Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ:VTRS) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Rajiv Malik: Glen, after several quarters, I can say that we have seen — I’m not — we have seen perhaps a longer stretch of stability after so many years, I would say. And I don’t see any trend at the moment because it’s a generic business that plan. It’s both demand and supply. And at this point of time, is that we see some still supply disruptions going on, on some key molecules and key products. And it’s about your own portfolio, your own ability to supply and basically the flexibility in the supply to sometimes respond to the market needs. And that’s what I think we have set for ourselves, and that’s got giving us a stability. And I don’t see at the moment in the environment, some more trends which we should be concerned about.

Operator: Our next question comes from Jason Gerberry, Bank of America.

Jason Gerberry : Thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to inquire about the inflationary pressures on cost of goods that was flagged last quarter. It appears like either that was maybe not realized this quarter because of mix or perhaps there were some other offsets. Really curious more so just to think about how those inflationary pressures, do you feel like you may see those manifest in 4Q or into next year? That would be helpful. Just some of your peers have flagged inflationary pressures as well in cost of goods. So just wondering if you can level set? Thanks.

Sanjeev Narula: Yes. So Jason, thank you for the question. So we had anticipated inflation pressure, and we’ve kind of talked about that when we made our plan give the guidance to that. We’re managing our costs very well. So the impact is still there for inflation. And in this quarter, we have an inflation impact, but it is less than what we had anticipated. So clearly, our teams are doing a great job in managing the cost. And you can see that reflected in our gross margin, which is coming better than we expected. And we’ve actually raised the full year metrics to 58.75% on the strength of mix and us managing the cost, including inflation, better than what we had anticipated.

Operator: Our next question comes from Ash Verma, UBS.

Ash Verma : Thanks for taking my question. So on emerging markets, can you elaborate the dynamic here a little bit? You mentioned customer buying patterns impacting 3Q? I didn’t hear you saying that you’re going to expect to get to the outlook that you had for the emerging market, although I heard that for other geographies? And second one, I just wanted to understand the FX impact. So 3Q revenue saw a $7 million headwind, but you’re lowering your 2023, midpoint by $250 million. Is this all concentrated in just 4Q alone? Thanks.

Rajiv Malik: I think on emerging market, some of our key brands, Lyrica, Zoloft, Effexor region, some of the brands have been performing pretty well. Turkey — and also emerging Asia, we call it, this is geographies like Thailand and [indiscernible] and all those countries put together. They have performed above expectations. And I see this trend continue. I mean I see emerging markets well under track for mid-single-digit growth, year-over-year growth, driven on the strength of their portfolio, diversity and markets where we are seeing that confidence. Sanjeev?

Sanjeev Narula: Yes. Yes. So Ash, on the FX, a couple of comments. So what’s going on in the three currencies? So 70% of our business is non-U.S. dollar denominated. 50% comes from three currencies, which is the euro, Japanese yen and Chinese RMB. What was going on until about September as you could probably track that. Dollar had sense against the Chinese RMB and Japanese yen. And then euro was favorable to what we had assumed. But September onwards, the euro started weakening with all the Fed action that was going on. So whatever the offset that we were seeing in the first half of the year went away. So you see the impact is much bigger now starting September in fourth quarter than we had anticipated, and that’s what we are reflecting in our full year guidance, assuming the October 8 stands.

So it’s all three currencies. It’s all FX and operationally exactly in line with what we had anticipated. And you saw that we reaffirmed our guidance on EBITDA and free cash flow absorbing the FX impact.