Galderma Group AG/ADR (GALDY) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Welcome to Goderma's half-year 2026 financial results call. The press release, along with Goderma's financial statements, were published at 7 a.m. Central European summertime today and can be consulted on our corporate website at any time. Today's presentation slides, as well as a recording of the webcast, will be made available on our website after the call. Please be advised that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements which would be treated with appropriate level of caution as detailed on the slides. Let me now introduce today's half-year 2026 financial results webcast. Dr. Fleming Onskov, CEO of Proderma, and Luigi Lakote, CFO, will provide a performance update and discuss the financial results and outlook for the full year. After the presentation, Fleming and Luigi will be available to answer questions from financial analysts before Fleming provides his final remarks to close the webcast. With this, I'd like to invite Fleming to start the Gilderma's highlights for the first half of 2026. Fleming, over to you.

Thank you, Emil. Good morning, good afternoon, and welcome to Gilderma's first half 2026 financial results webcast. I'm pleased to be here today to discuss Gilderma's continued strong growth trajectory, Capitalizing on another year of opportunities, we're progressing on our ambition to become the undisputed dermatology powerhouse. I would like to thank our teams around the world for their dedication, hard work, and relentless commitment to strengthening our leadership in dermatology and continuing to outperform the market. Galderma is on a highly attractive growth journey, and as many of you know, we were recently selected for inclusion in the Swiss market index. Expected to become effective in September, the inclusion in Switzerland's leading blue chip equity index marks another important milestone in our journey as a publicly listed company. For the first half of the year, Gilderma delivered record net sales, surpassing 3 billion US dollars for the first time in the first six months of the year. Net sales year-on-year growth was 24.6% at constant currency, with double-digit growth across all product categories and geographies. With a core EBITDA margin of 25.6%, margin expansion was ahead of initial expectations. Core EPS growth was also significant, up 68.5% year-on-year. We're raising our net sales guidance for the full year based on this stronger-than-anticipated trajectory, especially in dermatological skin care, therapeutic dermatology, and newer modulators. We now expect 19% to 21% net sales growth year on year at constant currency. We are also confirming our core EBITDA margin guidance for the full year of approximately 26% at constant currency with the intent to continue investing behind growth opportunities in the second half of the year. Let's now look at our net sales performance in more detail. For the first half of 2026, Del Dorma delivered $3.1 billion US dollars in net sales. Growth was predominantly volume-driven, complemented by favorable mix effects. Despite a competitive market environment, the business delivered a positive price contribution during the period, excluding the anticipated gross-to-net impact from Nibliu. Growth was broad-based, with all our top 10 markets growing, of which nine grew double digits. Our market performance and outperformance continue to be driven by commercial excellence, innovation, and deeper penetration across global markets. International, our larger reporting geography, grew 19% at constant currency with double-digit growth in each product category. Our momentum remained strong in highly attractive and largely under-penetrated markets. The U.S., up 32.3% at constant currency, delivered net sales growth across all product categories. This growth momentum was particularly strong in injectable aesthetics and therapeutic dermatology driven by Nymluvia. With that, let's turn to the performance and key highlights of each of our product categories. In injectable aesthetics, with net sales of 1.4 billion U.S. dollars, up 12.1% at constant currency, we continue to outpace the market across geographies in both neuromodulators and in fillers and biostimulators. The U.S. phasing effect favorable in the first quarter unwound in the second quarter. Neuromodulators delivered net sales of 826 million U.S. dollars, up 13.4% at constant currency. U.S. shipment facing specific to the second quarter is expected to benefit the third quarter of the year. Fillers and biostimulators achieved net sales of 611 million U.S. dollars, representing growth of 10.5% year-on-year at constant currency, despite continued softness in the Phyllis market. Scomtra, meanwhile, continued to grow double digits in both international markets and in the U.S. Executing on our new modulator portfolio strategy, we continued to gain market share in both the U.S. and international markets. Disport continued to grow in the U.S. and in all top international markets, with particularly strong performance across Asia and Latin America. Local investments in healthcare professional engagement and education continue to drive market share gains with outstanding performance in the second quarter in China and in South Korea. In addition, in Europe, including markets where Ralph Fidesz has already launched, this part sustained double-digit growth. Meanwhile, Ravides continues to build momentum in international markets, for which healthcare professional feedback continues to be very supportive. The second quarter saw launches in three additional markets, including in Hong Kong, our first Asian markets. We continue to advance regulatory reviews as we We steadily built the broadest and most innovative portfolio in injectable aesthetics, supported by one of the industry's most extensive global commercial and educational footprints. Our strategic ambition is crystal clear to become the global leader in injectable aesthetics. Neuromodulators are an important part of that strategy. Over the past several years, we have invested significantly in both R&D and in manufacturing capabilities in this area. Ralph Fidesz is an internally discovered and developed innovation and is already approved in 33 markets with additional regulatory filings underway. As announced on July the 1st, Galderma received a complete response letter from the U.S. FDA, addressing remaining observations on our manufacturing site and on analytical method organization and optimization. This is not uncommon for complex biologics and manufacturing facilities in this space. Approval timelines in the U.S. for newer modulators have generally become longer over recent years. Since 2018, every new botulinum toxin product reviewed by the FDA has received at least one complete response letter, be it newcomers or the industry's most experienced players. I want to reiterate that these observations do not relate to the safety or the efficacy of the product. Looking ahead, we remain fully committed to resolving these topics promptly and to continue working constructively with the FDA. Advancing relibotulinum toxin A in the U.S. remains a top priority for us. Meanwhile, we continue to drive strong growth and market share gains with Dysport in the U.S. We're excited to be pioneering the next generation of newer modulation. We remain confident in the underlying science and the long-term strategic importance of Ralph Fidesz to our injectable aesthetics portfolio. Light of our strong momentum from neuromodulators in both international markets and in the U.S., we do not expect the U.S. complete response letter to impact our ability to deliver on our midterm guidance as updated earlier in March. In fillers and biostimulators, we continue to advance our portfolio and geographic expansion financing, expansion, supporting ongoing market share gains in international markets and in the U.S. First, we keep scaling recent launches. This includes Sculptra and China, which continues to significantly outpace a fast-growing market. For Restylane, this includes investments in education and training to drive further adoption, for example, behind new indications in the U.S. for the chin and for temples. Second, we keep rolling out new technologies in our fillers portfolio. This includes the further expansion of our Restylane Skin Booster Smart Click Syringe, now launched in China, and the third approval for Restylane Shade, now approved in Thailand, for skin, for chin augmentation. Third, we keep expanding our biostevalidators portfolio in new markets. This includes launching Sculptra in Indonesia, approval to launch in India later this quarter, as well as a further approval for body indications in Australia. Beyond our leadership position with Sculptra, we keep investing in innovation and have made progress with two clinical stage biostimulator assets for our long-term growth. We keep advancing our clinical development programs, while also exploring external opportunities to further extend our leadership in aesthetics. Moving to dermatological skincare, we maintained our strong growth momentum across our flagship brands, Cetaphil and Elastin. With net sales of 848 million U.S. dollars, up 16.4% of constant currency, we significantly outpaced the market. As anticipated, growth in the first house was strong, benefiting from a lower comparable base in the period. We continue to grow in both the U.S. and international markets with double-digit growth for Cedarville in fast-growing international markets and for Elastin in both geographies. E-commerce remains the fastest-growing channel supported by our digital-first execution. We are also capturing growth opportunities globally through focused execution, through innovation, and through portfolio synergies. Our momentum remains particularly strong in fast-growing international markets, especially in Asia. On this slide, we're showcasing Cedarville in China as it continues to deliver outstanding growth. We had the largest online share gains for the beginning of the year among top dermatological skincare brands. We also capitalized on local shopping events to outperform the market online. In the second quarter, this included a highly successful 618 campaign with a particular focus on expanding our presence in the face segment, where we have historically been underpenetrated. We also continue to scale our innovations globally, extending their reach and impact across markets. In the U.S., this includes Cetaphil Skin Activator, one of the two largest U.S. launches in the hand and body segment among dermatological skincare brands. Elastin, which continues to outperform the physician dispense market, including the strong uptake of its two recent launches with Trihex Technology Plus, new great technology. In international markets, among many, these include Cedarville Baby in India, where we are building leadership in the premium baby care segment, driving significant growth. Alastin also continues its international expansion, which now includes launches in Japan and in Taiwan. Alastin is a great example of a strategic bolt-on M&A. We'll continue to build on that success while also exploring other potential external opportunities. Moving now to therapeutic dermatology, net sales were 848 million U.S. dollars, up 67.9% at constant currency. Growth remained very strong, driven by the ramp up of Nemluvio, which continues on its successful global launch trajectory. Nemluvio net sales for the first half of the year were 433 million U.S. dollars. For the first time, Nemluvio contributed more than half of therapeutic dermatitis net sales overall. The U.S. continues to represent the vast majority of sales, which we'll discuss shortly. In international markets, the launch trajectory continues to be even stronger. At the same time, regulatory reviews and approvals for Nemluvio continue to progress, including recent approval in Brazil for both atopic dermatitis and perigelonotilaris. We've also secured additional reimbursement wins in key international markets that support broader patient access. Performance was complemented by higher-than-expected growth from the mature therapeutic dermatology portfolio globally, up 10% at constant currency for the period. We saw positive growth from geographic expansion and life cycle management of molecules with benefits also from delayed generic. Nemluvio is on a strong global trajectory for which the U.S. remains our largest opportunity. In the U.S., Demoluvio's market share in paid new patient stock, known as NBRXs, was trending at about 42% in peripheral nodularis and about 9% in atopic dermatitis from mid-June to early July. Underlying demand remained strong. In the second quarter, the majority of U.S. patients initiating treatment continue to be new to biologics across both indications. To support growth, we keep investing behind healthcare professional engagement and supporting efforts for strong reimbursement access. This represents a strong achievement, and we look to our internal and external opportunities to further complement our growth trajectory in this segment. In the U.S., we also launched different ipiduo-acnagel over-the-counter as unique integrated dermatology strategy. Here, we leveraged our consumer go-to-market expertise to support this prescription to over-the-counter transition in AcmeCare. Driven by strong science and execution, including support from major retailers, the uptick was stronger than we initially expected. The examples I've highlighted across our three product categories once again demonstrate the breadth of our growth opportunities and the significant potential we have to continue outperforming in our markets. With that, I'm pleased to hand over to Luigi, who is now fully on board, to provide more detail on our financial performance and on our outlook.

Thank you, Fleming, and good morning, good afternoon, everyone. It's a real privilege to have joined Galderma at this exciting time with the company rolling out significant innovation and on a high growth trajectory. And clearly, I'm very pleased to have the opportunity today to comment on a strong set of financial results for the first six months of the year and equally strong full-year outlook as we continue to make great progress towards our objective of becoming the undisputed dermatology powerhouse. As you can see from our financial scorecard for the first half of 2026, Galderma delivered record performance across the board, both across top line and bottom line, with EBITDA and net income growth significantly outpacing revenue, and with a strong balance sheet lending leverage at the end of June at 1.2 times EBITDA. Fleming has already covered our strong top-line performance in detail, so let me just add that I'm absolutely impressed by the company's consistent ability to drive growth across geographies and product categories on the back of one of the most exciting and broadest portfolios in the sector, and to do that whilst continuing to drive margin expansion and achieving a marked improvement in key financial metrics. So looking at our financial results, Galdurma delivered significant core EBITDA margin expansion with operating leverage more than upsetting the gross margin impact of product mix, as well as the anticipated gross to net evolution and higher royalty rates on NumLuvio as it continues its very strong growth trajectory. Core EBITDA was US$802 million, up 42.8%, significantly outspacing net sales growth. Core EBITDA margin expanded to 25.6% of revenue, representing a significant 328 basis point improvement at cost and currency compared to the first half of 2025. This performance slightly exceeded our initial expectations for the period, reflecting strong net sales growth, some phasing and operating expenses, and the benefits of a small one-time tariff refund. Growth was even greater in core net income and core EBS, reflecting both the strong core EBITDA growth and lower financing costs following successful refinancing executed in the first part of the year. For the first half of 2026, core net income was 547 million US dollars, up 66.3% and core EBS was 2.34 US dollars up 68.5% with EBS growth also reflecting the slight positive effect of share repurchases. And as shown on slide 17, our strong operating cash flow combined with the strong core EBITDA growth reduced net leverage to 1.2 turns at the end of June 26th, down from 1.5 times at the end of 2025, despite increased dividend payments and share repurchases done in the period. Net cash generated by operations was $572 million, driven by strong core EBITDA, with some working capital absorption driven by the high growth of the business. This cash generation enabled us to return capital to shareholders while maintaining a discipline balance sheet. During the first half, we paid dividends totaling $104 million and repurchased $302 million of shares as part of the final accelerated book build offering by the E3T-led consortium in Q1. And with that, we now have a total of just over 4.7 million shares held in Treasury. This all results in a very strong investment-grade balance sheet profile, which reduces our finance expenses and gives the group optionality, allowing us to actively consider inorganic growth opportunities across our three product categories to further complement our very attractive organic growth outlook. Reflecting our strong performance in the first half, as Fleming has anticipated, we are raising our four-year net sales growth guidance for the year. We now expect constant currency net sales growth of 19% to 21% for 2026. We continue to expect to outpace the market in each of our product categories while comparing to a higher base in the second half of 2025, with incremental growth expectations versus the guidance that was provided at the beginning of the year, driven by dermatological skin care therapeutic dermatology and neuromodulators in terms of phasing we expect neuromodulators growth in the third quarter to be particularly strong also supported by u.s phasing benefits from q2 into q3 this will offset within injectable aesthetics franchise somewhat softer growth for fillers and biosimulators in q3 which we expect in the low single digits in the quarter in a soft fillers market and against a high comparable base following the launch of Sculptra in China last year. You may recall that last year did not follow a typical seasonality pattern with greater net sales in the third quarter, higher than in the fourth quarter for this subcategory. We still expect dermatological skincare growth to be lower in the second half, normalizing against a higher comparative base in the previous year. And for mature therapeutic dermatology portfolio, with now generics in the market and new ones expecting to enter, and against a higher comparative base, growth is still expected to be negative in the second half of the year, while Nemluvianet sales are likely to pass the 1 billion US dollar mark for the year. In terms of profitability, we're confirming a core eVita margin of approximately 26% constant currency for the full year, delivering significant margin expansion versus 2025, while absorbing inflationary headwind and continuing to invest behind the growth opportunities that we have. A reminder that our full year guidance factors in manageable exposure to announce US tariffs and potential effects from recent related proclamations, along with the ability to absorb potential consumer demand deterioration in the second half of 26, given the volatile political and microeconomic environment. Following receipt of the recent complete response letter from the FDA for relavoto luni medicine A and pending further discussion with FDA on completion of the necessary mediation towards the resubmission, we now plan to communicate an extended midterm guidance, one that goes beyond 27 in the first quarter of next year. As Fleming has already said, we don't expect the US CRL to impact our ability to deliver on our midterm guidance through 2027 as updated already earlier in March. And from my perspective, having seen firsthand the strength of our integrated dermatology strategy and execution and the breadth of our growth momentum, I'm confident in the opportunities ahead in our ability to continue outpacing the market. And finally, just as a reminder, you will find, as usual in the appendix, our updated modeling metrics, as well as our foreign exchange exposure. Based on June spot rates, we still expect a positive impact on reported figures with higher uplift on sales than on core EBITDA, resulting in a slightly negative impact on reported core EBITDA margins for the full year.

Thank you, Fleming, and thank you, Luigi, for the introductory remarks. We'll proceed with questions and answers from our analysts. When it comes to the brevity of the questions, we'd appreciate it if you keep it to one question each so that we can fit as many of you as possible. With this, I would like to hand it back to Sarah, our operator today, to open the line for questions.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. And to withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Thank you. Our first question today is from the line of Ben Jackson from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you for the question. I'll start with one and then jump back in the queue. I'm going to start with the margin expectation for the full year, 2026, and also the performance for the first half this year. Obviously, it's a great result on the expansion during that first half, but you did call out that it was ahead of your own expectations. Are you able to give us more color on how much of this was down to the cost phasing? And then for the proportion which you're indicating that you'll reinvest in the second half of the year, are there any particular focus areas that you see are a highest priority for that. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Ben. I'll take the first part and then I'll pass on to Luigi. Yeah, you know, we are a very high growth company. You've seen the growth. We deliver 24.6%. We're in very competitive categories. We achieved 25.6% EBITDA in the first half. It's, you know, many different things, driven by the strong growth of our products, their contribution. We also keep a very tight ship on the cost. But the main thing for me is we have to invest to continue to grow the business. And that's the message you're getting. You're getting no, under, and it's a simple message. It's a high growth business, high growth required investment. And that's why we're keeping it stable. And that's exactly what we plan to do in the second half.

Yeah, Ben. Thank you, Ben. From my side, you know, really the key driver is the operating leverage, the very strong growth that we saw across the business over the first six months. Yeah, there was a little bit of phasing on cost and a really minor impact from this one fine tariff refund, but it was really the sales growth that drives it. In terms of focus for investment, we really see opportunities across the three areas. And so we'll look to continue driving the growth that we see both in terms of driving greater penetration, winning share, and continuing to launch and expand the portfolio in new markets. So it's really across the spectrum. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll now take our next question. This is from Victor Flock from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks so much for taking the question. We'll stick to one as well. So maybe one on Nemluzio's pipeline, you've just announced plans to submit in the pediatric at the peak mortality patient population. So maybe can you work us through this opportunity? What makes you excited? Whether you can discuss it with the data that has been reported so far and whether you can confirm if it's captured by your current 4 billion guidance for the product? And finally, just can you confirm whether we should expect the CPU phase 2 top line by Thank you very much.

Well, the short answer, there's nothing I'm not excited about when I talk about Nibluvio. It was launched at number six. It's now almost at par in its trajectory to do Pixen. I've been involved in five or six blockbusters in my career. I've never seen anything like this. So the team is just phenomenal. Yeah, any blockbuster like that is in the Gaiden 4 Plus that we've already given. The most important for me is that we deliver great results in CPU, and we'll update you when we are ready to tell you when the data are there. Study is ongoing. We have a smaller indication we're also looking at that's also enrolling. And, yes, I think we all know the importance of the pediatric indication, and, again, there we will update you when we are filing for that. So there's nothing not to be excited about when it comes to Nemluvio, but when I wake up in the morning and go to bed, I'm more focused right now on driving the phenomenal opportunity. You see the number of opportunities we have actually in being the first line biologic for many patients. If you see the phenomenal access we have in the commercial plans, the market share we've already achieved in PN, and the very strong market share we accreed in a very, very competitive AD market. So I think we still have a lot of work to do. I'm sure you're focused on the U.S., but if I look at the market shares the teams have achieved outside the U.S., Germany, to see some of them are even higher than the U.S. So I'm extremely proud of the team, but we are at the beginning. We may hopefully hit a billion this year, but we still have a few to go, and there's a lot of opportunity with this compound.

Thank you. We will now take our next question.

This is from Cheyenne Cortadia from Goldman Sachs. please go ahead hi um thank you for taking my question so on your injectable aesthetics midterm guide for 22 to 27 of 10 to 12 percent um you mentioned it's still in place regardless of the the roughy delay so i was wondering if you could provide a bit more color on what could influence where in the range you sit i know roughly at the earliest seems like it seems like it won't come in until maybe second or 27 if you refile by year end so you mentioned your current neuromodulator portfolio is performing better than expected. So is that a suitable offset? Just how do we think about this now? Thank you.

Well, I have to compliment it on a very sophisticated question that was trying to get me to answer when we are planning to file. So the answer, we do not know, okay? We just received the complete response letter. There's been no news since we received that letter. We are working through it. We worked very closely with the FDA, both during the inspection of Uppsala during the various technical CMC-related issues, methodology-related issues. I think the team is making excellent progress. As you probably know from all your experience, once you get a complete response letter, you are granted an audition with the FDA, where you're basically first in writing, and then during the meeting, present your mediation plans. Once that meeting has taken place sometime in the autumn, we will have a better idea both on are we on track and what would be the timing. I'm very confident. I've seen what the team has done. We started off with a large list of issues. We're dwindling it down to a small list of issues. Of course, there's still issues we need to address. But I'm very confident in the team and I'm very confident in a very productive interaction with the FDA. And I know it's a priority for you, but you can imagine it's also a priority for me to get this product approved in the U.S.

Thank you. We will now move to our next question. And this is from James Gordon from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hello, James Gordon from Barclays. Thanks for taking the question. Also, on the road for this CRL, so you've had a little bit more time to digest it. How does it compare to the first CRL in terms of is it as many things to do or is it more benign? And some people have thought there would be a CMD this year, and we now have clarity that it's going to be in Q1. So assuming that is a little bit of a push-out, is that because potentially you'd like to have Rolfeet S refiled ahead of the CMD, and that's why the push-out, or is the push-out for other potential reasons? And would the exact timing of when you get the approval in the U.S. or Rolfeet S make a big difference to the new guide anyway, in that I assume you would guide all the way up to 2030, so if it was a bit earlier, a bit later, how much of a swing factor would you better off with that be in the group's overall outlook to 2030?

Yeah, James, thanks a lot for one question with a lot of sub-questions, so we'll try to answer that. I think the overarching thing is against regarding the complete response letter. I think you would expect, I would expect, the team is expecting, that as you work through, the list of issues becomes smaller. But other than that, I have no other comments on this. We will work with the FDA and have started all the work that is necessary. To have a capital markets day when you're in the midst of sorting out an important launch product in the U.S. makes, to me, very little sense. We know you looked for guidance. We've already stated in the email today or in the letter today that you will get that along with our outlook for 27. So I think we'll meet that requirement. And hopefully by that time, we can provide more color to the outlook, the timing. Is that the only determining factor for our guidance? Of course not. I think you can look at our performance with jukebox around the world. That speaks for itself. The fact that we have already told you that our guidance from 23 to 27 will remain unaffected by this, I think that speaks to the opportunities we have. The good news about having a portfolio, also a new modulators, is that you can shift a little bit of resources between one and the other. And this is a time where you see the benefit of that.

Maybe I'll just add from my side, James, we're already at the beginning of this year, tightened guidance for the 23-27 period. We've just upgraded guidance for 2026. We reiterated that the TRL will not impact our ability to meet that midterm guidance. So we just think, you know, allowing us the time to work through with the FDA, their response and our plan way forward will give a better basis for having that discussion around the midterm early in the new year.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll now take the next question. This is from Alec Ebeling from UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. It's on the NEMO net price. So in your guidance, what have you assumed for additional Medicare plan coverage? And if you continue to get access through medical exemption, are you less likely to pursue full access with PBMs at a discount? Thank you.

No, let me take that question. It's obvious that we are rather successful with our exemption strategy for Medicare. As you know, that's more important for PN than it is for AD. AD is largely covered by commercial plans. We have 90-plus coverage. We continue to monitor this situation. We have one out of five we have contracted with. We're in discussions with the other ones. But I think it's too early to predict whether we will close further. But we are engaged with all of these relevant players that we are not engaged with today and that we don't have contracts with today. But I think you can see that we've been rather successful with what we have done. so far, but at some point, we probably will have to add to the coverage that we have in Medicare, but we'll update you then.

Thank you. We'll now take our next question. This is from Joffrey Balichamela from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for taking my question. The question I have is, I would like to understand, or if you could discuss, what are the current trends you are seeing in the neuromodulator market in the U.S. underlying, i.e. beyond your market share gains? Are you seeing an acceleration in the market or do you have any data points pointing to a potential acceleration in that market that could be supportive into the rest of the year? And related to that, Luigi, you made some very clear comments, I think, on the third quarter for both neuromodulators and failures in both simulators. Should we think that the balance of both would lead to Q3 injectable aesthetics to be in line with the second quarter or maybe slightly above? Thank you very much.

Maybe I'll take the second question. I mean, we try and give some direction, but please accept we won't give such precise. I think we're very confident with the momentum that we see in neuromodulators and very confident that, you know, that strong momentum will continue where precisely we're not going to provide.

You want to take it first? Yeah, I think that the net, well, first of all, I think it's very important to realize that we're one of the few companies with a portfolio in neuromodulators. I think we've shown internationally that we have very strong growth of DuSport Aslu or Illusions, as the various products are called, despite at the same time launching Ralph Fidesz. So I think that speaks to the fact that we are clearly winning new accounts, penetrating more and doing a really good job with the portfolio. In the US, I think you've seen a trend break. We are getting stronger and stronger. This is all about market share gains. What are the dynamics in the market? Yeah, we know and we've seen that, that patients prefer or have a strong preference for newer modulator treatment. We've also seen that products like Sculptra is high on their preference when they choose the treatment, but we are seeing a stabilization of fillers also in the U.S. market, the shift between Q1 and Q2, and I think that's also driven a bit by what you see with the rapid penetration of GLP-1 usage. So the trends are good. The competition is heating up. It's quite clear that we have some very formidable competitors, but I think we continue to take share, and I'm really proud of the team.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. And the next question is from Emily Tedbury from Citi. Please go ahead.

Oh, hi. Thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to ask a big picture question on the strength that we've seen in China. Can you talk to the duration of growth you expect to see there? Is the strength that we've been seeing sort of representative end consumer demand, or is it more sort of ramping up in different distribution channels, which perhaps we might expect to reach some kind of steady state or normalize in due course?

Well, Emily, did you want me to say that the growth is eternal or that we every single day in an environment? The growth is driven by a phenomenal performance by a team, particularly in the e-commerce channel. You see all the awards they win, how they're perceiving. Remember, we entered late in China, whether it was with the aesthetics business or the consumer business. We focused on e-commerce execution. and I think what I see is the team continues to do extremely well. There are certain events every year, given a very e-commerce savvy population that also are driving various sales boosts. So on the consumer side or on thermosurgical skincare, I see very strong growth and then we'll soon be also hoping seeing impact of Elastin. What we've seen in a very, very competitive aesthetics market is that if you launch something, I think when we launched Sculpture, there was five competitions on the market. There's 12 now. Maybe it's even 13 since yesterday. Who knows? And it shows again that we continue to do extremely well. So I think we have a small imprint when you compare to AbbVie, but we have lots of opportunity, both on the consumer side, but not least on the aesthetic side.

Thank you. Thank you. We will now take the next question. This is from Sophia Grafe-Beth Nielsen from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Just on sculpture and international, are you seeing any competitive impact from the use of polynucleotides XUS, or are you seeing more complementary use in clinics? Is this an area where Galderma might consider BD given the high growth of this market amongst smaller private players, or are there any other areas of higher interest for some of this inorganic opportunities you're talking about?

Well, Sophia, I have to compliment you because it's also some observations I'm making myself that polynucleotides are starting to get a place in the aesthetic armamentarium. It seems to me that it's nascent. I speak to a number of doctors that are using polynucleotides. Experience are mostly positive, but it's quite clear that along with skin quality, biostimulation, that they probably will play a role. So we continue to observe that market. There are multiple players, as you know, and in Asia there are even more players. We continue to watch the market, and like anything that is so attractive by the aesthetics market, there's constantly new innovation, and we, of course, as a leader, have to continue to watch that innovation.

I think, Sofia, from my side, as we've said during the call, Certainly, priority number one, two, and three is continuing to drive the organic growth opportunities that we see in the business, but we're very much also looking at opportunities to complement that with business development, and certainly our balance sheet gives us the flexibility to do that.

Thanks very much. Thank you. And the next question today is from Harry Sefton from RBC. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much for taking the question. So just to your comment that Dysport grew double-digit in markets where Real4Desk had launched, I just want to get a sense of has Real4Desk been entirely additive to growth in those markets, effectively enabling you to gain share with the broader portfolio, or has there been some modest cannibalization for the double-digit growth for Dysport simply shows the strength of those markets?

Yeah, of course, I cannot exclude that there is some cannibalization, mobilization, but with the growth of Dysport and the growth that we have of Ralfides, that can only be a minor factor. What we're seeing is, and I've been in the field multiple times, that certain clinics have patients that prefer to try something new. Others are more conservative and either want to stay on Botox or on Dysport. So it's probably a certain segment of doctors, kind of early adopters and certain segment of customers that may be wanting to try a new product. But for us, we're selling a portfolio. So we want to make sure that we grow all of the neuromodulators to the extent possible. But I think some of the market shares that have been achieved in a very fast situation, like in Spain and others, I must say it's also taking share, but also by getting new patients into the market.

Thank you. We have two more questions remaining. Next question is from Henrietta Boag from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon.

Yeah, I've got a question on Nemluvio, please. We saw a little uptick in MBRX for AD up to, I think it was 8%, 9% actually. And it'd be good to know a bit about what you think is driving this and maybe how you think this is going to evolve in the remainder of the year?

I think, as you probably have seen when you look over the year, in the first part of the year, there's always a little bit of ups and downs because when you have some coverage of Medicare, but you're also relying on individual patient, you know, exemptions, then before the system kicks in for the next year, that creates a little bit of up and down in the NBRXs. But I would say overall, we see an upward trend. We see we continue to gain share. It's getting more competitive, but I've seen the execution of the teams. I'm very confident that this will continue to tick up. And I think there is a good chance that we could hit a billion this year in sales with Nemluvia in the US alone.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. We have one more question. Last question is from Victor Flock from BNP Paribas. please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks so much for taking the follow-up. Just a quick question on the injectability pipeline. I think you mentioned that you are moving to biostimulatory asset to clinical stage. So just wondering whether you can discuss how those products differ from Sculptra and when should we expect them to eat the markets? Thank you very much.

Yeah, we have multiple candidates. I would still characterize them at early stage. biostimulation and fillers are you know two categories that we're constantly trying to innovate in whether it's with new modalities or new ways of injecting and new indications so yeah it's quite clear that one of our focus areas of interest is in biostimulation and and those relatively early stage compounds are still in that field and I can assure you once we have data we will publish the data and show you but you know early stage interesting but it's early stage.

Thank you, Flemming. Thank you, everyone, for the good questions. Before we close the call, I'll hand over to Flemming for his final remarks.

Well, thanks a lot, Emil, and thank you, everybody online, for your time and, of course, your questions. I think you realize that 26 is another exciting year of opportunities for GelDerma with continued execution of our proven growth-driven integrated dermatology strategy. For the first half of the year, we delivered record next sales. We surpassed $3 billion U.S. for the first time in a six-month period of a year. It was a broad-based growth, double-digit across geographies and across product categories. We achieved significant core margin expansion of 328 basis points at constant currency, clearly ahead of expectations. With strong cash generation, we strengthened our financial profile, and I think we clearly demonstrated our commitment to superior shareholder returns, along with, of course, delivering significant growth in core earnings per share. So our confidence in Gilderma's growth trajectory remains very strong, and based on our performance for the first half of the year, we're raising our full-year net sales guidance to 19 to 21% at constant currency and we're also confirming full year core if it's a margin of approximately 26% at constant currency while of course targeting growth reinvestment in the second half. So with these closing remarks I want to thank you for joining our call today.