Earnings Call Transcript - ATR Q3 2025

Mary Skafidas, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and thanks for being with us today. Our speakers for the call are Stephan Tanda, our President and CEO; and Vanessa Kanu our Executive Vice President and CFO. Our press release and accompanying slide deck have been posted on our website under the Investor Relations page. During this call, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. These measures are reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure and the reconciliations are set forth in the press release. Please refer to the press release disseminated yesterday for reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures discussed during this earnings call. As always, we will also post a replay of this call on our website. I would now like to turn the call over to Stephan. Stephan, over to you.

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Thank you, Mary, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us on the call today. I will begin my remarks by highlighting our third quarter results. Later in the call, Vanessa Kanu, our CFO, will provide additional details on key drivers for the quarter. Starting on Slide 3. For the third quarter, we delivered adjusted earnings per share of $1.62. During the quarter, growth in our Pharma segment was driven by solid demand for proprietary drug delivery systems for central nervous system therapeutics, asthma, COPD, and ophthalmic treatments. We saw moderating demand for emergency medicine dispensing systems. We also captured significant growth in injectables during the quarter from increased demand for elastomeric components for GLP-1 medications and solid growth in our Active Materials Science division. When you step back and look at our Pharma segment's performance for the first nine months of the year, prescription has a 7% core sales increase, injectables at 6% and growing, and active material science is up 8%. Consumer Healthcare continues to be affected by destocking and is down 11%. Additionally, royalties continue to contribute positively to our top and bottom line results. And we're continuing to invest in the ongoing growth and innovation within pharma. To that end, we have signed an agreement to acquire Sommaplast, a Brazil-based provider of oral dosing pharma packaging solutions, including droppers, dispensers, and dosing cups. Aptar has been manufacturing in Brazil for 25 years, and this acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approvals and anticipated to close later this year, is expected to further reinforce our footprint in the region. It also helps position us to capitalize on growth in Brazil's oral dosing, over-the-counter, and nutraceutical markets, which are projected to grow at mid- to high single digits through 2030. This growth is driven by an expanding population, rising middle class, and aging demographic. In our Beauty segment, for the quarter, we saw revenue growth in a number of regions over the previous year's quarter, such as Asia, Latin America, and certain end markets in North America. At the same time, in Europe, our largest region, sales were flat as we continue to see softness in our higher-value products such as facial skincare and in certain prestige fragrance end markets. Our Prestige fragrance pumps did have modest volume growth in the quarter. Additionally, we saw lower sales for our full-pack solutions that service the India market in the U.S. due to the challenges at one of our larger customers. In the first nine months, Beauty reported sales rose 2%, while core sales held steady overall. Strong 11% growth in Personal Care helped balance softer demand in Prestige fragrance and facial skincare. Turning to the Closures segment for the quarter. While product volumes were up, lower tooling sales and pass-throughs of lower resin pricing impacted core sales growth. For the first nine months, closures reported and core sales rose 1%, driven by a 5% increase in product sales, partially offset by lower tooling sales and the pass-through of lower resin pricing. Food and beverage markets saw solid growth, and Personal Care declined. Turning to innovation. I'd like to highlight recent technology launches and key news as shown on Slide 4. Starting with the Pharma segment, our Unidose liquid system is used in the newly FDA-approved Enbumyst by Corstasis Therapeutics, the first intranasal loop diuretic for treating edema linked to heart failure, liver, and kidney disease. This approval underscores the growing role of nasal drug delivery in systemic treatment and our commitment to patient-centric solutions. An Aptar proprietary nasal system is also used in a Phase I clinical trial for a powder nasal spray managing Parkinson's OFF periods. Managing Parkinson's OFF episodes means treating periods when medication wears off and symptoms like stiffness or tremors return, often by adjusting medication timing or using fast-acting rescue treatments for on-demand relief. During the quarter, we signed an exclusive partnership with French biotech company, Dianosic, to develop a bioresorbable intranasal insert for long-term local drug delivery in chronic allergic rhinitis and rhinosinusitis. This collaboration also explores nose-to-brain delivery for neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. Next, our HeroTracker Sense technology has also received FDA 510(k) clearance as a Class II medical device. This Bluetooth-enabled sensor transforms traditional inhalers into smart, data-driven tools for patients and providers. Finally, we inaugurated our expanded pharma research and development center in France, which helps boost capabilities across our proprietary drug delivery business. It's one of Aptar's 11 global innovation centers. Over 10% of our pharma workforce is dedicated to research and development, supported by nearly 4,700 active and pending patents. The center integrates advanced technologies, digital simulation, rapid prototyping, predictive modeling, data utilization, and artificial intelligence. It is aimed at accelerating and derisking the development of next-generation drug delivery solutions. Turning to our Beauty segment. During our recent Investor Day, we showcased our award-winning technology for the Clarins reloadable total eye-lift serum featuring our patented ALS packaging with a highly recyclable reload and double tamper seal system. In fragrance, Christian Dior is using our prestige fragrance pump for its new launch Miss Dior Essence Parfum. Finally, our Precise dropper technology, used for the controlled and targeted application of liquid formulas, is a dispensing solution for the indie brand Basic Lab in Europe. Lastly, in Closures, Marzetti's Buffalo Wild Wings sauces in the U.S. feature our pour spout closure, a more lightweight sustainable solution that delivers convenience. In the beverage concentrate market, our flip-top non-drip solution was chosen by PepsiCo for their SodaStream syrups. Moving to Slide 5. All of this would not be possible without tremendous teams around the world. We take great pride in the numerous recognitions we have earned, including being named among the top 100 of the world's best companies for women by Forbes. This honor highlights our ongoing efforts to build an inclusive culture that empowers individuals to grow, connect, and reach their full potential through meaningful development opportunities and inclusive initiatives. Before I turn the call over to Vanessa to share further details on the quarter, I want to highlight that we continue to focus on returning capital to shareholders through share repurchases and by increasing our dividend. To date, 2025 has been a banner year for share repurchases, and we plan to lean in more. In addition, we recently announced an increase to our quarterly dividend by nearly 7% to $0.48 a share. This underscores the strength and resilience of our business model as well as our confidence in Aptar's long-term growth prospects. We are very proud of having paid an increasing annual dividend for the last 32 years. Now I would like to turn the call over to Vanessa.

Vanessa Kanu, Executive Vice President and CFO

Thank you, Stephan, and good morning, everyone. Let me begin by summarizing the highlights for the quarter on Slide 6 and 7. Our reported sales increased 6% and core sales, which adjust for currency effects and acquisitions, grew 1% compared to the prior year period. Before moving further, I want to call out that this quarter, we had a couple of atypical items impacting our reported net income. First, as a result of the BTY transaction that closed this quarter, we recorded a gain on the remeasurement of the previously held minority interest of approximately $27 million, which increased our net income. And as this gain is non-tax impacting, it reduced our reported effective tax rate for the quarter to 17.1%. Our adjusted effective tax rate, which excludes the impact of this item, was 20.8%, in line with expectations. Second, as we mentioned on our prior quarter call and in our recent Investor Day, we are engaged in litigation to actively and vigorously defend our pharma IP portfolio and products. This resulted in atypical litigation costs of approximately $4 million that impacted our net income. As the gain on remeasurement of our equity investment and the litigation costs incurred in the quarter are both atypical and not indicative of operational earnings of our business, we have excluded both of these items from our adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share for the quarter. All references that I now make to adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share exclude these items. A full reconciliation is provided in our earnings press release and in our 10-Q. With those high-level comments, let's take a closer look at segment performance. Turning to Slide 8. Our Pharma segment's core sales increased 2%. Let me break that down by market, starting with our proprietary drug delivery systems. Prescription core sales increased 3%, driven by strong year-over-year demand for dosing and dispensing technologies for central nervous system applications, asthma, and COPD therapeutics. We also saw growth for emergency medicine, albeit at a slower rate. Royalty payments continued to contribute positively to revenue in the quarter. Consumer Healthcare core sales decreased 11%, primarily due to lower sales of nasal decongestant and nasal saline. Sales for ophthalmic solutions continued to grow in the quarter but could not offset the overall decline in cough and cold volumes. Injectables core sales increased 18% with strong demand for elastomeric components used for biologics, GLP-1 and regulatory-driven Annex 1 requirements. Services also contributed positively in the quarter. And for our active material science solutions, core sales increased 3%, driven by continued strong demand for active material science technologies for diabetes treatments. Pharma's adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter, which excludes the impact of non-ordinary course litigation costs referenced earlier, was 37.2%, a 120 basis point improvement from the prior year. The margin improvement was driven by increased sales of higher-value proprietary drug delivery systems, services, and royalties. Moving to our Beauty segment on Slide 9. Core sales were flat in the quarter. While increased tooling revenues provided a lift, these gains were offset by a decline in product sales. Looking at the Beauty segment by market, fragrance, facial skincare, and color cosmetics core sales decreased 5%, primarily due to lower sales of skincare dispensing products for indie brands in North America. Personal Care core sales increased 13%, driven by continued strong demand for body care and hair care applications. Core sales for Home Care, the smallest end market in our beauty portfolio, decreased 18% in the quarter due to the timing of some nonrecurring service fees in the previous year. This segment's adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 12.1%, a decline of 120 basis points. The decline in Beauty margins primarily reflects less favorable sales mix and lower margin tooling sales. Moving to Slide 10. Our Closures segment core sales decreased by 1% compared with the prior year. While product sales were up 2%, this growth was more than offset by lower tooling sales and pass-throughs of lower resin pricing. When looking at the market fields for closures, food core sales decreased 4%, primarily due to lower tooling sales, while volumes increased across a number of categories. Beverage core sales increased 9%, primarily driven by increased sales for functional drinks and bottled water. Personal Care core sales decreased 8%, while in our other category, which includes beauty, home care, and healthcare, core sales were flat. This segment's adjusted EBITDA margin was 16.1%, representing a 110 basis point decline over the prior year, primarily due to unscheduled equipment maintenance that impacted production. At the total company level, consolidated gross margins declined by 80 basis points year-over-year, while SG&A as a percentage of sales declined from 15.6% to 15.5%, a 10 basis point reduction. SG&A expense in absolute dollars increased largely due to the aforementioned non-ordinary course litigation costs incurred in the quarter. Overall, consolidated adjusted EBITDA margins increased by 30 basis points to 23.2% compared to 22.9% in the prior year period. And adjusted earnings per share was $1.62, up 4% year-over-year on comparable foreign exchange rates. Slides 11 and 12 cover our year-to-date performance and show that reported sales increased 3% and core sales increased 1%. Our reported earnings per share increased 17% to $4.75 and adjusted earnings per share increased 7% to $4.48 compared to the prior year, including comparable exchange rates. The current year's reported effective tax rate was 20.4% and an adjusted effective tax rate of 21.9% compared to the prior year's reported and adjusted effective tax rates of 22.7% and 22.8%, respectively. Neutralizing both the effective tax and exchange rates for the year-ago period, adjusted earnings per share would have been up 6%. Additionally, adjusted EBITDA increased 8% to $624 million, and the adjusted EBITDA margin increased by 100 basis points to 22.2%. In the first nine months, free cash flow was $206 million, comprising cash from operations of $386 million, less capital expenditures net of government grants of $180 million. The year-over-year decline in free cash flow was largely due to higher working capital and higher pension contributions in 2025. These were partially offset by lower capital expenditures. Finally, we ended September with a strong balance sheet once again, reflecting cash and short-term investments of $265 million, net debt of $936 million and a leverage ratio of 1.22. Over the past nine months, the company has returned $279 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. So far this year, we have repurchased 1.3 million shares for $190 million, the highest repurchase amount in a decade. Of the $500 million authorized by our Board of Directors for repurchases, approximately $270 million remains available as of the end of September. Given the recent trends and the strength of our balance sheet, we expect to fully utilize this remaining authorization over the next couple of quarters. Before we move on to outlook, I'd like to provide a brief update on our emergency medicine portfolio, where we continue to see strong underlying demand, but we anticipate near-term headwinds in this end market that we expect will impact Q4 and at least the first half of FY '26. To help with your modeling, as we previously shared, in 2024, emergency use delivery systems represented approximately 5% of total company sales. For the first half of 2025, this end market accounted for 7% of Aptar's total sales. Revenue for the first half of 2025 grew roughly 50% year-over-year, while Q3 showed more modest growth. For Q4 2025, we expect a more pronounced deceleration mainly due to elevated inventory levels at a large customer and expect the revenue contribution for the full year 2025 to be about 5% of total sales. While demand from other customers remains healthy, we expect this inventory normalization to extend into 2026. Based on what we currently know about end market demand, funding dynamics, and customer inventory positions, we anticipate 2026 revenues from this end market to be approximately 35% lower than 2025. Given the high-value nature of this portfolio, this will have a compressing effect on overall margins prior to any mitigation actions. Now on to outlook for Q4, summarized on Slide 13. We expect continued strength across the majority of our Pharma businesses in Q4, particularly injectables, driven by rising demand for higher-value elastomeric components, fueled by growth in biologics, GLP-1 therapies, and annex 1 compliance requirements. Partially offsetting the growth in injectables is softer demand for emergency medicine that I just spoke about. For the consumer businesses, we anticipate Beauty will have positive core sales growth in Q4 and product sales volumes for closures will also continue to grow. In terms of earnings per share, we anticipate fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $1.20 to $1.28 per share. Our effective tax rate range for the fourth quarter is 19.5% to 21.5%. Our guidance for the quarter is assuming a EUR 1.17 euro to USD exchange rate. Additionally, as you will model depreciation and amortization, due to the closing of the BTY transaction and other timing and FX impacts, we expect fourth quarter depreciation and amortization expense to be between $75 million and $80 million. With that, I will turn it over to Stephan to provide a few closing comments before we move to Q&A.

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Thank you, Vanessa, for the review of our emergency use delivery systems business. Now let me step back and share the bigger picture. In the short term, we faced some headwinds due to tough comparables from the exceptionally steep one-time ramp-up of the unique naloxone distribution channels as well as uncertain and evolving landscape around government funding. Steady state, our customers expect this market to grow in the low to mid-single digits. Over the past 2 years, our prescription division serving this market has grown at brisk double-digit rates. After a period of destocking, we anticipate more stable sales of our dispensing systems. Looking ahead, we expect our pharma pipeline to continue to be strong and robust. As I shared during the Investor Day, it has been contributing 7% to 10% of revenue annually. What is important is that our revenue stream in pharma is largely based on the treatment of chronic diseases with the help of our proprietary solutions, resulting in a long-term stable to growing business with new launches layered on top of that base. We believe this is possible because together with the molecule, our dispensing system form a combination medicine, which is part of the regulatory filing and remains embedded in the drug master file. Vanessa touched on injectables; I want to highlight that we are seeing good and strong growth in the very areas where we have invested, GLP-1, Annex 1, and biologics. Our investments in added capacity and capabilities in high-value products are paying off. Closures is performing well. The reorganization we started 2 years ago has delivered solid growth and innovation traction. Beauty has lowered its cost base and breakeven point, which we believe is giving it a competitive footprint. We have reinforced operational efficiency and cost discipline as an important part of our culture, and these efforts sharpen our execution. We also keep a close eye on shareholder returns, strategic capital allocation, and bolt-on acquisitions. Bolt-ons are a core strength. Take our Brazilian Pharma Packaging acquisition as just the most recent example. As we look to the future, we remain confident in our ability to deliver sustainable profitable growth. We believe our business model is resilient. Our pipeline is robust, and our teams are focused. With the right mix of innovation, operational discipline, and strategic investments, we think we are well positioned to continue creating value for our customers, our employees, and our shareholders. With that, I would like to open up the call for your questions.

Operator, Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Ghansham Panjabi with Baird.

Ghansham Panjabi, Analyst

Can you hear me okay?

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Yes, hi Ghansham.

Vanessa Kanu, Executive Vice President and CFO

Hi, Ghansham.

Ghansham Panjabi, Analyst

Just so I can understand your comments specific to '26 for Pharma. So is it right to assume that you're assuming 7% to 10% growth just from the new product pipeline, et cetera? And then emergency medicine is roughly 11% of pharma, and that's going to be down 35%, and that's how we should calibrate as it relates to the growth expectation for next year? And then related to that, where are we on the cough and cold, specific to Europe in terms of the destock? Is it going to drag into 4Q? And yes, where are we on that?

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Yes. Let me start and then Vanessa, please chime in. The 7% to 10% comment was just to reiterate what we covered at Investor Day that we have a stable growing business and on top of that is innovation, and that supports our long-term target. It was not meant to give you guidance for '26. So when we look at out to '26, of course, we don't give guidance for '26. We made an exception for emergency medicines for the obvious reasons, and Vanessa went through that in quite some detail. Zooming out, we expect injectables to grow very nicely, high single-digit, low double-digit rates for the coming period. We expect Consumer Healthcare to return to growth. To your second question, we believe that has largely run its course with quarter 4 potentially returning to growth admittedly versus a lower base and also active material returning to growth. So the key impact will be emergency medicines and Vanessa can reiterate some of that, if you'd like.

Vanessa Kanu, Executive Vice President and CFO

Yes, definitely. Ghansham, you have the figure. We anticipate that for the full year 2025, it will represent about 5% of the total company. Specifically for the pharma business, it will be in the 10% to 11% range of revenue, which signifies a reduction of around 35%.

Ghansham Panjabi, Analyst

And then European cold and cough or cough and cold.

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Yes, that's what I was referring to, sorry. That has largely run its course. We expect quarter 4 to potentially be growing again and certainly growing into next year.

Ghansham Panjabi, Analyst

Okay. And then for my second question, for the initial 3Q guidance, you did include the litigation cost of $0.06 to $0.07. And then you've changed that going forward? And just give us a reason as to why that is.

Vanessa Kanu, Executive Vice President and CFO

Yes. We did, Ghansham. So we did give the estimates. We said it would be roughly $5 million to $6 million a quarter, roughly $0.06 to $0.07 of EPS impact. You will see in our disclosure that the actuals for Q3 came in at about $4.4 million. We did disclose that. But this is litigation. This is litigation. The timing of the litigation is always uncertain, and you discover things through as the litigation progresses. And as we looked at the business, I mean, these are elevated litigation costs, very atypical. You know Aptar, you have a very long history with the company. We don't typically do this. So these are very atypical costs. And when you look at the underlying performance, the underlying operating performance of the business from a management perspective, this is not indicative of the underlying performance of the business. And so we certainly provided all the transparency that we need to, but we wanted to make sure that we called out what the underlying operating performance was of the business.

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

You're quite right. It was when we gave the guidance.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Knight with KeyBanc.

Paul Knight, Analyst

Can you talk to the GLP-1 marketplace and Annex 1? What level of contribution to growth do you think those two markets represent? Is it 100, 200, 300 basis points of additional organic growth? Or can you quantify it is the first question?

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Yes, Paul, we don't provide that level of detail. However, it’s clear that GLP-1 is a significant growth driver, likely the top contributor this quarter and in the next few quarters. Annex 1 is a close second, and biologics continue to expand our pipeline. We are now fully operational with all of the auto-injectors. It's important to note that there are two SKUs for an auto-injector, the plunger and the needle shield, meaning two companies might both claim to be using the same auto-injector, which can indeed be true. On the plunger side, there’s even some dual sourcing. We experienced lower growth rates at the beginning of the year primarily because we were still validating our capital investments and some equipment. Now, as of mid-year and into early quarter three, everything has been fully validated, allowing us to meet demand. The growth rate you’re currently seeing reflects market demand along with some catch-up, which is why we anticipate a strong finish to the year. Another question people often ask is about our oral product and its potential impact on demand. Currently, we don’t foresee any negative effects. One, it’s still some time away, and two, based on what we hear, it’s primarily aimed at markets without cold chain capabilities, and its pricing is structured to ensure it won't render our clients' existing investments obsolete. That's our best assessment.

Vanessa Kanu, Executive Vice President and CFO

And maybe the only other thing I'll add just because we did mention GLP-1 specifically, Paul, we continue to see really healthy year-over-year growth rates. For September year-to-date, we're up over 40% compared to the prior year. So to Stephan's point, we're seeing some very healthy growth there.

Paul Knight, Analyst

And then lastly, Annex 1 with your large French operations, are you seeing what is that #2 or 3 benefit you said in the quarter?

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Correct. Correct. Now I don't want to make too light of it, but they basically say you need to provide sterile products. Well, this is not a change of the world. It's just some customers as a result, decide to go more towards higher value solutions.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of George Staphos with Bank of America.

George Staphos, Analyst

I have two questions. First, I want to acknowledge the progress you've made in your non-pharmaceutical business operationally over the years. You've performed better than we anticipated in closures, which is commendable. In terms of your Beauty division, we understand the challenges you're facing, but it seems the margin growth is still slow. What are the next two or three steps you're planning to take to improve margins in Beauty, and when can we expect that turning point? Secondly, regarding your pharmaceutical business and the product aspect, I know you value all of your products, which has contributed to your consistent growth of 7% or more over the years. Is unit dose the area where you've seen the most product activity recently? It appears that way based on your slides and some comments from the past few quarters. How should we consider this moving forward?

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Sure. Thanks for acknowledging the progress, George. I appreciate any compliments, especially regarding closures. First, volume is the top priority for beauty. However, we are continuously improving productivity. We have strengthened our competitive position, which is now evident in our project activities, particularly through our agile China operations for rapid prototyping and small volume launches. This gives us confidence that volume will increase. Secondly, it’s also a regional matter. As mentioned, Europe is already within its target range. While this is a global goal, China is performing well too. The challenge lies in North America. We've discussed our Fusion PKG business that supports indie brands, which is facing some customer challenges. Overall, innovation remains a key driver in this business, and with a more competitive infrastructure, we are confident in its growth. Regarding our kids' products, high doses are crucial, especially for upcoming indications like treating edema and tachycardia, which is close behind. Additionally, we have various formats, such as SPRAVATO, which aids Johnson & Johnson in their ramp-up, along with large volume powder inhalers and more. Emergency medications, primarily in Unidose, have been significant players in recent years.

George Staphos, Analyst

Stephan, if I could just get a clarification point on volume in Beauty. Did you see signs of destocking in your customer base in the quarter or looking at the fourth quarter? You don't have to go into great detail. Just curious, yes or no.

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Not really. I think there's more of a wait-and-see approach for next year. Customers really manage their year-end inventories. We actually see encouraging signs for first quarter order entry instead of destocking.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Larew from William Blair.

Matthew Larew, Analyst

I would like to inquire about the growth expectations for the Pharma segment. Over the past year, core sales growth has been approximately 3%. You've faced challenges with the destocking of cough and cold products, but it appears that increased NARCAN sales have helped, as emergency medicine sales increased by 7% in the first half of the year. As you consider the medium-term outlook, even though you aren’t providing guidance, how confident are you that the range of 7% to 11% remains appropriate, given that it has been several quarters since you were at the low end of that range?

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Yes. Well, first, let's acknowledge 7% to 11% is our long-term target range. It's not a quarterly and conceptually not even a yearly number. It's a long-term target range. We've been in that range for many, many years. There were some years where we've not been in that range. But I think everything we went through in September, what we have in the pipeline, the growth that we see coming out of the pipeline with launches, the injectable growth, active material growth, the lapping of consumer healthcare European cough and cold as Ghansham calls it. All of these things are contributed to growth. Of course, the emergency medicine situation, we've described as best as we could that kind of gets us the visibility perhaps into the middle of next year. So nothing has changed about the attractiveness of our pharma pipeline, about our pharma business, the pharma markets. And yes, we just reaffirmed the 7% to 11% growth rate in the Investor Day as the long-term target. So no reason to change that.

Matthew Larew, Analyst

Okay. Very good. And then obviously, from a capital allocation standpoint, the balance has been towards pharma in recent years. And Stephan, you alluded to the validation of some equipment to bring on new capacity. As you're starting to ramp your injectables capacity and now thinking about the next level of capital investment, what are the areas that you think are most interesting? And at what point do you think from an injectable standpoint, you will need to start to think about broad capacity again?

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

I think we have quite some time with injectables. You may remember, I disrespectfully called it the large boxes. We built three large boxes. There's a lot of equipment we can put in that box in injectables. And to creep capacity as needed, and those are much lower increments. So we don't foresee a next large increment for quite some time, certainly not on the books.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Rizzo with Jefferies.

Daniel Rizzo, Analyst

I was muted. Just with the NARCAN with the emergency medicine, is that a significant margin difference between that product and others? Or is it kind of just along with the rest. I was just wondering how we should think about that effect on...

Vanessa Kanu, Executive Vice President and CFO

Dan, thanks for calling that out. I did mention that in my remarks. There is a significant margin differential. I mean, as you can imagine, emergency medicine being a high-value life-saving product with high regulatory requirements, quality requirements, et cetera. These are very high-value products to us. So certainly amongst the highest of our margin products within our overall pharma portfolio. I can't give you specifics. As you can imagine, we've got competitive reasons not to share that publicly. But as you kind of think about our overall pharma portfolio, this is amongst the highest of the margins.

Daniel Rizzo, Analyst

I'm sorry, I must have missed that. I understand you mentioned volume and mix. How does pricing operate on an annual basis? Is it generally like a 100 to 200 basis points advantage? Just across the board. I'm curious about how that factors in compared to some of your costs, which are usually not highlighted, but I'm interested in how we should consider price in relation to cost.

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Yes, clearly, pharmaceuticals are focused on value and pricing strategies. Pricing is not closely tied to production costs. The material content relates to the added value from factors such as quality systems, data packages, and additional services, which is a different mix compared to our consumer-facing business. One point I want to emphasize is that our Unidose system is very appealing. It is not limited to NARCAN but applies across our Unidose system as well as our Bidose system. Products that are life-saving and target the central nervous system tend to be more profitable compared to those for allergic rhinitis.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Roberts with Raymond James.

Matthew Roberts, Analyst

Can you all hear me?

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Yes. Hi, Matt.

Matthew Roberts, Analyst

On the emergency medicine, again, I'm just trying to square some of that commentary with a customer in emergency medicine. It seemed like NARCAN was down, but sequentially improving, and they noted some international potential and broader market growth. So are there other categories within emergency medicine that are still growing? And if so, how much specifically is naloxone expected to be down? And maybe into '26, what gives confidence in a second half recovery and any market share changes or shifts in that category at all?

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Yes, we don't provide a breakdown of different indications or SKUs within the emergency medicine category, but products like neffy, hypoglycemia, and BAQSIMI are included in that area. I'm not sure which customer you are referring to, but there is a publicly traded customer that is quite significant. You could examine their balance sheet and inventory, which I believe will be essential for the reconciliation you are seeking.

Vanessa Kanu, Executive Vice President and CFO

Yes, that's exactly right, Matt. They did express some optimism going forward, which I think validates that things will improve. However, as we mentioned in our commentary, there is inventory in the system, so customers will need to work through that inventory situation.

Matthew Roberts, Analyst

All right. That makes sense. And maybe on Personal Care, that seem mix. It was up in Beauty, Closures was down. Home Care, I think, was down. So given some mixed signals there and another publicly traded peer recently called out sudden inventory corrections in those categories. Maybe just broadly, what are you seeing in those categories? Or what are customers saying in regard to inventory levels heading into 4Q, recognizing that they are smaller contributors overall in Beauty and Closures.

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Sure. I mean, we obviously separate what is accounted for in Beauty versus what is accounted for in Closures. Those are different formats. And sometimes customers switch between these two formats, and we try to catch as much of that as possible. Don't hear a lot of noise around inventory or destocking in Personal Care. It's more of a rotation in formats, and sometimes the pump side wins and sometimes the closure side wins. It's different by customer. I'm not sure if we can call out a trend there.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Gabe Hajde with Wells Fargo.

Gabe Hajde, Analyst

I just want to make sure I'm doing my math right. Are we sort of implying maybe a $40 million to $45 million revenue headwind associated with what you called out specific to the emergency response medicines in H1 2026?

Vanessa Kanu, Executive Vice President and CFO

Well, we gave you a lot of data points. And I think if you sort of work through the math, again, if you think about 10%, 11% of pharma, 5% of the company, 10%, 11% of pharma declining 35% year-over-year. It's a slightly bigger number than you're coming up with, but I think you can get to the same ZIP code. 11% declines at 35%.

Gabe Hajde, Analyst

I understand that it's challenging in an open setting like this. Regarding the product line you mentioned, Stephan, are you currently supplying it? Or does the litigation hinder any external sales of that product? Is it continuing to progress normally commercially until a resolution is reached?

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

To the best of our knowledge, we are supplying all of that product. It's the only one that has the 99.999% proven reliability. And of course, we serve our customers with that and in this case, ARS, absolutely.

Operator, Operator

We have a follow-up question from George Staphos with Bank of America.

George Staphos, Analyst

First of all, on D&A, Vanessa, you called out the $75 million to $80 million. Just from a modeling standpoint, should we be carrying that forward for the next number of quarters? Or is that just a one-time kind of step-up because of...

Vanessa Kanu, Executive Vice President and CFO

No, carry it forward. Yes, thank you for the question, George. As we announce our future quarters, we'll provide more clarity on this. However, you might have noted an increase because we are now amortizing the intangibles from BTY. That was the reason for the increase. Essentially, this represents a new run rate. If you take the midpoint of the guidance and annualize that, you should arrive at a pretty accurate figure.

George Staphos, Analyst

Okay. Very good. The other question I had for you, just back to emergency medicines, and we appreciate all the detail that you've given us. No guarantees, no guarantees in life. But if it plays out as you expect, are we back to sort of the more normal growth rate into '27 after the step down in '26. And I think you said low single-digit growth on a going-forward basis. I just want to confirm that.

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Yes. We don't guide for '26. We for sure don't guide for '27. But based on what we've said, I think that is a fair interpretation, George.

George Staphos, Analyst

Yes, Stephan, I wasn't asking you to guide.

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

I know, I know.

George Staphos, Analyst

I was asking if the assumption is that you will finish the destocking in '26, with no guarantees, and then it will return to a more normal state afterwards. Would you say the growth rate appears to be normal?

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Yes. I said low to mid-single digits.

Operator, Operator

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

Stephan Tanda, President and CEO

Thank you, operator. And let me just summarize and zoom out a bit. Our teams delivered another solid quarter with adjusted EBITDA growth of 7%, continuing our well-established track record of expanding the bottom line at a faster pace than the top line. While we do face the uncertainty we discussed at length on the sales trajectory of emergency medicine, we hopefully were able to give you progressive insights that we gained ourselves since Investor Day that confirm the temporary nature of this headwind. The fundamentals of our Pharma business remain highly favorable with an attractive and growing project pipeline, a steady stream of new launches, leveraging the nasal delivery route for exciting new indications. We talked about edema. And at the same time, of course, our injectable business is now taking full advantage of a booming market with our state-of-the-art capabilities. Our novel innovations and decades of experience drive a significant body of intellectual property, including patents, know-how, and trade secrets, which we protect vigorously. Now as we look towards 2026, beyond the emergency medicine topic, we see solid growth in the other parts of our pharma business and are receiving some encouraging signals from our consumer goods customers, including in fragrance and beauty at large. Given the strength of our performance and our strong balance sheet, we have and we will further accelerate capital returns to shareholders, underscoring our confidence in the business while retaining the strategic optionality of our capital structure. With that, I look forward to speaking with many of you in the coming weeks. And should we not speak before then, let me wish you already now a restful Thanksgiving in the U.S. and the holiday season around the world. With that, operator, we can now close the call.

Operator, Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect. Have a wonderful day.