Good afternoon and good morning, everybody, welcome to our conference call to present the first quarter results for 2026. We'll keep today's remarks focused. Bill will comment on the overall business performance and report progress on our strategic priorities, and Wolfgang will share more insights into the Q1 financials, the current geopolitical environment, and our outlook. We will then turn to the Q&A session, where the presidents of our three Divisions will join Bill and Wolfgang to answer your questions. Before we begin, please note the cautionary language in our safe harbor statement. With that, over to you, Bill.
Thanks, Jost. Hi, everyone. It's good to be here with you today. You know, two months ago, we presented our plan for 2026, and this afternoon we're reporting that our businesses are performing in line with our expectations. I'll get started by going through the group numbers and then provide color on each of the businesses. As a group, we posted sales of EUR 13.4 billion, and that's 4% up on a currency and portfolio adjusted basis, which we'll refer to throughout the call today. Our core EPS came in at EUR 2.71. That's also up from last year at this time. Our free cash flow in the first quarter is at negative EUR 2.3 billion, and that's in line with our outlook as a significant portion of our litigation related payments fell in the first quarter.
Onto our businesses. In Crop Science, sales grew nearly 7% year-over-year. This result was bolstered by roughly EUR 450 million in additional soy licensing resolution revenue, as we communicated last quarter. Excluding this impact, our core business grew 1.4%, driven by strong growth in corn, offsetting declines we expected in crop protection. EBITDA was up with our margin coming in around 40%. Of course, the additional licensing resolution revenue helped. We also made underlying gains with higher margin sales and operational efficiency. In pharma, sales were roughly flat. Nubeqa and KERENDIA continued their momentum, compensating for declines in Xarelto and Eylea. Our EBITDA margin came in at 29.2%. This was positively affected by divestment incomes, coming in behind last year due to pricing pressures and investments in launches.
Finally, Consumer Health grew 5% with contributions from almost every category. Dermatology and Nutritionals were in the double digits, with Nutritionals benefiting from our growing e-commerce business. At 22.6%, our EBITDA margin is slightly trailing 2025. Overall, we're pleased with how our businesses started the year, and we're in a good position to confirm our 2026 outlook. At the same time, it's early. We know that the world around us is volatile, and we'll have to stay vigilant. We're focused on hitting our goals and delivering for farmers, patients, and consumers. Onto our strategic priorities. The first four months of 2026 have been eventful, and we have some big weeks ahead. You see the highlights captured on the slide. I'll start by focusing on litigation as we're in a crucial phase of our containment efforts.
We continue to make progress with the class settlement agreement we announced with leading plaintiffs firms in February. The settlement has passed several hurdles. In terms of upcoming milestones, objections and opt-outs are due by June 4, and the court's final approval hearing is scheduled for July. 2 weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court heard our argument on why preemption is not only necessary for American agriculture, but consistent with the law. We appreciate the justices taking our case and seriously engaging with the legal theory that we put forward. We feel our arguments were well represented. It's in the court's hands to interpret the law and make a ruling. We'll be ready for all outcomes. Our multi-pronged strategy continues.
We continue to make the case for regulatory clarity for American farmers, and we've seen progress and setbacks for this cause, including passage of legislation in Kentucky and a setback in the farm bill discussion. Why does this matter? The stakes of this issue are bigger than scoring political points. Americans want a food system that is safe, bountiful, and sustainable. They want agriculture that keeps food affordable while keeping chemical inputs to only what's necessary and also preserving biodiversity. Farmers, particularly in times like this when farm economics are stretched, they want new, safe tools that secure their harvests. Last year, Bayer introduced Plenexos, an innovative insecticide that protects yields by killing the insects that destroy harvests while preserving pollinators. It can be applied precisely, getting rid of pests with doses as low as a few grams per acre.
When I say low dose, this is what I mean. Imagine a soybean field the size of a U.S. football field. You could treat it with around 11 grams of Plenexos' active ingredient. I have a prop here. These are U.S. quarters. Okay? We got George Washington on the front. These little guys, these two are worth about $0.50. The weight of these two quarters, that is how much Plenexos it would take to treat a football field. This is what people are looking for. They want greener, healthier, more productive agriculture, and Plenexos is just the kind of innovation that we need. It's already being applied in South America, and we want to be able to bring it to U.S. farmers as soon as possible.
They want it too, but there's a really big thing standing in its way, a system that gives trial lawyers the authority to undermine years of regulatory and scientific scrutiny. Why introduce new products that cost decades and EUR billions to research and develop, if even after a rigorous approval process, you're subject to EUR billions in legal costs? That's a question we'll have to ask more going forward. Now, outside of the litigation space, we continue to execute on each of our priorities. Take pharma growth and the pipeline as an example. Earlier I mentioned KERENDIA's strong revenue growth driven by its momentum in treating patients with chronic kidney disease and type 2 diabetes, as well as in heart failure.
In addition, we've presented data in chronic kidney disease with type 1 diabetes, and last month, just last month, we announced positive top-line data in treating non-diabetic patients with kidney disease. This means that once approved in these additional indications, KERENDIA has the potential to help patients in both heart failure and across a wide spectrum of chronic kidney disease, including in areas where there aren't many alternative options today. This is a great example of how we're not just growing the reach of our medicines, we're widening the pool of people they can serve. We just announced an agreement to acquire Perfuse Therapeutics and their first-in-class development medicine in glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, which very nicely complements our established footprint and expertise in ophthalmology. We continue to advance our plan, and we're dialed in on delivering our commitments in 2026.
Now I'd like to hand it over to Wolfgang, who will walk you through our numbers. He's going to be doing this for the last time for Bayer today. Over to you, Wolfgang.
Thank you, Bill. Also a very warm welcome from my end. As Bill said, this is the last time I get to share our quarterly results with you before handing over to Judith in June. Before diving into the business, I would like to sincerely thank all of you for the constructive discussions over the past 8 years. It's been an eventful time, turbulent at times, but I've always appreciated our close exchange. I'm deeply grateful to my team and the people I've gotten to work with across Bayer, and I'm very confident we're setting the company up for a lot of success in the future. Let's now look at the group results for the first quarter. Q1 net sales grew 4% versus the prior-year quarter, driven by Crop Science and Consumer Health, while Pharma was in line with the prior year.
EBITDA before special items came in at EUR 4.5 billion, which is 9% or about EUR 370 million above the prior-year quarter, led by a higher Crop Science result. Profits in our Pharma division declined, and EBITDA before special items for Consumer Health and Recon came in at almost the same level as in the prior year. Across divisions, we experienced the anticipated significant FX headwinds in the first quarter, totaling about EUR 890 million to our top line and about EUR 320 million to the bottom line. The effects were driven mainly by the U.S. dollar this time. core earnings per share came in at EUR 2.71.
The increase of EUR 0.31 or 13% compared to the prior year is largely driven by about EUR 0.40 of licensing resolution income and EUR 0.10 from tail end divestment income in Pharmaceuticals. These expected non-recurring effects were more than offset in foreign exchange headwinds of about EUR 0.20. Free cash flow of -EUR 2.3 billion was EUR 800 million below the prior-year quarter. As expected, this was driven by material payouts related to the previously announced settlement activities for PCB and also glyphosate, totaling about EUR 2 billion in Q1. Operational cash contributions improved by about EUR 1.2 billion, including the licensing resolution payments and Avelox divestment income. Net financial debt increased to EUR 32.5 billion since year-end 2025 due to the negative cash flow.
Year-on-year, net financial debt was down by about EUR 1.7 billion. Let's now take a closer look at the divisional performance. For Crop Science, the team is focused on execution of our five-year framework, driving resilience and margin improvement. In Q1, net sales came in at EUR 7.6 billion, plus 7% versus the prior year. The core business grew by 9%, led by an 18% increase in seeds and traits. Corn increased 7%, driven by gross growth across all the regions. Strong volume gains were delivered in EMEA and LATAM. While we noted higher volumes to start the season in North America, timing of sales and anticipated lower acreage are expected to reduce sales year-over-year in the coming quarter. Soybean sales posted a very significant increase from the noted licensing resolution.
Excluding this effect, higher prices from the recovery of the dicamba label in the U.S. and strong volumes in Latin America drove a 9% increase in sales for the quarter. Driven by the Brazil soybean transition and continued focus on U.S. margins, we expect these Q1 benefits to moderate throughout the year. Purchase delays in cotton and declines in vegetable seeds were nearly offset by growth in canola. The core Crop Science business declined 7% on an anticipated soft start to the season amid continued generic pressure and challenged farmer profitability. We expect partial volume recovery in Q2 led by North America and supported by Stryax herbicide growth, with the remaining recovery focused on Latin America in the second half of the year. glyphosate sales declined by 15% on lower volumes due to delayed purchases.
We are focused on recovery in North America in the second quarter and in Latin America in the second half of the year. We are closely monitoring recent market price developments and will strategically adjust our pricing accordingly. On profitability, EBITDA before special items of EUR 3 billion came in 18% higher compared to the prior year, resulting in a margin of 39.9%. The higher margin is primarily an effect of the higher margin sales and soy licensing resolution combined with disciplined cost savings execution. These efforts offset FX headwinds of about 80 basis points. Let's move on to our Pharmaceuticals business, where we continue to see strong growth of our launch assets balancing the anticipated declines in Xarelto and also EYLEA.
For Q1, this resulted in net sales of EUR 4.2 billion, which were level with the prior year. Nubeqa grew by 57% across regions, while KERENDIA sales increased by 84%, mainly driven by the U.S. and also China. Together, they contributed EUR 1 billion in net sales in the first quarter. We are also satisfied with the uptake of our two new launch assets, Beyonttra and Lynkuet. Beyonttra is now launched and reimbursed in 18 European countries. Lynkuet has been brought to the market in Germany and Switzerland as of April first and shows good early uptake signals following the first launch in the U.S. at the end of last year. As expected, Xarelto continued to decline in Q1. LOE impacts across markets led to the anticipated sales drop of 40% compared to the prior year.
For EYLEA, we recorded a 21% decline compared to the first quarter of last year. While we're seeing a continued positive volume development for EYLEA eight milligram, which is now contributing 46% to the EYLEA franchise, we continue to face pressure from the market entry of biosimilars, and that's especially on pricing. Our base business declined by 1% as continued growth in radiology was offset by declines in other parts of the portfolio, particularly driven by lower demand in women's health as well as volume-based pricing-related impacts on cardio aspirin and STIVARGA in China. On the bottom line, EBITDA before special items decreased by 8% to EUR 1.2 billion, resulting in a margin of 29.2%, slightly lower than the prior year.
As expected, we are seeing the impacts from continued pricing pressures while continuing our growth investments into launches and innovation. This was compensated by savings, solid volume uptake, as well as income for two smaller tail end divestments of about EUR 120 million. Now turning to Consumer Health. We focus on sustainable growth while navigating anticipated soft consumer sentiment in our two biggest markets. Against this backdrop, net sales increased by 5% in the first quarter. Growth was supported by a more balanced mix of volume and price, driven by focused investments in our power couples and the integration of Nuzena, the nutritionals e-commerce business we acquired. Almost all categories grew, led by dermatology and nutritionals, fueled by innovation and strong e-commerce momentum. Within the seasonal categories, cough and cold declined due to a softer season in North America and parts of EMEA.
Performance in digestive health was impacted by an ongoing pharmacy consolidation in China and a continued channel shift towards e-commerce. This resulted in structural reductions in retail inventory requirements. At the same time, we saw some pull forward of customer orders into the first quarter, and that was in particular in Nutritionals and Allergy. These timing effects shaped the quarterly profile, but they do not change the underlying demand outlook and are fully reflected in our full year guidance assumptions. Our EBITDA margin before special items was 22.6%, reflecting solid underlying profitability with now full year guidance corridor, though slightly below last year. FX headwinds diluted margins by 70 basis points. Productivity gains from our new operating model and active cost management, together with divestment gains of some tail end products, created additional financial flexibility.
This enabled us to step up investments behind our brands and portfolio priorities to support growth. Let's now look at the outlook for our divisions. With the Q1 results, we are on track to deliver our full year guidance at constant currencies for each one of our businesses. For the quarters to go, let me just highlight a few items. For Crop Science, we have a different distribution of the licensing resolution income, which was realized in Q1 this year compared to Q4 last year. For the 2nd quarter in total, we expect top and bottom line results at constant currencies to be broadly stable year-over-year. Following a strong Q1, corn and soy sales are anticipated to moderate with a decline versus prior year.
This is expected to be largely offset by growth in cotton, partial volume recovery in glyphosate and Crop Science, as well as Stryax growth in North America. For Pharmaceuticals, we are well on track to deliver our full year outlook. As guided, we expect the second half of the year to come in stronger than the first half in terms of top line growth. While on margins, we anticipate increasing growth investments behind launches and pipeline in the coming quarters. For Consumer Health, the market environment in our two biggest market, the U.S. and China, remains challenging. In the U.S., market conditions weakened further in the first quarter with expectations of an overall decline for the full year. Supported by a solid start to the year, we remain confident in delivering our full year guidance here as well.
Moving on to the group, we iterate our outlook at constant currencies for the full year 2026 while continuing to monitor geopolitical dynamics and foreign exchange rate movements. On geopolitics, based on our latest assessments, we expect to cover potential impacts within the guidance ranges provided for 2026. We continue to closely monitor the evolving situation, in particular in the following areas. In Crop Science, we expect some direct impacts on sales and incremental costs, most notably in fuel transportation and energy, which are manageable this year. We are closely monitoring rising energy prices and structural inflation across petrochemical supply chains. Resulting production cost increases will be largely captured in inventory with higher COGS impacting the P&L in later periods. Timing and duration of these variables may also have indirect effects on acreage mix, farmer profitability, and the evolving crop protection landscape.
For instance, favorable PRC prices could support glyphosate pricing opportunities should conditions remain supportive. Overall, it is harder to predict how these indirect effects will ultimately unfold and impact final planting and buying decisions. For our pharma business, we do not expect any major impact from tariffs to our outlook this year, as they would only become effective at the end of September and should be kept at the 15% as part of the EU-US trade deal, and we are monitoring the latest developments here closely. We will also continue to apply tariff mitigation measures. On drug pricing around the world, and MFN in particular, we continue to monitor the situation and continue to review our pricing and launch strategies. For Consumer Health, ongoing geopolitical tensions could primarily affect our business regarding consumer sentiment and demand, while higher oil prices may also affect supply and production cost.
Following our latest assessment and continued focus on cost control, we anticipate staying within our 2026 guidance range. Finally, on FX. In line with our practice, we have updated the FX estimates based on month-end rates in March. Compared to constant currencies, this leads to the effect shown in the last column on slide 12. This is just a point in time analysis, and we would still expect ongoing volatility around foreign exchange rate developments for the remainder of the year. To illustrate this, we have also looked at the FX impact at five months forward rates as of April. Applying those rates, we would end up at around EUR 1 billion headwind in net sales, approximately EUR 400 million headwind in EBITDA before special items, and about EUR 0.30 headwind in core EPS, which is more in line with our previous estimates.
With that, I hand it back over to you, Jost, to facilitate the Q&A.
Thank you, Wolfgang, and thank you, Bill. We will now start the Q&A session. Before we begin, just a few housekeeping comments. If you have a question, please raise your hand and follow the instructions provided in the call. To allow as many participants as possible, please limit yourself to 2 question. The first 2 in line today are Sachin Jain from Bank of America and James Quigley from Goldman Sachs. Sachin, please kick us off. Sachin, can you hear us?
I can. Can you hear me?
Yeah, we hear you now.
Sorry. Apologies for that. I just wanted to kick off by thanking Wolfgang for his support over the years and wish him all the best for the future. 2 questions on litigation, if I may. The first 1 is on the opt-in/opt-out. Just wondering if you could give us a perspective on what visibility you have on the rates in the coming weeks before the June 4 date, and how you think you will be able to communicate on whether it's been successful or not between the June 4 and July 9 fairness hearing. The second question is your perspective as a company on the oral hearing. Investors perceived it as mixed. Obviously, stock was down on the day.
Just interested in your thoughts and how it will impact the opt-in/opt-out rate from your perspective. Thank you.
Hi, Sachin. Let's see. Visibility before June 4th, we have some limited amount of knowledge, but there's a sort of an administrator for the class that is the official recipient of the opt-outs, and we'd expect to get some update from the administrator about 1 week after the June 4th deadline for opt-outs. I think, you know, we'll definitely take some time to evaluate that information. We're looking for an opt-out rate, as we've said before, that's sort of essentially 0.
We have to see, you know, depending on what are the opt-outs, you know, what are the strengths or the merits of their cases, with respect to, I don't know, whatever the fact set of the cases is and that I would anticipate will take some weeks. Bottom line is, nobody should be holding their breath on June fifth because there won't be any information from the company for at least some weeks after that. Then, on the oral hearing, I was there two weeks ago yesterday, and we felt like we had a good opportunity to present our case. You know, the U.S. Supreme Court, they're not hearing about a question about whether, you know, our product caused someone's illness.
They're looking very, you know, very focused at questions of interpretation of the Constitution or interpretation of the law. In this case, the law in question is preemption. I think we felt good about our ability to present those arguments. I won't get into the merits of our case or the other side's, you know, arguments, but I think the essential point it was important to make, which is that FIFRA included explicit guidelines for preemption, and without it, there is frankly regulatory anarchy in the U.S., at least on the question of pesticides. We think that the court should rule in our favor because we have a very compelling case.
Thank you, Bill. We have James Quigley from Goldman Sachs coming up next, and he's followed by Richard Vosser from JP Morgan. James, please go ahead.
Great. Thanks, Jost. Thank you for taking my questions. I'd also like to extend my best of best wishes to Wolfgang for the future as well. A couple of questions from my side. Firstly, on KERENDIA, had another strong beat this quarter. If we look at the slide in the appendix year-over-year, you have sort of sequential growth in the U.S. seems to have declined. Is this just seasonality? Is it mainly FX related? Can you talk to the relative growth you're seeing across the approved indications in the U.S. and China? Maybe quick one for Rodrigo as well on crop. You talked about some of the volumes being shifted out in the crop protection business into the second quarter.
We might see a partial recovery of glyphosate and maybe recovery of some of the other crop protection products there. How confident are you that this volume is going to come back? What visibility do you have on farmer inventories and how confident, how much visibility do you have on the potential price moves in glyphosate, given that was quite a tailwind a few years ago? Thank you.
Hi, James. Thanks for the question, and thanks for also being with us and really liking more and more KERENDIA because we continue to beat expectations. I think there is nothing to worry about in the U.S. We're seeing continued strong demand. Yes, we're comparing against now also we're starting to compare against some strong months or quarters sometimes, I have nothing to be concerned about. We're continuing to roll out additional indications now. Having it in non-diabetic, in a non-diabetic population is giving us an additional boost in the renal patient group. I think the halo of the product is growing month by month, and we're seeing increased confidence in prescribers.
We're continuing to broaden our prescriber base. Nothing to be concerned about in U.S. or in China on KERENDIA. Expect continued strength there.
James, let me address the Crop Science question here. We're glad to report the Q1 and confirm the guidance, as you heard from Bill and Wolfgang, for the full year. This is in line to what we planned. In crop protection specifically, this is also very in line with the plan. We are exactly right now executing our 5-year framework. In the case of crop protection, there is a high focus on that one, as we announced 1 year ago on the May 13 on the 5-year framework presentation. We are pruning the portfolio. We are doing some divestment. We do expect, especially on Q1, moderate on the top line of the crop protection that was part of the planning, including some regulatory effects as well.
As you asked about Q2, the main event we have is TriEx, the new dicamba formulation. We got the approval. We managed the orders and the production, and this will impact especially Q2. In the second part of the year, we see more growth in the southern hemisphere, especially Latin America, with the launches that we have, like mentioned by Bill of Plenexos or the Fox family, Supra, Convintro, a new herbicide as well. We have more launches and growth that is coming on the second half of the year.
With that, I just reconfirm that we are in line with the guidance for this year, and we are executing as we have. Specifically on glyphosate, the beginning of the year was a decline on PRC at the beginning of the year, there was a pause from a purchase from farmers waiting to see what happens. Now is the opposite direction that you heard as well. We are confident on the phasing of the volume that we have for Q2, Q3 and Q4. We are as you know, we have a specific team, a separate team managing glyphosate, very lean and very effective, and we are reacting to the opportunities that we have, like pricing mentioned by Wolfgang, or other opportunities that we have here.
We are really looking very close with this team on how we best manage this business to capture if any opportunities will consist over the next three quarters that we have. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Great. Following from Richard Vosser from JPMorgan, we'll hear from Laurent Favre from BNP Paribas. Richard, you're next in line. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Jost. I hope you can hear me well. A couple of questions, please. One, on Crop Science on corn. You saw strong performance, maybe stronger than expected in Q1. Could you talk about your expectations for the rest of the North America season, both in terms of price and volume? We can see acreage going down, but it didn't seem to have as much an effect. How should we think about that? Question on Pharma, please. The launch of Lynkuet, Stefan, please. Prescriptions in the U.S. seem to be broadly in line with the Viso launch. How's that going? What's the reception like? What's the ramp like from here? That'd be great. Thanks very much.
Richard, let me address the first part of the question on Crop Science. You're spot on. We are very happy with after 2025 where we had a great performance on the seeds and trades. Q1, also a very strong performance on the seeds and trades. Even if you don't include the licensing resolution, you have the seeds and trade business growing by 7%. It's the same that you saw for corn by 7%. Specifically about U.S., you are right. Last year we had 98 million acres. Initial projections would be a significant decrease, probably gonna see less of that.
The last USDA report, they are talking about something between 94, 95 million acres, and we're going to need to see this in the next weeks or so because of the commodity prices and fertilizers costs. Farmers will make these decisions on how much will be the final planting of corn in the U.S. We will be probably lower than last year, as you mentioned, not as low as initial thoughts, and this will be what was impacting Q2 mentioned by Wolfgang as well. Overall, also soybean, 9%, even if you don't include the licensing. I just want to remember that some of these licensing resolutions should also impact 2026. Even if you don't include them, you have a 9% growth in soybean as well.
Seeds and trades, great performance, and we hope that we keep the momentum for the next quarters as well. With that, Stefan?
Thanks, Rodrigo. Hi, Richard. Thanks for the question on Lynkuet. Of course, I sound like a broken record, but it's early days, so I'll be careful not to go too far and project too far into the future. We're happy with the uptake. It's in line with what we would have expected. It's still about creating awareness. It's about broadening the NKT cells based on our unique double mechanism of action. That I think sets us apart, and it's also being more and more recognized by prescribing physicians. I think the proof of it is that we're really gaining in breadth of prescribers. We're adding about 500 physicians a week that are newly prescribing Lynkuet.
It doesn't really show much in the audits because a lot of this is also used in samples. We're getting there. Again, as I said, early days. What else can I say? Let me see. We have about on access, of course, that's the second one. We're looking to increase access. You know how this works in the U.S. After a few months now, we're about 1/3 into it and adding accounts on a monthly basis. Progress is slow as expected, but we're happy with what we're seeing.
Fantastic. Following from Laurent Favre from BNP Paribas, we'll hear from Alec Ebeling from UBS. Laurent, please proceed.
Thank you, Jost, good afternoon all. My two questions are for Rodrigo. The first one on soy. Did I get it right from Wolfgang that you're looking at a year-on-year decline in sales in soy in Q2? That was a bit surprising as I guess soy acreage should be up about 4%, and I was assuming that you would be gaining share this year with the dicamba registration. Was it all about the pull forward into Q1, and you're assuming limited share gain for the overall H1? That's question number one. The second one is, I guess, a broader topic on inflation and what we're seeing on supply chain in India and China. Are you seeing less pressure?
Are you assuming there will be less pressure from the generic companies, given all the issues on especially petrochemical availability down there? Thank you.
Thank you, Laurent. Let me start with the second question, Laurent, because this is a little bit of a. The uncertainty on the market is very high right now. If you think about the Middle East war, how long will last and what is the impact on the energy cost and in the end of the day, the pricing. You do see some of reaction in terms of the generic pricings right now. In the short term, you could have some opportunities in terms of pricing that you could capture here.
Also, I think you just need to take in consideration that this also has, have an effect on next season, as the higher cost also is impacting the production and will impact the inventory that the products that we're gonna be selling next year, and that we're gonna talk later about that one. For this year, as much as glyphosate, and we are watching this, as you can imagine, on a weekly basis, we may have an opportunity to capture some opportunities that we're gonna look for that one. Not only on glyphosate, but some other crop protection products as well. You're right. This is potentially on the short term you could have some opportunities on that, and we are watching very close.
On soybean, 9% growth on the first quarter if you not include the licensing resolution. We do expect this year for soybean to be the beginning of the regaining that we're gonna have. We're very excited about the work that we are doing right now. I had the team yesterday and we revisit the launching plans for Vyconic in U.S., and we're gonna have the opportunity to demonstrate that in September in Iowa, where we're gonna have our innovation event there that you are all invited, and I hope that you can make it because this is like, we are excited about the launch of Vyconic in the next seasons to the U.S. farmers as much as Precion and the others launches that we have.
Soybean specifically this year, we had a great start. We don't see a major impact in Q2, no, but we need to see what will happen in LATAM in the second part of the year, right? We are advancing with our Intacta 2 Xtend. It is more than 30% penetration right now at the same time that our competitor launched, there is below 10%. We are excited also the development of the new technology in LATAM. We are preparing also the next launches of Intacta 5+. That's also coming in the next years. Soybean this year is the regaining. We are seeing some pricing development that you mentioned.
We have the new herbicide that is launching. There is a lot of preparation of soybean as we plan to regain a lot of share in U.S. in 2027, 2028, 2029 and beyond. Some preparation and some excitement for the next seasons as well. Thank you.
Thank you.
Superb. Alec Ebeling from UBS is followed by Christian Feit from Kepler Cheuvreux. Alec, the floor is yours.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Two, please. First on crop and the timing of a potential Middle East impact. Is any potential impact expected in the first half, given that most U.S. farmers may already have fertilizer for the season? What potential impact could the conflict in the Middle East have in the second half? Have you quantified that impact, and are there any active mitigation steps you can take? Second, on pharma, specifically pharma tariffs. You've noted no expected impact from pharma tariffs this year. To avoid potential tariffs, much like some of your competitors, are you engaging in discussions with the U.S. administration? Thank you.
Alec, thanks for that one, and let me start on the Crop Science here, and you're spot on, right? The impact in U.S. is more of the final planting season, right? This is a good example of what it was mentioned about USDA saying, "Well, you may have 94, 95 million acres of corn," and this could swing between 96 million to 93 million acres of corn as an example because of what you just described. The reaction of farmers to the fertilizers, depending on how they are being able to purchase the final piece of that equation, they can shift a little bit more to soybean or not. This is the. In U.S., you are spot on.
It's more impacting the closing of the season, the closing of planting from the farmers and the swing that they can make here. The bulk of the season is done. The key question, depending on the duration of the war in the Middle East is the second half of the year and the impact in the southern hemisphere, right? Especially on fertilizer costs and the farmers' economics. We're gonna be watching that one. We are working closely with our teams as well to mitigate. We are putting our plans in place to mitigate any major risks that we have. A good example of what I just described is how we're putting efforts in our seeds and trade business, is our new launches of CP to help us to offset some of that one.
A lot of uncertainty on the Middle East. We're gonna be watching this very close and communicating more with you in the coming quarters as well. Stefan?
Yeah, thanks, Rodrigo. Question on tariffs. We're indeed baking in tariffs into this, into this year's guidance, nothing, no there there. For next year, it's a little early, but we're considering all options. We're talking to a lot of people. Stay tuned and you'll hear more from that.
Excellent. After Christian from Kepler, we'll hear from Charles Pitman-King from Barclays and Rajesh Kumar from HSBC. Christian, you're next in line. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon and good day, Wolfgang, all the best for your post-Bayer time. 2 questions on 2 small activities, actually. Consumer Health, with a pretty stable operating performance. Why did operating cash flow decrease by more than 25% in the quarter? Any special reason other than working capital? On veggie seeds, I noticed that veggie seed sales were down quite heavily. I assume a part of this is due to the Middle East situation per March. If my assumption is true, i.e., the Middle East situation, should we count on an even bigger decline for the second quarter?
Working capital.
Let's see. Wolfgang or Julio, which one of you guys wants to talk about Consumer Health cash flow?
I can.
Go ahead, please.
Yeah, Christian, it's Wolfgang. Nothing to worry about in Consumer Health. We just happened to have had an exceptional Q1 last year. You remember we had over EUR 1 billion free operating cash flow there. We expect a little bit less for the year just because of timing of certain working capital items and a bit more investments there. Yes, we are a little bit down year-over-year, but nothing to write home about. We have a very good year on cash flow here as well.
Okay, thanks.
On the Crop Science question, you're spot on. The impact on veggies Middle East, not only in Iran, but also in the other countries that we have. The team is working on logistics to recover that in Q2 and Q3. We don't see further than that for the year. Again, Middle East war, we're gonna need to see how this will evolve. The impact that we saw in Q1 on veggies specifically was the war in the Middle East and the impact of our sales in that region. Again, the team is working on Q2 and Q3 for alternatives routes and logistics and to recover part of that. Of course, the Iran one specifically is a small portion of that.
That is probably a full year impact, but it's a small portion of non-material for the full year for the Crop Science division. Thank you very much.
Thanks very much both. Very helpful.
Excellent. We have Charles Pitman-King from Barclays coming up next, and then followed by Rajesh, before we conclude the call. Charles, please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks so much for taking my questions. First one from me, just coming back to the litigation, I'd just be interested in any further information you're able to provide us in relation to the progress on this opt-out rate. Just noting that the Bayer briefing documents from April 21st suggested that 60% of Roundup claims remain represented under the class action across the 12 law firms also. I'm just wondering, in the past 3 weeks or so, have you seen any change in those conversations to kind of update us on that number following the SCOTUS hearing or the comments from Vince Chhabria on April 30th? Secondly, on your ophthalmology franchise, noting that EYLEA 8 mg is now 46% of Bayer EYLEA sales.
I'm wondering how this kind of rapid rise in share could potentially change your outlook for EYLEA beyond 2026. Just thinking about this Perfuse Therapeutics acquisition, in the view of trying to maintain your SG&A relationships within the ophthalmology section, as we await the phase III trial results, how you expect to kind of bridge and maintain those relationships over that time. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Charles. Regarding the opt-out rate, there's really nothing more to say because basically these are decisions that the law firms have to make in conjunction with their, with their clients. So we don't get in the middle of that. So there's not a lot to say there. We did, you know, pass a couple hurdles. There were objections and things, but those were dealt with and, yeah, as far as we can see, you know, the class program is on track.
Thanks. On ophthalmology, first let's say, let's talk about EYLEA and then go over to the bridging, as you call it. 8 milligrams indeed about half of our sales now, which is good. Unfortunately the overall franchise is actually there where we guided you that it would be. We're in the minus 20s, that is expected to continue. There's a logic that 8 milligram would take over. We expect some sustained EYLEA business from that, even though we continue to really suffer on pricing here across the board. Perfuse, the acquisition, you have to see this not just as a commercial play, but also as something where we leverage our knowledge in the space.
When I talk about knowledge, it's both on the science side, but also in our KOL network and being really good at hopefully setting up a good and fast late-stage clinical development for this new medicine. Please also be reminded that we don't have a commercial infrastructure for ophthalmology in the U.S., so a lot of this needs to be built. But of course, of what we will still have for EYLEA, depending on how fast we can get this over the finishing line, and there are still a couple of risks along the way. For the Perfuse asset, we will try to bridge as much as possible. Don't see this just as a commercial bridge play.
Thank you so much.
Super. The last questions today come from Rajesh Kumar from HSBC. Rajesh, please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. The first question is for Bill. I appreciate your deploying capital into M&A. We will probably get updates on class action and Supreme Court news around the same time.
hearing. The clarity on balance sheet probably only comes much later in the year. What are the, you know, capital allocation strategic choices you're making given, you know, we still don't know how the balance sheet impact of this litigation situation might evolve? Any, you know, background on how you're thinking about the problem would be much appreciated. The second question is on Crop Science. Very difficult problem to crack in terms of predicting what the second, third-order impacts would be. Mechanically, if you can help us understand that, say, if feed prices are going up, for what period are you hedged for your input costs?
How long does it take for you to increase the prices, pass on through, you know, what are the mechanics or the clockwork behind, how that filters through your P&L and cash flows would be much appreciated.
Thanks, Rajesh. In terms of capital allocation, I would say our primary source of funds is operating income, and we wanna continue to significantly increase our operating income over the next few years. This is a company that should be capable of generating a lot more cash than we've been generating. It's one of the reasons we like the structure of the class because we kind of put this the big bulk of the cost behind us and can move forward. We've put in place a system, our Dynamic Shared Ownership system, that turns on 90-day cycles where every team in the company is working to make improvements every 90 days. We see continued improvements, cost reductions, additional growth opportunities in abundance across all three divisions.
Make no mistake, I mean, we're definitely planning on investing in our future, in R&D in all three divisions. But the primary source of funds should be from our operating income, and we, you know, we've been able to do that in the past. We're gonna be able to do that in the future. We're having other conversations about, you know, what do we want to do in terms of the pharma pipeline, Crop Science opportunities, OTC switches in Consumer Health. But this is things that are that, yeah, that we see that we're able to fund through the plans that we have, for the most part. I'll hand it over to Rodrigo.
Rajesh. Thank you for that one. Let me address your specific question about crop protection. The far majority of what we are selling in 2026, because of the lead time, was produced in 2025. In the end of the day, the impact of the raw materials or the energy costs that we are seeing today is going through the production of the crop protections that we're gonna sell next year. In terms of dynamics that you asking me, this is a little bit of the lead time in crop protection, and the impact, you're gonna see more on that. We're gonna talk about 2027 later in the season. Again, the duration of the war, the impact, we're gonna need to monitor this year to see what is that.
I bring back with this the opportunity to just reframe here. When we designed '26, after the performance of '25, confirming the performance of '25 as another step towards the direction that we are taking with the five-year framework. We are glad that we are having another step forward on that direction, and we are working heavily, including in crop protection, to expand our margin. The performance of Q1 is in line with that one, and we are expecting this year 20%-22% EBITDA margin for the overall business, and this is the bulk of the work that the team is doing right now. Confident that we can deliver '26, and we're gonna prepare all the plans that we have for '27 and beyond with a five-year framework.
Thank you for the opportunity to address that with a question.
Rajesh,
With that, to you, Julius
Rajesh, I probably on the second part on how we hedge this, we obviously do not only engage in currency hedging, we are also hedging, like, corn and soy prices for our input, what we have to pay to the growers. We also hedge energy to the degree that's economically viable. Of course, we have a major focus in this environment on hedging the currencies. Just as a reminder, we don't hedge translational risks, but we hedge all book transaction risks and a good chunk of the anticipated transactional risks. I think we are pretty state-of-the-art there and do whatever we can to buffer volatility.
Thank you.
Great. I'm gonna close things out actually today. I just wanna say a few words about Wolfgang on behalf of the board of management, and I know I speak for many of the investors as well that have gotten to know Wolfgang over his time at Bayer and before. You know, I arrived here three years ago, and at that point, Wolfgang was about five years into his time. You know, I think eight years at Bayer from 2018 to 2026 is not a walk in the park, as Wolfgang always likes. He likes that phrase, so I'll use it in this case.
I think he's, I've found him to be always on top of what's going on, to know both the details but also to always be understanding the bigger picture. He's a great help to all of us on the management board in terms of the kind of help you need when you're in pressure situations. Cool-headed, clear thinking, and an incredibly fine human being and friend. I don't think any of us has seen the last of Wolfgang. We are happy for him to move on to the next phase of his life. Wish you all the best, Wolfgang.
Thanks so much.
Thanks, thanks again, all of you, for joining us today.
Thank you, Bill. I guess this concludes Wolfgang's last conference call. We'll all miss you, Wolfgang, for sure. I wish you all a great day. Thank you very much.