Hello, everybody. This is Harald Hasselmann speaking. It's lovely weather in Berlin. The sun is shining, and I welcome everybody to today's telco or Teams call in order to present Q1 results. You have received earlier this month, end of April, already short-term notice, because the results were pretty good, and today morning, we have also issued the full Q1 report. And I'm happy now to lead you through the presentation, of the first quarter numbers and figures and results. With me is Olivier, Julian, and Karolin, as usual, happy to support me and also take your questions later on if we are through that presentation. That you know, that is the usual disclaimer. You know my colleagues, Jutta and Frank, no change in the board. Now, this is a slide which becomes busier and busier all the time we are together here.
And the latest announcements was that Mariana Oncology was acquired by Novartis, another bit of big Novartis acquiring Mariana for $1 billion plus further milestones. You see this in the middle of that chart here, and it's really amazing what big pharma currently is doing, how much money they do invest into the radionuclear medicine market. And I don't see an end of that chain. And if we become a supplier, a service provider, or a commercial partner of all these companies, to whatever percentage, then this is a good signal into the market and also to you as an investor or our shareholders in general.
Basically, that is a slide which is moving from our bread and butter business, Gallium-68, where the growth is unbroken and where the momentum really is, as of today, that more and more radiopharmacies and also countries, I come to that later on, are asking for a generator. And the most fascinating topic is on the right side of that slide, that is Actinium. We talked about that earlier, that there is the big wave will only start in a couple of years, but now it's a race who's going to be first in producing Actinium. These are our customers, some of our customers with whom we are working together. For Lutetium, for Actinium, I'm not mentioning other smaller isotopes, or I do not mention Y-90 yttrium, but also contract manufacturing.
Our sites here in Germany, as well as in the U.S., are coming more and more into our focus. The value chain of Eckert & Ziegler, Eckert & Ziegler, not AG, but SE. You have seen the change in the legal format, remains unchanged. It's the upper part, production of isotope for the medical world, producing radioisotopes for the industry part. Now, has happened in this quarter, and I'm focusing here only on those topics which are within the medical business. We are enabling companies like ARTBIO, to make use of our isotopes, of our CMO activities, and we signed a partnership with ARTBIO for producing an isotope, which is called Lead-212, in our Boston facility. We have another supplier agreement with a company in Europe and China, Full-Life.
We are also providing them with hot cells, and that is, there you see that the chain of Eckert & Ziegler is not only providing, on the one side, isotopes, but also delivering services, and that's why providing them with hot cells, with lead-shielded environment, working places and laboratory space is of high importance also for those companies. Then, with other companies like Nucleus RadioPharma, lutetium contracts have been signed, and the gallium generator, together with Novartis, is also now on the way to be launched in Japan, a big country, where the generator and also the products of Novartis are not available yet. That is going to change, and that's why we are very much focusing on the cooperation which we do have together with Novartis in these countries. The business is isotope, is medical.
For those who are following Eckert & Ziegler for a longer period already, you are missing here at the right part of that slide, the business of our discontinuing business, i.e., Myelo, Pentixapharm, the Pentixapharm holding, because we do not want to focus on that pharmaceutical development any longer, and that's why I've taken that out. We are on the way of spinning that out, and you are all aware of that. Now, having a look to last year's numbers, this is already published, 50/50 in terms of profitability, in terms of revenue, also 50/50 split between the two segments. Now, let's have a look to the Q1 results. In a nutshell, as an overview, you see that our net sales, our revenues, double-digit growth, 17% growth.
If it is, if you have a look to the currency adjusted, it would be even above 20%, so it is even stronger. Medical, for sure, I come to that in a minute, is the momentum, and within medical, it's the radiopharmaceuticals who are the pillar, the most, the predominating pillar of medical's growth. If you look to the EBIT adjusted, that is our new number, and we mentioned that early on, that we want to focus on a more comparable number, which is EBIT adjusted, and there you see a number of EUR 15 million compared to EUR 10.6 million of last year. So it's 40% more than last year's first quarter of 2023, strong growth, and we have then also a strong improvement in our ratios.
If we look to the growth rates in absolute numbers, it's growing, so the gross profit is growing. But if you look to the percentages, also the gross margin, if you compare that to prior year, it depends whether you look to the full year of 2023 or whether you look to the first quarter of last year. If you look to the full year of last year, then we see a strong improvement for the medical business, but also for the overall business compared to last year. Net income is also mentioned here, even stronger growth, but I don't want to focus too much on that. We have currency effects, hyperinflation in Argentina, and things like that. If you have any specific questions, we are happy to answer them later on. Now, how does medical look like?
I mentioned already, we have 43% growth from EUR 24 million to EUR 34 million, 10 million more. That is, I wouldn't say extraordinary, but it's really a super result, and to a strong portion, it comes from our generator business. But we see also a strong demand in our hot cell, in our business in Dresden, where we are producing hot cells, lead shielded hot cells, and there is a strong increase of these business that is likely to continue also in the remaining part of the year. Profit-wise, engineering is not as high as radiopharmaceuticals, but if you look here to the performance of overall net sales, there we see a strong increase of these two pillars, generators and engineering.
EBIT adjusted, basic more or less, is. I'm too humble to say it has been doubled, but it's a strong growth in terms of the absolute numbers. EUR 6 million first quarter of 2023, and EUR 9.7 million in this year, and that also has an effect on the EBIT margin, 25% last year, 28% this year. Net income, you see here, that's a lower number, a stronger performance even there. Isotope business, relatively stable in the revenue performance, although there is a shift from lower margin to higher margin products.
That is important because at the end of the day, profitability counts, and that's why we are happy that the oil logging business has seen a strong uptake in the first quarter of this year, and that is mirrored in the also strong increase in the EBIT adjusted number from EUR 4.7 million to EUR 6.8 million. So, in percentage, it's an increase of 45%. Here, again, why did we change from net income to EBIT before special items? First of all, we want to have a comparable number, and then within, without any special effects, we want to demonstrate, and we give you a number to attend, which allows you to really to have apples-to-apples comparison, and that's why we have EBIT before special items from continuing operations only.
So all the Pentixapharm business is excluded, and also other special items are included. So the normal EBIT would be 14.2 million, and then the number which we presented, and published earlier is EUR 15 million, compared to EUR 10 million of last year's first quarter. You see the items in there, and it would not surprise me if the hyperinflation topic, 0.6 in the first quarter. If you multiply this by four, you come to EUR 2 million, approximately, a number which might sounds familiar to some of you, because that is the hyperinflation number, which we also had to report in 2023 and 2022. Currency effect is a number which is difficult to predict, and the other items are mentioned here, relatively small in this first quarter.
Looking to the regional split, there's a strong increase and strong growth in North and the Americas, in particular to North America, by 39%, and America represents 50% of overall businesses. So that's why important that the generator business, which is increasing there, with high prices for these gallium generators, is influencing, positively contributing to the strong performance of this year. Asia, I mentioned last quarter already, or when we were talking about 2023 results, that more and more Asia becomes an important pillar for our business. That is also why we invested into a joint venture in Jintan, where we are setting up a factory there, and we see a growth for China by 64% compared to previous year.
All in all, Asia remains the engine still on smaller numbers, with roughly EUR 10 million this year, but that is, uptaking curve, and I'm pretty confident that this number, will continue. So this is the picture. This is Europe on the one side, it's America and Asia to come. Middle East and Africa, 10% of the overall business, 10% growth, 2%, so, that there is room for improvement, we might say, but, if you ask me whether I do see any prospect big growth in these regions, I must admit, not for the time being.
Radiopharmaceuticals, that is within our medical, the combination of radioisotopes of our generators, the gallium generator, as well as the common generator, the Technetium-99m generator, plus all the cold kits, and the contract CMO activities, growing by 30% compared to last year. If we extrapolate the number for this year, you see for 2022, still the number of the acquisition of Tecnonuclear in South America and Argentina. We have then incorporated that growth and are now showing only organic growth. And the number here, what we are presenting here, is that we do expect a growth approximately 30% compared to last year for this year. If you look to the number of quarter by quarter, then in the first quarter, strong growth, and we have to see how this is going to develop.
How does the balance sheet look like? What is important here is our cash, EUR 66 million, so we still have enough money to finance all our investments, in Europe, in North America, and in China. That is also one of the reasons we want to make sure that we do have enough liquid funds and that we do not have to borrow more money, that we do not have to increase equity here, so that we finance all our investments out of our pocket. And that's why cash is king, in particular, as interests are much higher than a couple of years ago. We want to make sure that we remain here absolutely flexible. All the other items are basically unchanged compared to last year. Long balance sheet with EUR 450 million total assets and liability.
If you look to here, the key figures, then I presented already the EBIT before special items, EUR 50 million, cash flow, EUR 4 million, cash amounts, I mentioned, no change in loan liabilities, equity ratio, still 50%, and headcount, we are growing. We are above 1,000 employees, but we want to make sure that we do invest and that we increase the number of employees in those areas where we are planning to grow. And that's why it is not unlimited growth, but it is on a case-by-case scenario. Here, again, the number I just mentioned, no change of that. And outlook, that is, of course, the remaining question, that we do reconfirm our guidance of EUR 265 million in revenues and EBIT EUR 50 million for the entire year.
And, if I'm going to be asked, if that guidance will be at least met, yes, the question is, the answer is yes. How does our financial calendar look like? You see some of the conferences where Eckert & Ziegler is participating and presenting numbers here until the end of the year, as it looks, as of today. Now, most important is the annual general meeting here in Berlin. Everybody is heavily invited, June 26th, in north of Berlin, for those who want to take the vessel here, I am happy to welcome everybody. Thank you for listening, and now it's 3:15 P.M., so basically exactly what we wanted to achieve. And the floor is open for first questions.