Biogaia (Stockholm:BIOG B) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Hi, this is Theresa Agnew, CEO of BIOGaia, and I am here with Alexander Kotzinas, and we are here to present our Q2 results for 2026. So some of the highlights of the quarter: our growth, excluding currency effects, was 12% versus a year ago, and our EBIT margin is 30%, with an adjusted EBIT margin of 33% for the quarter. Overall, our net sales reached SEK441 million, as I said, with growth excluding currency effects of 12%. Specifically in the regions, in Europe, Middle East, Africa, our sales increased by 21, excluding currency effects. In The Americas increased by 16% excluding currency effects, while Asia Pacific decreased by 6% excluding currency effects due to order variability.

0:56 Our operating profit in the quarter was SEK132 million, which is an increase of 22%, and our EBIT margin was 30% versus the 27% last year for Q2. Our adjusted EBIT margin was 33% for the quarter. Overall, our net sales year to date reached SEK $813,000,000, which is growth excluding currency effects of 13%. Our BIOGaia company strategy remains the same. Our first strategic pillar is grow the core, the core being our core health areas of the business, of which gut health, which includes colic, oral health, and immune health are our biggest priorities.

1:41 Our second strategic pillar is what we call expansion through direct markets, where we look at particular markets to take from a distributor partnership to a subsidiary or a direct market. We currently have 12 direct markets. And our third strategic pillar is breakthrough innovation. This is market creation opportunities for probiotics where people don't routinely use probiotics today. The foundations of our company are people and culture, investing for profitable growth, using digital as an enabler both in how we go to market through our omnichannel approach, as well as digitizing our business internally, driven by science, which has been a foundation for over thirty years, and sustainable solutions, highlighting the importance of sustainability to our business.

2:33 So how are we delivering on our strategy? In terms of grow the core, in the quarter we drove growth for both the pediatric and adult segments. We are investing in our marketing and selling activities to grow strong growth in our direct markets. We are continuing to roll out our new products. We had originally launched BioGaia GastroSpear Action in October 2024, we continue to roll that out this year. We also launched last year BioGaia Predentis Fresh Breath, we're continuing to roll that out to more markets this year. And we just recently in May launched our next generation patented probiotic drops called BIOGaia Protectis Plus. BIOGaia Protectis Plus will be available in addition to our original Protectis drops.

3:24 And in terms of expansion through direct markets, we continued our launch in Germany and Austria in Q2 that originally launched in January of this year. One of our largest direct markets, The US, had record sales in Q2 and we've seen strong performance in France in Q2. In terms of our breakthrough innovation, skin health is one of our exciting new areas and we expanded our portfolio in the quarter with two additional new products and updated our design across the full range. So some of the launches that we had in the quarter, as I mentioned, we launched BIOGaia Protectis Plus, we launched that in The UK, Ireland, as well as in Sweden.

4:12 We launched our Pharrex drops in a number of markets and as I said, we launched our two new skincare products, so a face and body lotion and a balm to milk body wash, both microbiome friendly and organic containing ingredients, and those launches happened in The US and China. Some of the key events for the quarter, on April 28, we published some new scientific findings on one of our patented technologies. It's called Longevity Guard. It is a desiccant technology that goes into our drops products and our probiotic ointment that improves the stability and shelf life of our probiotics so that they live throughout the shelf life.

5:02 May 7, we announced our launch of BIOGaia Protectis Plus, which is, as I mentioned, a proprietary patented combination of our strain DSM one seven nine three eight as well as BGR forty six. Also on May 7 at our annual general meeting, we elected a new board member to our board of directors, Amy Byrick. And then on June 18, we announced the new product launches that I mentioned, the lotion and wash for the BIOGaia skincare portfolio.

5:40 Our growth, as I said, for Q2 was 12% organic growth. As you look at it from a pediatric and adult segment standpoint, pediatrics grew 9% organic growth and adult segment grew 23% organic growth.

6:00 And a little bit more on the segments, if you look at the quarter, as I said, excluding currency effects, pediatrics grew 9%, adult health 23%. But if you look at the total for the year to date, pediatrics grew 11% organic growth and adult grew 21%. In terms of pediatrics for the quarter, sales mainly increased in France, US and Brazil. In terms of adult health, sales increased in our Protectis tablets and sales also increased in Asia Pacific, mainly in Indonesia and Japan. So overall, our pediatric segment for the quarter is 75% of our sales and year to date is 74% of our sales.

6:51 Now by region, as I said previously, Europe, Middle East, Africa increased by 21 excluding currency effects, mainly in France and Poland. These were strong markets for us. In addition, other strong markets in EMEA were Germany as well as UK. In Asia Pacific, our sales decreased by 6% excluding currency effects. It was lower in our sales in the pediatric segment while the adult health segment did increase. And as I said previously, the sales were lower mainly in China and South Korea. This was due to quarterly variations for individual orders, so order variability. And in The Americas, which includes Latin America as well as North America, our sales increased by 16% excluding currency effects. This is due to higher sales in both the pediatric and the adult health segment, and sales increased mainly in The US, Canada and Argentina.

7:50 I will now turn it over to Alex to go through the financials in more detail. Thank you, Theresa. So to summarize, as we heard Theresa mention, we had a sales growth of 9% from SEK $4.00 5,000,000 to SEK $441,000,000 in the quarter. Our gross profit also increased with 9% and our operating profit increased with 22%. And we had a margin of 30% in the quarter compared to twenty seven percent one year ago. If we look at the sales, as we heard, we had a growth of 9%, and we had a negative currency effect of 3% and thus a growth excluding currency effect of 12% in the quarter. Our gross margin in the quarter was 73%, which was at the same level as last year. We had one percentage point higher margin in the pediatric segment and 1% lower in the adult segment.

8:46 That variation is mainly due to mix effects, some movements between different products and geographic markets that explains the variation. And then if we look year to date, we have a margin of 72% versus seventy three percent one year ago, with a slightly lower margin in the adult health segment. If we look at our operating expenses. Our total operating expenses were SEK 189,000,000 versus SEK 186,000,000, so 2% higher versus one year ago. Our sales and marketing expenses increased due to higher expenses for sales and marketing activities, mainly in our subsidiaries, for example, in France and Germany, which are new markets where we were spending less one year ago.

9:33 The sales and marketing expenses also include a onetime expense of SEK 11,300,000. Our R and D costs decreased mainly due to lower cost for clinical studies. It's a normal variation between the quarters. And we have a positive effect in the other OpEx due to some exchange gains on receivables of 7,000,000. And therefore, we have an OpEx of SEK 189,000,000 versus SEK 186,000,002 percent higher. And on an adjusted basis, our OpEx was SEK 177,000,000 versus SEK 186,000,000, which is then 4% lower compared to one year ago. And then if we summarize and look at our profit and loss statement, again, we see an increase in sales of 9%, an increase of OpEx at a lower extent of 2%, and therefore, our EBIT then increases with 22%.

10:32 And on an adjusted basis, our EBIT increases with 32%. And we then have a margin of 30 in adjusted basis, our margin is 33%. And profit earnings per share of 1.02% versus 0.87%, an increase of 17% in the quarter. If we look at our cash flow. Cash flow from operating activities amounted to SEK 51,000,000. The decrease in cash flow from operating activities compared to the same period last year is mainly due to a negative change in working capital. It is also, I would say, a normal variation between the quarters whereby we have some higher receivables, a bit higher inventory and lower payables, and all three giving a negative effect then in the change in working capital.

11:26 And the cash flow from financing activities amounted to minus $466,000,000. That then includes the additional purchase payment that we did for Nutraceuticals, our US company, of SEK 59,500,000, which we paid at the April 1 in this quarter. And we also had dividends in the quarter of SEK $4.00 5,000,000.

11:49 And then the net effect then is the cash flow for the period of minus SEK $428,000,000 versus minus SEK $624,000,000 in the same quarter last year. And we have a cash at the end of the period of SEK $446,000,000. So with that, I hand over to Theresa for some concluding remarks. So in summary, as we said, our second quarter showed growth excluding currency effects of 12%. Both our segments grew for the quarter. So pediatric segment growing nine excluding currency effects, and adult segment growing 23% excluding currency effects, and the increases were primarily driven by our Protectis drops, our Prodentis, and our Gastris Pure Action products.

12:35 Europe, Middle East, Africa is regaining momentum, as you saw, in key markets, following a period that we had of transition from when we went from partner distribution to direct market operations in France and Germany and Austria. So our sales overall increased by 21% excluding the currency effects. France, as I said, was established as a direct market in April 2025, Germany in January 2026, both contributed to the strong performance in Europe, Middle East, Africa. For Asia Pacific, our sales decreased by 6% excluding currency effects. This was mainly due to the lower sales in the pediatric segment. The adult health segment increased, as I mentioned previously, but the sales decreased mainly in China and South Korea and our partners in those markets, and that was due to quarterly variations in individual orders.

13:28 The Americas delivered strong performance with a 16% growth, excluding currency effects. Both Canada and The US had robust growth in sales of our adult products, specifically Prodentis and Gastrus PureAction, as well as double digit growth in sales of our Protectis drops. Our operating margin for the quarter was 30%, our adjusted operating margin was 33%. So overall, our year to date adjusted operating margin is 30% compared to 27% last year. We are announcing that we will host a Capital Markets Day in London in December of this year with more information to come on that. And we remain of course focused on driving our growth by leveraging our strong scientific foundation that we have built over many years.

14:21 We are expanding our presence in key markets by continuing to launch new products in these markets, and of course investing in increasing our brand visibility and our brand recommendations through healthcare professionals. So we will open it up now for any questions that you may have. If you wish to ask a question, please dial 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. The next question comes from Christopher Lilleburg from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

15:03 Thank you. Good morning. Four questions, but they are short, I promise. So first, the higher investments compared with the first quarter last year or yes, the second quarter last year, if you could just comment on that. And I wonder about the gross margin improvement second quarter versus first quarter, if that's just mix effect or if it's something else?

15:27 Third question is if you could give this figure of direct sales market proportion of total sales in the quarter or year to date? And finally,

15:40 if you're willing to comment about when you expect the China distributor to start ordering again? Thank you.

15:48 What was the fourth question? When we When do you expect distributor in China to start order again? Okay.

16:01 So the first two questions, I'll have Alex address. So the investments in the quarter, yes, that's mainly BIOGaia production, and we are ramping up our investment levels. We are expanding our manufacturing capacity. So we will see a higher CapEx level for this year and also next year. And that is why you have a higher CapEx. We've actually had an abnormally low CapEx for the last year or two

16:27 because we have been preparing. So mix, is this yeah. Mix, this the level we saw in the quarter? Is that you think a good representation for the remainder of the year? Or It will vary a bit, going a bit up and down. But it's a bit difficult to say. It depends on the speed of that deployment of those investments. But I think for this year, we could have investments around SEK 30,000,000 to SEK 40,000,000 in total.

16:57 Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Yeah. And then for the gross margin, yes, as as you guessed, it's due to normal or, well, variations between geography and products, not really that we have changed any pricing or anything similar.

17:14 And then in terms of the direct market percentages, so for the quarter, our direct markets are 41% of our growth, and then year to date is 45%.

17:32 Then in terms of Of the growth, do you mean of the growth or of the actions? Oh, I'm sorry, of the sales, apologies, of our sales. So 41% for the quarter is direct markets, 45% of our sales for the year to date, for direct markets.

17:53 But I guess if you have a quarter, and that leads us into the my final question. So if APAC is picking up again, I guess that number should go down? Or is this trend so strong that direct sales proportion will still continue up this year, would you say?

18:12 No, that number will go down because we had lower orders for China and South Korea in the first half of the year. So we do expect, and that gets to your fourth question, that our China distributor will increase their orders in Q3 and then larger orders in Q4 as well.

18:34 Okay. So do you expect China third quarter sales to be up year over year? Yes, we do. Okay. Thank you. The next question comes from Philip Wetterquist from SB1 Markets. Please go ahead.

18:59 Good morning, guys. I just have a couple of questions. The first one on the extraordinary sales costs. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what that relates to? And was it did it impact cash flow here in the quarter?

19:18 Well, in terms of the overall expense, it's a onetime expense. And this is confidential for competitive reasons, so we don't share the specifics on that. But it is a onetime selling expense. And it did impact the cash flow in the quarter. That's correct.

19:38 Okay. Thank you. And then my second question is still on the selling costs. And excluding the extraordinary expense, selling expenses grew 3% year over year, below the 12% organic growth. Should we assume selling expenses to grow slower than sales from Q2 onwards? Or

20:02 like is this a good run rate for

20:05 H2? Or how should we think about selling expenses going forward?

20:11 It's a bit tricky to give an exact answer on that. On one hand, yes, we are trying to contain our costs. I mean, last year, we did have this global marketing campaign, which we did, for example, which we're not doing this year. So we will have a lower sales and marketing cost for that. On the other hand, we are ramping up our costs in the sales and marketing area in terms of, for example, direct operations in Germany that we didn't do last year, and also we're ramping up in France and some other direct markets.

20:35 So we don't really give, you know, an exact guidance on the the proportion of the marketing and sales spending. But as we mentioned before, we're committed to try to keep our total OpEx basically flat for this year. Okay. That was all for me. Thank you. Thank you.

20:59 As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial 5 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Matthias Wattson from SEB. I

21:15 have two. So in EMEA now, when you look at the performance, would you say it's anything in that region that is not performing according to plan? Or is it really a good performance across the key markets in EMEA? Yes. So in terms of Europe, Middle East, Africa, there are a couple of countries, I would say, not performing to plan. So Turkey is one where we have switched our distributor partner earlier this year. So that business is going to start ramping up in the second half and has been poor in the first half of this year and also the second half of last year, so Turkey. And I would also say Italy is slower

22:03 than expected in terms of orders from our partner, so that has to do with some of the probiotics market in Italy overall declining, but we have high share and we're growing share in that market. Okay, good. That's a clear answer. And then the next one, the probiotic drops, the Protective Plus. You talked about the launch plan in your key regions here going ahead and maybe the development of the instance versus the current Protective Drops product that you sell. Yes. So we just launched in The U. K. In May, and we actually launched at a baby show with about 30,000 consumers and received very positive feedback on the new product.

22:54 So the product so far has been launched in The UK, Ireland and Sweden since our announcement on May 7, and then we will be rolling it out over time in other markets, it all depends on the regulatory situations. Because this is a new strain, it does take an additional registration in a lot of our markets. So it will take time, such as in The US you need to have GRAS certification for a new strain. So there are a number of things from a regulatory perspective that will cause the launch to be over many years coming. Okay, good. And in terms of is this part of the production investments that you do now? Or let's say that if you could launch in The U.

23:45 S, would that be doable with the production setup that you have? Yes, yes, definitely. We have plenty of capacity. We actually had a new easy dropper line installed, which is actually the main U. S. SKU is an easy dropper format. So that was installed about two years ago. So we have plenty of capacity and also we have capacity on our glass bottle line as well. Very clear. Thank you very much. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments. Thank you for your questions and we are happy to present our Q2 results and we will be back again when we have Q3. Thank you.