we have adequate supply of the critical components and that we are able to do the remaining test validations on that is required. So it's our best estimate right now, the second quarter for submission.

Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you.

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 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.

Thank you very much. I think we already made a summary before the Q&A, so nothing in addition to say from me. I just thank you for your attention today and wish you a good rest of the day. Thank you.