Ladies and gentlemen good morning and welcome to CSL's full year results call for fiscal 2020. It's Mark Dehring speaking. Joining me on the line is Paul Perreault, CSL's Chief Executive Officer, and David Lamont, CSL's Chief Financial Officer. As with past practice, Paul will be providing an overview of the results and operations. David will provide some additional detail on the financials. We'll move over into Q&A. Look, with a view to giving everyone an opportunity to ask a question, come Q&A, could you please limit your questions to two? If you do have further questions, you are, of course, welcome to rejoin the queue. Please note, this briefing is being webcast. Lastly, before we start, I draw your attention to the forward statement disclaimer contained in the slide deck. I'll now pass you over to Paul Perreault. Paul?
Thank you Mark. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today to review CSL's full year results for 2020. First, I will take you through an overview of the results and the highlights, and then I'll hand over to David, who will provide more detail on the financials. I'll conclude the presentation with an update on the outlook for 2021. We would be, as Mark said, happy to take your questions at the end. Just before I go into the results, I'd like to take this opportunity to reflect on really the devastating impact of COVID-19 across the globe. As the pandemic continues to spread, all of us are experiencing the impact, both at work and at home. Without question, our daily life and our daily routines, and those of our loved ones, have been altered, and we're all adjusting rapidly.
Whilst the pandemic is still an evolving situation, I want to assure you that the health and safety of our employees, patients, and donors remain our top priority at CSL. As a business, we understand the need to be agile and adapt to the evolving environment that is COVID. I have to say that the CSL employees have responded to that call. They have been agile, resilient, and really focused on making sure that we continue to deliver on our promise to patients. As I move into fiscal year 2020, I am pleased to report that CSL has delivered another strong year. Revenue is up 9% at constant currency, and that profit after tax was up 17% at constant currency. This is an excellent result, given our performance was so strong in the previous financial year.
I believe that this result is a reflection of our focus on the strategy, the execution, and delivering on the promise to provide innovative medicines to patients around the world and to protect public health. Now more than ever, our patients and at-risk populations need a continuous, reliable supply of medicines, and we will continue to work to support them in every way we can. Some of the highlights include our largest franchise in immunoglobulins, which has performed exceptionally well, with Privigen up 20% and Hizentra up 34%. This is really a testament to our ability to consistently deliver our therapies to meet the growing demand across the globe. The successful evolution of our hemophilia portfolio continues on track, with IDELVION up 25% and AFSTYLA sales up 21%.
We transitioned to our own distribution model in China, which you are all well aware of. Seqirus delivered on its product differentiation strategy with strong profit growth driven by influenza sales, which were up 21%. Moving on to slide four, CSL Behring recorded overall sales growth of 8% for fiscal year 2020 at constant currency. Immunoglobulins was a standout, up 22%. albumin was down due to the change in our distribution model in China, which was in line with the guidance which we gave you at the beginning of the last fiscal year. I'll go into more detail on each of these shortly. In terms of the geographic split, the pie chart on the right shows the broad global reach of CSL Behring's activities with our two key markets in North America and Europe.
All regions recorded strong double-digit growth, the exception being Asia-Pac, which was impacted by the change in our distribution model. Immunoglobulins on slide five now. Our IG portfolio continues as the standout performer and our largest franchise, with just over AUD 4 billion in revenue. Despite the challenges associated with COVID-19, demand remains extremely strong, and we have achieved above-market growth for our IG portfolio. Privigen and Hizentra grew 20% and 34%, respectively. Contributing factors which are driving demand include increased usage for chronic conditions such as primary immune deficiency, the success of our CIDP indications for Privigen and Hizentra, and the expanding utilization of IG for the treatment of secondary immune deficiency. SID growth is primarily driven by expanding immune modulator use in hematological cancer patients. The fastest-growing area of the IG market is the subcutaneous segment, which has outpaced IVIG in the market in terms of year-over-year growth.
Hizentra continues to build its leadership position, capturing more than 60% of all subcutaneous patient starts. This has further accelerated with Hizentra being the only Sub-Q product with a CIDP label after being granted orphan exclusivity for this indication in the U.S . As we move and think about Hizentra's uniqueness, it allows the patients the convenience of self-administration to treat both PID and CIDP in the home setting. It also assists patients to better control their disease state within the current lockdown measures. We are seeing early signs of COVID driving increased usage of Hizentra, given the benefits of home administration. Now on slide six and Albumin. Albumin sales grew in all of our key markets with the exception of China, where we transitioned to our own distribution model as was flagged earlier.
We achieved what we classify as intercontinental or emerging markets volume growth of 28% with 24% growth in Europe. In North America, volume and demand was robust with a 6% growth. The transition to the new distribution model in China is now complete, and I'm proud to say there was no impact on the supply to patients. Our albumin sales decrease was in line with our guidance, albeit the underlying demand in the market continues to be robust. The new distribution model classes CSL as a tier 1 distributor, which provides for an improved participation in the value in the supply chain and the ability to work directly with clinicians and hospitals. During the fiscal year of 2020, we received Chinese regulatory approval for Alburex manufactured at Kankakee. This will increase our capacity to service the China market. Moving to slide seven in hemophilia.
Our hemophilia portfolio has continued to evolve with strong growth in the recombinant hemophilia products, which saw total sales up 8%. IDELVION performed exceptionally well. Sales were up 25% with strong growth profiles in U.S., Switzerland, and Japan. IDELVION has unique features and benefits relative to the existing therapies that include high factor levels, 14-day dosing, and now 21-day dosing in the EU, Switzerland, and Japan. It really is a transformational product and has become the standard of care for hemophilia B patients. Many patients are switching to IDELVION from other recombinant products and plasma-derived products, whilst also converting from on-demand therapy to prophylaxis therapy. The hemophilia A market is extremely competitive. You're all familiar with that market. AFSTYLA, however, achieved a 21% sales growth with patient switching and the execution of retention strategies that our sales force has been delivering.
Looking forward, we expect to launch in new markets over the next 12 to 18 months. Our plasma-derived coag portfolio has several moving parts. Whilst the plasma-derived coag portfolio declined 3% overall, we did see some modest growth in our von Willebrand sales with Humate-P. Plasma-derived factor VIII, however, is under pressure as new products come into what is a very competitive market. Our factor IX product, MONONINE, is also seeing some competition, but from our own product, IDELVION. We are seeing some cannibalization occurring in the plasma-derived segment for MONONINE. On to slide eight in specialty products. Overall, specialty product sales grew 10%. Perioperative bleeding was also up 10%, primarily driven by strong demand in KCENTRA and our fibrinogen concentrate products used for the treatment of acute bleeding. KCENTRA remains a solid performer.
KCENTRA continues to penetrate further into the existing large hospitals and expanded into other regional accounts. Whilst there's been speculation surrounding the impact of COVID on the use of some pharmaceutical products, to date, we really haven't seen this. KCENTRA is recognized as the gold standard for warfarin reversal with its product profile of small volume, fast infusion. This appeals to practitioners in stopping or preventing bleeds. The other specialty products category grew 9% with HAEGARDA and BERINERT driving sales, moderated by decline in our wound healing portfolio. In the U.S., HAEGARDA continues to play a significant role in the prophylactic treatment of hereditary angioedema. Despite new competition, our patient numbers continue to grow. Moving forward, we expect to see expanded use of HAEGARDA, given its strong clinical profile in significantly reducing attacks and breakthrough edema.
There are no longer any supply constraints as of June 2020 after we increased capacity over the last year. In the U.S., the team worked closely with healthcare providers to ensure any patient initiating HAEGARDA would maintain an uninterrupted supply of product with no cases of patients having to stop therapy since launch. BERINERT growth was largely driven by demand in Canada. I'd like to note here that we anticipate the Canadian Blood Services will list HAEGARDA in the first half of 2021. We expect patient switches to HAEGARDA from BERINERT when it becomes available. IXIARO has seen strong growth of 20% after the supply issues we encountered in fiscal year 2019 was addressed. Moving to slide nine, talk a little bit about the plasma collections. At CSL, we do operate one of the world's largest and most efficient plasma collection networks.
In fiscal year 2020, we opened another 40 centers in the U.S., with U.S. centers now totaling 261 as of June 2020. We have eight centers in Germany, three in Hungary, and five in China, giving us grand total of 277 collection centers across the globe. As well as opening new centers, we continually look at ways to do things better and more efficiently through our network. If we move to the next slide, we talk a little bit about the COVID impact on collections. Before COVID, the supply-demand status for immunoglobulins was already tight, with plasma collection being the critical element of that dynamic and why we were expanding our centers rapidly. The pandemic has only further added to the tightness in the market.
Collection of normal source plasma, the raw material for many of our therapies, has been challenging during the pandemic, a time of volatility and uncertainty. Like the industry, we felt the adverse impact on collections, experiencing a 5% reduction in collected plasma volumes in fiscal year 2020 when compared to fiscal year 2019. In addition, the cost of collecting plasma has been under pressure by a number of factors, primarily increased hygiene procedures. When you think about the number of masks, when you think about the cleaning efforts that we're going through, the social distancing, separating beds within the plasma centers, these hygiene procedures are costing additional money. Additional marketing efforts as individual areas have different COVID restrictions, and really trying to get people back out and get those lapsed donors back into the center.
Support payments to our frontline plasma collection staff, who have been brilliant in really ensuring that we're continuing as a critical infrastructure to keep those plasma collection centers open. I did note at our April briefing that we were listed as a critical infrastructure company, and so are our manufacturing sites. Currently, our network of centers are fully operational despite all the challenges that we're facing. To mitigate against the pandemic, we have implemented a wide range of initiatives to protect staff and donors, as well as optimize plasma collections. As I said, we have included a number of things including stringent protocols that require temperature checks, further questionnaires, further expanded hygiene measures, and as I said, the social distancing.
We're able to provide our staff and donors and key vendors with a letter of safe passage, so that if there are restrictions in terms of getting out, they have a safe passage letter which allow them to get to the donation center. The FDA has reduced the inventory hold from 60 to 45 days, meaning the industry is able to release plasma earlier in the cycle. The historical investment we've made in our manufacturing capabilities and collections network has meant we've been able to build a modest reservoir of finished product, which we've been able to call on. We have increased our advertising and promotional programs to encourage new donors to come into our centers and donate. Recently, the industry representative body, PPTA, voiced their concern with the difficulties manufacturers are facing in the collection of plasma.
In particular, they are working to remove regulatory barriers to enhance the ability to collect plasma. We support the approach that the PPTA is undertaking. In summary, the challenges will continue, we have many initiatives underway to mitigate the risk. Once the situation subsides, we believe there will be an opportunity to accelerate plasma collections. Moving on to slide 11 in Seqirus. When we founded this business in 2015, we outlined the strategy of how we intended to turn a loss-making business around and set some long-term financial goals. I know none of you ever doubted we would get there. We did target AUD 1 billion in revenue with an accompanying EBIT margin of 20%. These objectives were largely underpinned by manufacturing efficiencies and a suite of differentiated products that we expected to continue to develop and to expand by fiscal year 2020.
I'm really pleased to announce that the Seqirus team has exceeded these goals. They've performed exceptionally well with yet another impressive year. This year, Seqirus reported revenue in excess of AUD 1.3 billion, which is 11% revenue growth on EBIT of over AUD 260 million with a 20% margin. This reflects a 74% increase on fiscal year 2019. Breaking it down further, seasonal influenza vaccines grew 21% with the continued shift towards the higher value and differentiated products like our quadrivalent Flucelvax and Fluad, the adjuvanted vaccine aimed at the elderly market. Whilst the U.S. is our major market, accounting for 62% of total revenue, there has been strong growth in other key geographic markets, with governments seeking to secure manufacturing capacity to protect their populations against influenza in the midst of the COVID pandemic.
Pandemic sales continue to perform well with reservation fees up 11%, largely attributable to new contracts in Europe and Canada. Moving on to some of the operating highlights within Seqirus on slide 12. These include the ongoing shift in the portfolio to the differentiated products, as I just mentioned, which continues to gain traction across the markets. Product supply plans for the upcoming Northern Hemisphere season remain on track, and we've increased manufacturing to the extent possible given the timing of increased demand within this year's production cycle. Critical operations have been maintained despite the COVID pandemic, and we're extending our normal manufacturing campaign timeframe, enabling additional doses to be delivered through November and December. You may remember at the half, I made reference to a growing body of real-world evidence that demonstrates the enhanced effectiveness for both FLUCELVAX and FLUAD. This continues to be the case.
This real-world evidence does drive volume uptake and inclusion in national immunization programs. This leaves us well-placed, to be in a position to supply up to 60 million doses in the U.S. COVID-19 has created a significant surge in demand for influenza vaccines. Governments and the like around the world look to vaccinate their populations against the flu. I would say that they're worried, of course, that the hospitals could get overrun with both COVID and influenza, which would not be a good position for the healthcare systems. Looking forward, good progress has been made on the expansion projects currently underway at the Liverpool site and the Holly Springs facility. These types of projects have never been more critical as they are now. I'm pleased to report that the projects are progressing well, with Liverpool expected to be operational by Northern Hemisphere 2021-2022, and Holly Springs operational Northern Hemisphere 2022-2023.
On slide 13, finishing up on Seqirus FLUCELVAX, cell-based vaccine produced out of Holly Springs. All strains are now manufactured using cell-specific seed, FLUCELVAX was launched in the EU, we attained the approval for expanded pediatric use in the U.S. and Europe, which will commence in 2021. In terms of FLUAD, we retain the preferred recommendation for the 65 and older market in both the U.K. and Australia, recent launch of the 65 plus QIV in Australia with approvals in the U.S., EU and U.K. AFLURIA, we continue to expand our geographic reach with the approval to launch our QIV AFLURIA product in Argentina and Germany. I'll move now to R&D and the highlights on slide 14. Before we start, I'd like to take the opportunity to announce that our annual R&D Day briefing for 2020 will take place in late October.
Naturally, this will be a virtual event. Mark will be in touch soon with you on the details of this event. Look forward to having you all there. Innovation is a hallmark of CSL's strategy. During the past 12 months, we've been extremely active in undertaking a range of research and development initiatives to bolster and deepen our pipeline underpinning the company's future growth. There's an abundance of milestones to discuss. In the interest of time, I'll only take a few of the highlights off the slides. Beginning with immunology, in June we announced positive results for the phase II trial for garadacimab. The data release showed that the study met its primary endpoint, demonstrating reduced number of attacks compared to placebo in patients with hereditary angioedema. The study also showed that garadacimab was well-tolerated. In the 200 mg cohort showed a 99% reduction in attacks.
Further, the FDA has granted orphan drug status to garadacimab for the prevention of bradykinin-mediated angioedema, which includes both hereditary and non-hereditary angioedema. In hematology, we recently announced the decision to acquire the late-stage gene therapy candidate for the treatment of hemophilia B from uniQure. This acquisition gives CSL the exclusive global rights to commercialize an adeno-associated virus gene therapy program, AMT-061, or etranacogene dezaparvovec. The program is currently in phase III and could be one of the first gene therapies to provide long-term benefits to patients with hem B and a potential launch in 2022. We've been working with the hemophilia community for more than three decades, and we are so excited about bringing the benefits of this therapy to patients. In cardiovascular and metabolic, CSL112.
I know that I had mentioned at the half year that we would give you an update at full year results with the futility analysis. Although some of you may have thought that the trial might not have had the futility analysis because we suspended the trial briefly during some of the major COVID outbreaks, we'd already had enough patients to assess. The first futility analysis that was completed by the independent Data Monitoring Committee, which as the name suggests, is an independent body, the committee reviewed the study data and unanimously recommended that the trial should continue as planned. This doesn't mean necessarily that the trial will be successful, but clearly the independent committee thought that it was more than worthwhile to continue the trial based on the data they saw. To add further context, there are currently just under 10,000 patients enrolled to date.
We're slightly ahead of the projected recruitment rate since the restart following the COVID-related trial pause. To date, just over half the sites have reopened, with all sites scheduled to reopen over the next six months. Furthermore, all countries have been approved for trial restart. In transplant, we recently exercised our rights to acquire Vitaeris, which we've been partnering with since 2017 to expedite the development of clazakizumab, an anti-interleukin-6 monoclonal antibody for the treatment of chronic antibody-mediated rejection, or AMR, in kidney transplant recipients. Clazakizumab joins our portfolio of other products in late-stage development to address significant unmet needs in the transplant area. In influenza vaccines, we'll be ramping up activity on the adjuvanted QIV cell-based program in 2021, with phase II studies to commence at the end of 2021.
We have now completed the preparatory work, which included the manufacture of our first full-scale GMP batch of adjuvanted QIV cell-based vaccine at Holly Springs. As you can see from the slide, I've only touched on a few of the highlights, but we'll be providing more detail of other programs at our forthcoming R&D briefing in October. On slide 15, I know that many of you have asked about our response to COVID and specifically now on our activity directed towards COVID. Very deliberately, we have focused our energies on matching our science with our technical capabilities and facilities around the world. We're currently working on a number of programs across our R&D platforms to prevent and treat COVID. We've entered into a partnership with University of Queensland and CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, to accelerate, manufacture, and distribute the vaccine should it be approved.
We are one of the founding members of CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance to develop a potential plasma-derived hyperimmune therapy for the treatment of serious complications from COVID in the U.S. and Europe. We expect patients in the phase III trial to begin this month. We are working on a similar plasma product for the Australian market to treat people with serious complications of COVID, to be known as COVID Immune Globulin, that is under development at Broadmeadows. We had 500 wonderful donors through our partnership with the Australian Red Cross, and we've already produced the first batch of that medicine. We've also formed a partnership with SAB Biotherapeutics to advance and deliver a novel immunotherapy targeting COVID. Our program with garadacimab in patients suffering from respiratory distress with COVID is the other program, and we've already enrolled 19 patients in that trial.
Onto slide 16 and the COVID-19 summary. I guess, there's a few things to say. We are always concerned with our people, and safeguarding the health of our people continues to be our top priority. We need to keep our 27,000 staff working in more than 40 countries that we operate in. Wherever possible, as employees who have been able to perform their work remotely have been doing so. In terms of innovation, many trials were paused, and we needed to prioritize patient safety during the pandemic. To make sure that we retained the integrity of those clinical trials. Given the multi-year nature of the trials, we expect an opportunity to make up for lost time as the COVID pandemic recedes.
When it comes to COVID-19, whether it's preventative with a vaccine or preventing progression with a hyperimmune, or using a monoclonal antibody like garadacimab, we have taken on projects we think make sense, both scientifically and that fit our capability. Demand remains strong right across our portfolio, especially for IG and influenza. Despite the COVID challenges, there's been no interruption in our supply chain. Our group within supply and logistics have done a terrific job in getting the product where it needs to go and prioritizing our life-saving, life-extending therapies, in the shipments and getting passage across countries and state lines. In terms of supply, as I've mentioned, plasma collections have been adversely impacted. However, the business is doing everything it possibly can to ensure patient access to these important medicines. In our financial position on the balance sheet, our liquidity levels, leverage ratios, credit ratings remain strong.
Our prudent balance sheet management affords us flexibility irrespective of the state of the global economy. Earlier this year, we bolstered our capital position with an AUD 750 million private placement raise. I'm going to now hand over to David to go through the financials. David?
Thanks Paul. Good morning everyone. As Paul said at the outset, CSL has delivered another strong result for financial year 2020. On slide 18, you will see that our reported net profit after tax has increased from AUD 1.919 billion -AUD 2.103 billion, an increase of some 10%. On a constant currency basis, the net profit after tax was some AUD 2.247 billion, an increase of 17% after adjusting for a currency headwind of some $144 million. The FX headwind is attributable to the US dollar strengthening against multiple currencies. There were also some one-off effects, items affecting the results, which I've detailed in the panel on the right-hand side of the slide. As Paul has already mentioned, our transition to our new business model in China is completed.
We also had a one-off in other income related to a legal settlement in our favor, and we also adopted AASB 16, the new leasing standard. Looking at the financials in more detail on slide 19. Total revenue was up 9% on a constant currency basis to AUD 9.295 billion. Gross profit of AUD 5.338 billion at constant currency was up 12%, reflecting 140 basis point improvement in gross margin.
Earnings before interest and tax was up 15% on a constant currency basis, with an associated 170 basis point improvement on prior year in the EBIT margin. This obviously flows down to net profit after tax, which was up some 17% at constant currency. Cash flow from operations was a very healthy AUD 2.488 billion, an improvement of some 51%, driven partly by the change in our distribution model in China and also reflects an improvement in cash management across the business.
Return on invested capital was 21.6%, and our earnings per share was also up some 17% on a constant currency basis. The final dividend declared is $1.07 per share, bringing the total for the year to $2.02 per share, an increase of some 9%. For an Australian shareholder, this translates to approximately AUD 2.95, which is up some 11%. Turning to the segment results on slide 20.
For CSL Behring, total revenue was up 9%, gross profit up 11%, and earnings before interest and tax up 11%, all at constant currency. This growth reflects the strong demand for our medicines. Reported EBIT margin suggests a compression. However, on a constant currency basis, it actually expanded some 80 basis points. For Seqirus, total revenue was up 11%, with earnings before interest and tax, as Paul has mentioned earlier, up an impressive 74%, reflecting the success of the ongoing product differentiation strategy.
These drivers are reflected in the gross profit, with an increase of 17% at constant currency and more importantly, a margin uptick of some 270 basis points. As Paul mentioned earlier, the business has exceeded the long-range financial targets that were set when Seqirus was first formed and loss-making. This really is a great turnaround story. Slide 21 shows a table of the group's expenses with the changes for the period shown on a constant currency basis. Walking through each line item. Firstly, research and development, an increase of just over AUD 100 million or 12%. It is important to note, we are investing for the future. In 2020, costs were predominantly driven by the phase III trial for CSL112, the gene therapy programs related to CSL200, and then of course, our R&D efforts in responding to COVID-19 pandemic.
Sales and marketing expenses were up a modest 5%, while general and admin costs increased some 8%. Finance costs were down AUD 28 million, arising from year-on-year variations in the Swiss debt costs, which were partly offset by the adoption of AASB 16, the leasing standard. Finally, the group effective tax rate was relatively steady at 18.3%. It is expected, however, that the rate will increase to around 20%-22% in FY 2021 as the investment incentive that we have in Bern in Switzerland comes to an end. Moving on to slide 21. Here we have a chart of our inventory over the past five years and the various components that make up our total inventory. What you see in the chart represents around about nine months of product supply in the pipeline, which is split fairly evenly between raw materials, work in progress, and finished goods.
The major point to highlight here is our inventory levels have increased as we have continued to produce for the increasing demand for our products. However, as a percentage of revenue exhibited by the red line across the bars, you can see that our inventory to sales level has remained stable despite the growth in inventory overall. This is a measure of efficiency and the balance sheet optimization. Turning to the next slide and capital expenditure on slide 23. As you can see, we have continued to increase our capital spend as we build new manufacturing capacity at all of our facilities to support product launches and meet future demand in growth. To date, CapEx has been skewed towards growth projects, with total spend growing in line with sales growth as shown by the red line.
Looking forward for FY 2021, we expect total CapEx to be around $1.6 billion. If you turn to slide 24, you will see some of the key capital projects that we have in front of us. As we evolve and grow as a global leader, we will be ongoing requirement to continue to invest in our ERP systems and processes to support our people and patients. This will, however, deliver process improvements on multiple levels in the years to come. The expansion of our base fractionation capabilities in Broadmeadows, Marburg, and Kankakee, where we have harmonized design and processes across each site. We also continue to invest heavily in expanding our finishing capacity. There are additional IG modules underway at Bern. At Lengnau, construction is expected to be fully completed in financial year 2021.
As you also know, we entered into a long-term partnership with Thermo Fisher which will optimize the utilization of the site. Continuing investment in our new plasma collection centers as we also ready ourselves for the return to a more normalized world post-COVID. We also continue to invest in facilities to support CSL112 production in anticipation of a successful trial outcome. For Seqirus, as noted earlier, the more immediate capital programs include the fill and finish projects at both Holly Springs and the Liverpool sites. I'll finish here and hand back to Paul who will take you through the company's profit outlook for FY 2021. Over to you Paul.
Thank you David. Turning to slide 25, I'll make a few comments on our outlook for 2021 before we take the questions. We do expect strong demand for our plasma and recombinant therapies to continue. Seqirus is expected to continue to benefit from the differentiated product portfolio and strong demand for influenza vaccines, driven in part by governments wanting to protect their populations from contracting both the influenza virus and/or the COVID virus. Sales of albumin are expected to normalize following the successful transition to the new business model in China. In relation to plasma, COVID restrictions are expected to restrain our ability to collect plasma and add to the overall cost of collections. However, we do have multiple initiatives underway to mitigate that impact.
Our R&D response to COVID, as well as our new R&D initiatives, will put upward pressure on R&D expense, should still be within the 10%-11% of revenue envelope as we previously guided you to. In terms of guidance for 2021, we expect revenue growth in the range of 6%-10% over fiscal year 2020. Net profit after tax is expected to be approximately AUD 2.1 billion-AUD 2.265 billion in constant currency, which implies a growth of up to 8%. Our forward-looking statements are subject to the usual disclaimers as mentioned at the start of the presentation. With that, we would be happy to take your questions. Mark back to you.
Good. Thank you Paul. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take questions now. Operator, if I could ask you to open the lines up. We have Chris Cooper online from Goldman Sachs. Chris, if you'd go ahead with your question, please.
Thank you for taking my question. I'll keep the two m arks it sound you're at the right side of you, so j ust on plasma collections, I'll stick to plasma collections for both. Volumes were down 5% in fiscal 2020. On my numbers, that implies around 40% down in the fourth quarter. I think that's around the level most of us had expected to see. I guess firstly, is that right? Secondly, can you just give us some sense of how that's trended since the start of July, please?
Thanks Chris. Look, I think you're a bit high on that estimate. I would say you're probably closer to the high 20s to 30% versus 40% in the last quarter. What we've seen since the June time period is collections in July were trending upward. They're continuing to trend upward in August, although not as much as people had expected due to the fact that there's been more outbreaks of COVID with hotspots in the U.S. We are seeing a return, we are seeing improvements in plasma collection, but clearly, we're going to have to watch that extremely carefully.
Got it. Same topic but different question. Just around the mitigations that the industry has. You've talked to utilization of inventory. We've seen the FDA's already intervened once. Clearly no one has a crystal ball here, but there's certainly a scenario that collections continue to remain depressed for some time yet. How many months would that need to persist for before continuity of end product supply becomes a genuine concern in the second half and beyond?
Well, I think where you will start to see it is in the second half, if it continues in that vein, and we've obviously modeled a lot of different scenarios. The one thing I would say is, yes, it is an IG issue, because that was the demand driver for why we collect more plasma. It's key to note that all of our other plasma-derived therapies and our recombinants and influenza vaccine are not impacted on the supply side by this. We still have strong demand in all of our therapeutic areas, and we need to manage the IG. You know that we had built some inventory over the past couple of years, and we were able to step in at a couple of years ago when other competitors had might have stumbled a bit, and we still have some inventory to work with.
The main thing is to make sure that CSL patients are taken care of, and we take care of as many patients as possible. Even though we have some additional inventory, we're going to have to manage that very carefully, because if you put it all out in two months, you're going to be running on fumes a bit. We've talked about that before. We'll be responsible about how we do that as a company for the customers and patients that we serve.
Thanks, Chris. Next question comes from Lyanne Harrison at Bank of America.
Hi good morning all and thank you for taking my questions. Just to follow on the vein of Chris and his questions on collection centers. Just wanting to understand, we noticed that CSL has made some changes in donor fees of late. Is those changes making a meaningful impact? My follow-up question on that is, when you talk about cost pressures, whether it be donor fees and other things that you're implementing within the center, what sort of guidance can you give us in relation to growth margins for financial year 2021, taking those into account?
Thanks Lyanne. Look, I think if you look at the gross margin, particularly, I think you'll see that there are other areas where we've got some upward pressure on margin. I would expect that the gross margins would be stable to maybe slightly down. We have other areas. If you look at the total amount of specialty products, you look at the balance of albumin and IG, you look at the manufacturing side that's there. Clearly, we have seen about a 9% increase in costs within the plasma collection area overall, and that's with all of the safety measures we've had to take, the supplies, the masks, the thermometers, the areas that we're looking at. We're also looking at ways to mitigate that, through the centers and through the rest of the business.
We're a responsible company, and we understand that we have to take responsible actions in terms of managing all the expenses across the business. It's all part of CSL. It's not that we rely on one area of the business for managing those costs and margins. I think, a good guide would be to say that you'll see some stable margins this year because there are strains on the supply chain and there are strains within the supply. That's the way I would take a look at it.
Sorry, just to clarify, that's stable margins for the Behring business or the CSL business as a whole, offset by Seqirus?
No, I would say for the total business.
Okay.
Again, we have a range in terms of our guidance too, in terms of revenue and profit, and that's because there are still some unknowns. We felt confident in making sure that the market actually had guidance because we feel confident in our ability to manage it.
Okay. If we could come back to that first part of my question, whether the donor fee changes is making a meaningful impact on collection volumes to date?
Meaningful is a relative term.
Yeah.
I would say that we're staying competitive with our competitors, and it is helping, but it's not the key driver. A lot of the driver right now, Lyanne, is really the local and state requirements of people that can or can't get to the centers because of the social distancing that's going on in the center. The donor fees assist, but I wouldn't say it's the key driver. There are many other things we're doing in terms of social media, marketing, that we've implemented this year as new environment for our donors to get access to the CSL Plasma centers.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thanks Lyanne. Our next question comes from David Low at JP Morgan. Go ahead David.
Thanks very much. Paul, we've touched on plasma, and obviously there's a fair bit of uncertainty, but do you foresee at this stage that we are moving into an environment where demand is likely to exceed supply across the whole industry?
I think, David, as you look at where plasma collections are, I would say that we've done as well as could be expected in the industry, given our efficiencies and the scale that we have. I would think that there's going to be pressure on the supply side, for sure. Demand is still there. Demand is still strong for IG. Depending on the recovery rates with the plasma collections, we'll have to see exactly what that means across the industry. I don't have visibility over all the competitors, we really need to check with them, I'm sure you have, in terms of what they think they're doing. Yeah, you look at that and you say, okay, it's clear that we've had strong demand for IG. That hasn't stopped just because of COVID, right?
Patients are still in need, and IG is a very unique and helpful therapy to treat these patients. yeah, the demand's there.
In the past, when there's been shortages, we've seen rationing, and rationing has tended to have a sort of a protracted impact on demand as clinicians get used to a new set of rules. Do you see much risk of that occurring in the current environment?
Look, I don't think so, David. Actually, I don't think that's a completely accurate statement. It has waned the ability or the desire of physicians to prescribe. The underlying demand of patients is still there. Demand hasn't gone away. The treatment has been curtailed because physicians are worried about the supply. The demand is there. Demand is not directed by prescribing physicians. Demand is really what the patients need, and these therapies are in high demand because of the polyclonal nature of this antibody that is so useful in the immune system.
Good. Thank you David. Our next question comes from Sean Laaman at Morgan Stanley.
Good morning Paul. Hope you're well. Paul, would you hazard to give us a sense of guidance of what you expect on plasma collections, in terms of what's being built into the fiscal 2021 outlook, would be my first question.
Well, Sean, I think you can probably see that on the NPAT side, if you look at the high end of the range, it's not in the double-digit range, there's going to be pressure. It's IG related, as you can imagine. It's not specialty products. It's not recombinants. It's not influenza. We're working on a host of COVID initiatives as well. From a plasma perspective and the guidance there, we're running scenarios every day, every day we're wrong, right? We're either above or below every day when we run these scenarios because it's a moving number. We have baselines, we have downside cases, and we have upside cases, as you might imagine. We know this business extremely well, and we're doing everything we can to make sure that we're driving plasma collections.
We're also working with the U.S. government on convalescent plasma, which gives us more opportunity to talk to donors about donating plasma for other reasons, and that is for rare diseases. There's some new donors coming into the system that we're also looking to initiate into the CSL Plasma family. It is a moving target. I wish I could be more specific for you, Sean, but I would take a look at our guidance and know that there's a range. A lot of that is in the supply chain, in terms of the uncertainty as we look at additional, potentially, incentives from government, in terms of payments for unemployment, et cetera. We still don't know what that's going to look like. Certainly, we think that had an impact in the last quarter of the year as well.
As the governments put out the payments for folks that were unemployed. The unemployment rate remains high, we do believe that as COVID starts to pass and things develop, that we'll see a return to plasma donors coming into the center. I would caution that I have seen some reports, I do read all your reports, not just yours, Sean, but all of them. It's not going to be the flip of a switch. I would just caution people to think about the fact that this does take effort and time to get people to return back into plasma donation. Even though you might have a high unemployment rate, it doesn't mean that there'll be an immediate return of these plasma donors to donations. We know that from practical experience.
For instance, if you had to shut a center for two or three weeks, you start to lose some of that donor base, and then you have to rebuild that donor base with new donors and getting those lapsed donors back in. It would be no different under this scenario. I think we're well-placed to address that.
Thank you Paul, and one follow-up, if I may. Just with respect to, I guess, for want of a better term, the China albumin catch-up in fiscal 2021, any sense on how that benefits growth in that outlook year?
Okay. I think, David, why don't you handle that? I think if you look at the AUD 340-ish.
Yeah
adjust for it. Go ahead David.
Yeah, no. Sean, we gave a range of AUD 340-AUD 370 as we thought was going to be the revenue impact. It came in at the low end of that, around about AUD 340. We've previously given you some indications that the pricing for Alburex into China, as you know, is a little bit higher than it is in other parts of the world. You should be thinking through, let's take our overall CSL Behring GP-type margin through, as part of that. There is a little bit of cost associated with delivering the product through the sales side of things, et cetera. The net impact then down at the, you should be able to apply a sort of 20% odd tax rate to that. If you work that through, you should be able to get pretty close to what the overall impact was.
Great. We're not too far away. Appreciate that color David. Thank you Paul.
Thanks, Sean.
Yeah. Thank you.
Next question comes from Andrew Goodsall at MST Marquee.
Oh, thanks very much for taking my question. Perhaps if I could just do a follow-up just on that albumin in China and just understand it. When you do, I guess, transition and we see that number come through, are we sort of talking about a couple of years' worth of growth, and any sort of current year growth on top of what you might have, I guess, forecast when you initially looked at year-on-year effect?
This is the beauty of doing this virtually. I wasn't sure whether Paul was jumping in. Let me say, the AUD 340-AUD 370 did factor in growth from the prior year.
Got it.
As part of that, if that helps. As Paul has mentioned, the underlying demand in China is still very robust. We're not seeing any difference in the usage patterns or demand for the product within China. Let's take it AUD 340-ish for this year, you would expect to still see some growth year-on-year.
Okay. A little bit of growth on that number.
Yeah.
Just walking forward, Paul, I know there's been a lot of press around Australia signing a letter of intent, perhaps, around the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine. Yeah. I know it's being sold that you guys are already locked in and loaded, and it's all happening. I guess I was just going to get your views on where that's at, and is there the prospect of a cost-plus type arrangement that would allow you to benefit somewhat from this?
Andrew, it's a bit early to be talking about cost and revenue from a product that hasn't gotten through the phase III clinical trial yet. I think that's a little bit premature. I can tell you that we're committed to the UQ vaccine. We certainly are in discussions with AZ and with the Australian Government around what is our ability to do more with the adenovirus vaccine. It could range from getting bulk material and doing fill finish to actually manufacturing, if that could be an opportunity and technically possible. There's still a lot to evaluate in that. We'll update you as we come along. Certainly, we're looking at all opportunities to try to help if we can. Realizing that UQ. We've been working on really since the end of January, and it is a priority for us to continue.
Clearly, we are in discussions to see what we can do to assist on the adenovirus vaccine.
Thank you.
Thank you Andrew. Our next question comes from Steve Wheen at Evans & Partners.
Yeah. Good morning Paul. I just wanted to go back to the commentary around the guidance. You've indicated that revenues at the top end could grow at 10%, we then padded 8%, and there's obviously margin implications there. I do notice that your effective tax rate steps up from 18.3% - 22%. If you take it above the tax line, it would suggest you're actually enhancing margins. At the profit before tax line, is there-
Yep
...other drivers here that I need to take into consideration to understand that move other than the increase in costs around plasma collection?
Look, I think that the increase in costs there, we are looking at the COVID investment, which could be anywhere between, call it, AUD 125 million-AUD 175 million, depending on the programs. You see, we have five different areas that we're investing in for COVID. This was in addition to our other R&D projects. We're still attempting to keep that all within that 10%-11% of sales. We're going to need to do what we need to do to make sure that we're successful and not slowing down advancements for delivery of either treatments or vaccination in the COVID space. That's an area that we need to think about, in terms of where we're investing. I mentioned, probably, on the cost side in terms of plasma collection with an uplift there. You're right, the tax rate is up, and that's another 2%.
Overall, I'd say that we're continuing to manage through. I think Seqirus is clearly looking good this year. The additional help that we'll get from Seqirus should also be flowing through.
There is an implied margin improvement, therefore, in FY 2021's guidance.
Well, look, as I said, I would say flattish is a good start because there's still a lot of unknowns. We've been upfront with guidance that there's a range because there are still some unknowns. The supply chain is still uncertain overall for the long term, through the course of the year. As I say, we're doing everything to mitigate that so that we can continue to drive additional IG production. If you look at the amount of plasma and you say, "Where were we?" You'll also know that if we continue to grow our associate product portfolio, which is perceived to be the case, we're going to be gaining margin on that as well. IDELVION is still to be launched in multiple countries. We're waiting on reimbursement approval in about 12 additional countries now for launch of IDELVION.
Look, there are things that have upward pressure, as I mentioned before, but there are still a lot of unknown costs and it really hinges a lot on plasma collection.
Right. My second question was just around MF59, and it is obviously integral to the University of Queensland vaccine attempt. Has there been interest elsewhere in the world from other candidates to your adjuvant?
Yes Steve. Absolutely. We've got 10 material transfer agreements with companies around the globe that are developing vaccines and looking at MF59 as an adjuvant. Those are mostly smaller biotech companies that have some novel vaccine candidates. Whether they'll be successful or not, I don't know. We have been supplying initial amounts for their research into their vaccine development as well.
Right. Thanks Paul.
Thank you Steve. Our next question comes from David Stanton at Jefferies.
Yes. Good morning, team, and thanks very much for taking my questions. If I could switch gears a little bit and talk to Seqirus in line with the last question. Look, what are the margin implications, positive or otherwise, from the rollout of FLUAD QUADRIVALENT in North America, or sorry, in U.S. in particular, in this upcoming flu season?
Look, Dave, thanks for the question. I think the implications are, FLUAD, as we have been able to generate more revenue from FLUAD, and it is gaining real-world effectiveness data as well as FLUCELVAX in terms of the elderly population. The pricing side of that has been strong because it is quadrivalent, so there is a bit of uplift there in terms of the margin.
Thank you.
margin on FLUAD QUADRIVALENT.
Sorry. Volume should lead to increased margin for the overall business, is basically what you're saying, yeah?
Sure.
Yep. Okay. Moving on, my second question. I'm interested that you say supply constraints will only face your IG product, given that historically I've always assumed that you sell close to as much albumin out of a given liter of plasma as you do IG. Can you comment around that going forward? Thank you.
Yeah, look, thanks. We have been producing a heck of a lot of plasma and the balance between IVIG and albumin has been pretty well in line. We've also been holding fraction V paste in anticipation of the approvals in China for Alburex, for instance, from Kankakee. We have different types of fraction V paste that we'll be able to utilize in the supply chain as we move forward. When we talk about balance, we've been thinking long-term, and I think we're in good shape there for this year on albumin to continue to drive some growth on the albumin side, even if there's some supply constraints on the raw material. Now, it could be different next year, in terms of the albumin, but we're looking to keep up.
Sorry. Just to follow up on that, just so I understand it, you're basically saying that you've got plenty of, I guess, raw or work in progress albumin, but less on the IG side. Is that the way I should think about it simplistically?
Yeah, that's correct, because we didn't have the Alburex approved out of Kankakee, but we were producing paste in anticipation. We weren't actually finishing the product last year. We did build some paste inventory that we can now utilize as the approvals come through.
Understood. Thank you.
Next question comes from Gretel Janu at Credit Suisse. Go ahead Gretel.
Thanks. Good morning. Just firstly on IG pricing. What growth did you see in FY 2020? Do you expect above average pricing growth in FY 2021 just given the increased tightened markets?
Look, thanks Gretel. I think when you take a look at IG and the price mix, we had a good increase this past year in terms of pricing across the board. I'd say in the U.S. it was more CPI type increases. We've talked about that before, as there's a lot of contracts in different areas. When you look at the mix and volume between Hizentra and Privigen, and you see the growth in Hizentra, which is at a higher price than Privigen, you can see that we've done some shift mix there that results in some pricing. I think that everybody wants to jump to supply-demand and pricing, and I think we just have to be careful.
There's three executive orders and a fourth one supposedly to be signed with international price indexing on the 24th of August, which I think we're all getting a bit executive order fatigue, because there's some of these that still have to have a long way to be implemented, in my view. I'm not sure how the IPI will happen. You don't want to draw a lightning rod to that either, and we're not going to take advantage. We've always been a responsible company in that regard. Look, I think as we look at the shift in the mix and we look at the continued growth, there will be some slight upward pressure on pricing.
Okay, thanks. Just in terms of plasma collection center openings. The target for FY 2021 is lower than the last couple of years. Is that result purely of COVID or is the strategy going forward just to open fewer number of centers?
Yeah, 20-30 centers is still a big lift. I'd say with COVID and the fact that a number of the centers today are underutilized, we need to get those centers back up and running, because they're down in collections from COVID. If I add more non-productive centers during this time period, because as you know, it takes two to three years to really get them up and running, I think it's going to put a lot of more pressure on the team that's already under a lot of pressure to continue to collect plasma. 20-30, I think, is probably close to 20-30 more than most other people will open. In my view, I think there will be others that are going to be opening additional centers and they are. It's still a big ask.
If we see things start to pick up, we'll open more. We could open more if we go, but I think it's a balance of really the workload that people are under, getting people back into the centers, and the work that we're doing on the marketing and the recruitment in our current centers that have capacity today. At the same time, we're getting ready to institute some help with the U.S. government on convalescent plasma in our centers for utilization. Plus the COVID-19 initiative that we have with the industry. A lot happening in plasma, and again, CSL has been, Gretel, really focused on focus. Focused on focus. I guess that's double focus. We want to make sure that we're not overloading all the centers, the management, and the staff to drive to 40 during this particular time.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Next question comes from Saul Hadassin at UBS. Go ahead Saul.
Good afternoon guys. A couple quick ones from me. Just, Paul, the albumin growth in Europe and emerging markets up very strongly. You do mention some pricing pressure. Can you talk to the dynamic there? How did you grow albumin at such a rate? Is it effectively lowering price to drive demand or stimulate demand? Just some comments on the dynamics there would be great.
Yeah, thanks Saul. Yeah, you can see on the pricing side, it would've been at lower prices. If you take that growth and there is a strong demand in other countries for albumin and some tenders that we were able to access as well within Europe and emerging markets particularly. Those are areas where I think the tightness in plasma collection that we saw earlier, even though we were opening additional centers and driving a lot of plasma increases. There were still people that were not keeping up. There were some gaps in terms of utilization and supply in some of these countries.
Knowing that we have the GSP transition in China, we were able to take advantage of some of those opportunities outside of China, although at some lower pricing than what we've seen in obviously China, which is still quite high-priced.
Thank you. Just a quick one for David. David, just cognizant of the step-up again in CapEx guidance for FY 2021 and just implications that will have for the ROIC in FY 2021. Beyond FY 2021, though, in thinking about the CapEx spend of the group, do we reach a sort of threshold or a kind of benchmark at that AUD1.6 billion, or do you think it continues to escalate at the rate that we've seen in the last couple of years?
Look. The view, as you know, when we look forward is you've got to be thinking three to four years out for a lot of these capital projects to actually come back into the market. During that period, yes, we've got some, let's call it unproductive capital sitting on the balance sheet as we continue to flesh those out. I would say to you, Saul, the AUD 1.6 billion is a digestible number. If you get much above that, the ability to actually execute against the projects becomes that much harder. Certainly, that's the guidance that we're given. Quite a lot's going in, as you know, to the field finish side of things across Seqirus, which will start to come off.
We then still need the finishing capacity, obviously, on the IG side of things, and a lot of the heavy lifting on the base frac will get completed over the next two to three years as well. They then start to actually pay their way. Certainly what we do see is over that sort of 3-5 year, you'd expect the ROIC to start to move more favorably than what you've seen in the shorter term, which is our wind backing ROIC, given the level of unproductive capital that's sitting on the balance sheet.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you Saul. Next question comes from David Bailey at Macquarie. Go ahead David.
Yeah, thanks Mark. Morning Paul and David. Just in relation to specialty products, I'm just wondering if you could make some commentary around expectations for HAEGARDA in FY 2021, just noting the capacity expansion has come online. Just in relation to KCENTRA, just confirming your earlier commentary that you haven't seen any COVID-related impacts as yet in relation to that product.
Thanks David. I think HAEGARDA continues to drive and we've seen new starts. We've seen transitions from BERINERT, as I said, within Canada. In 2021, we expect to see the approval of HAEGARDA that we have there and delivery and reimbursement into the system. We expect that patients will drive over there. Even with the new entities that are out there, HAEGARDA delivers. It is an excellent product with great dosing and very, I would say, minimal number of attacks. Patients have really taken it up and they continue to. I would expect to see continued growth in that. We're still launching in other markets, and it's a great product. I think that's going to be well-placed as we see, again, transitions from BERINERT, but also growth in other markets as we launch.
KCENTRA, just to clarify, I'd say April and May, we started to see some decline in hospital admissions and KCENTRA sales were down slightly. They came right back in June, and June was one of the higher months that we had in the fiscal year. It just tells me that as patients continue to come into hospitals You can remember back in the April timeframe in New York City and the hospitals being overrun, and there was a lot of angst around that. When you actually look at the hospitalizations, although the COVID rate has gone up in terms of positive cases, a lot of the hospitalizations have come down a bit. We're seeing a return and we've seen good growth in June. July was a good month for KCENTRA as well.
The expansion to the larger institutions, to getting out into some of the community hospitals, it's a great product and I continue to see some legs on KCENTRA. I know we've talked about it every year for the past seven years and everybody's waiting for it to stop. It just shows you when you have a product that is small volume, easy to infuse, and it stops bleeding, physicians need it, and it's working extremely well. I'm more positive on KCENTRA.
Got it. Just maybe just referring to the fact that you acquired the license or the license rights to AMT-061. Just wondering if you can sort of talk to what this might mean for IDELVION going forward if it is successful. Just more broadly, will M&A be a feature of your business where you see competitive risks going forward?
Well, look, that's an interesting strategic question. I'd say, if there's value that we can add and it fits in our core capabilities, competencies, and adjacencies, I'll take a look. You know we're not serial acquirers, right? I mean, that's not our model. We have strong underlying growth in our core products. We've been adding value to those products through the years. We have become, with IDELVION, a market leader in hemophilia B. We've been in hemophilia for over 30 years. We think this is an advantageous acquisition for us in terms of the rights for this product for gene therapy. It's the leading gene therapy asset in hem B. We believe that there'll be a place for patients to decide if they want recombinant and continue on that vein, depending on the severity of their areas.
To have a gene therapy that can assist these patients in terms of hemB, we thought that it was advantageous for us to be and maintain and drive leadership in hemB treatment. So, I've talked about gene therapy in the past, and it's an interesting area because there are a lot of areas in the world where recombinants are not even used prophylactically yet. There still is plasma-derived therapies or blood transfusions being used. So the adaptation may be faster in some developed markets, but it's going to take a while for gene therapy to really drive, and patients are going to have to make sure that they're understanding as to what the gene therapy is. And the data will tell the story as well. All right?
As we finish up the phase III and move into a launch phase, we'll see what the data comes through. I would say that we see it as both offensive and defensive. I think it's a great position to be in because we'll be able to supply this novel therapy for patients.
Thank you David. Next question comes from John Deakin-Bell at Citigroup. Go ahead, John.
Thanks Mark . My question just around Seqirus. The revenue was up about AUD 100 million, and the gross profit was up more than that. Your incremental gross margin was more than 100%, which is up on prior years. Is there anything kind of unusual happening that would stop that from happening again next year? Obviously, we're expecting higher revenues. Should we expect similar gross margin and also EBIT margin uplift?
David, why don't you handle that one?
Yeah. Certainly, we still see upward pressure on the Seqirus gross profit margin as we continue, as Paul alluded to earlier. We see FLUAD, the quadrivalent side of FLUAD get presence in the U.S. and elsewhere. There is still the product differentiation element, putting that upward pressure on the margin side of things. John, I would just say to you, though, we've seen a large portion of that benefit to date.
I certainly wouldn't be sitting here saying that you should be taking the uplift that we saw from FY 2019 to FY 2020, and factor that in into FY 2021. It'll come back a little bit from that growth.
Okay thank you.
I also mentioned, John, that I also mentioned that we had a number of APAs or Advance Purchase Agreements for pandemic. That's additional revenue. That's a good margin, obviously. Those don't repeat every year.
Understand. Thanks Paul. My second question was just back on the plasma collections to understand the dynamics. You've opened a lot of centers over the last couple of years, and so I'm assuming liters per center has got to be down a fair bit given what's happened in the last quarter.
Yep.
Aside from the variable cost of consumables and the donor fees, are there other costs that you can temporarily take out, or is it really quite fixed beyond that?
No, it's really fixed beyond that. It's really hours per donation because you have to staff the center, John, as if it's going to be full. If you don't have the people on the floor, then you can't get the donors. The cost of labor is although variable, it's almost fixed at the moment because we're staffing to make sure that we can handle donors should they be coming through. We did have some fixed costs as well because we did supplement the hourly wages for our workers across the plasma organization. That was a temporary fix, but we have to look at that again because we're continuing to have our frontline workers exposed in this COVID area. We'll continue to evaluate all of the costs in the center.
The fixed cost of all the supplies, we've had to drive up our cost right now in terms of supplies of masks and face shields and those sorts of things. We wanted to make sure we had enough supply so that we don't have to constantly replenish. Some of those costs will come back a little bit, but we're going to have to replenish later in the year. It'll be kind of hit and miss at that level.
Understood.
Thanks, John.
Thanks Paul.
Ladies and gents, we'll need to draw to a close soon, but we do have time for one more caller, and that is Sean Laaman. Go ahead Sean.
Thank you Mark. Sorry, Paul, one quick follow-up. Just trying to get my rather simple plasma collection model to work. Just giving you a commentary that plasma collections are down 5% for the year and probably down 30% for the June quarter, kind of implies sort of mid-single-digit growth in the first three quarters of the year, which intuitively doesn't seem right. To try and get it to fit a bit more, was there kind of a depression in March or in the March quarter on collections?
Yeah. Everybody asks me about the last quarter, which is three months, right, Sean? COVID was around in March, and it was in February is typically a light month anyway because it's a short month. You only have so many days to collect in February, and that's when a lot of the tax refunds come in as well. We always see this dip in Feb, and then in March, we started to see some impact to COVID. I can't quantify it specifically in that because we really started tracking the centers because we weren't sure what that, what COVID, how long it was going to be, what it was going to impact. Certainly, we put a lot of pressure on trying to track that through the end of March and into the last quarter. Yeah, you're right.
You can account for the fact that we were probably down slightly in March as well.
Perfect. Thank you Paul. That's excellent.
Good. Thanks. Thanks Sean. Ladies and gents, we will need to now draw this briefing to a close. Thank you very much for your interest in CSL. With that, I'll close and good morning.