Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to ORION's earnings conference call and webcast for the financial period of January 2021. My name is Dukka Hirbonen, and I'm the Head of IR here at ORION. In a few moments, our CEO, Timo Lappelainen, will present the results of the first quarter of the year, after which you will have the opportunity to ask questions either through the webcast chat below on your screen or then if you are attending the teleconference then through the teleconference lines. We will first take the questions through the teleconference and then take remaining questions from the webcast cast chat. Kindly, I remind you that please state your name and the organization you represent before asking your question.
And before I let Timo to step in, I'd like to draw your attention to this disclaimer regarding any forward looking statements here in this presentation. But now, please, Timo, it's your turn.
Thank you very much, Duca. Again, it's my pleasure to give you some of the highlights for the first quarter twenty twenty one. And if we start with the net sales, of course, the comparable period 2020, that had a material event, which was the emerge of COVID-nineteen and then the subsequent hoarding effect that we saw towards the end of first quarter and in the beginning of second quarter. So that made a comparison period a tough one. Still, we are seeing that due to the pandemic, there is demand for certain products that is at a higher level than normally.
On the other hand then, we also have much lower incidence of seasonal diseases such as flu here in the Northern Hemisphere. And also, there is a lower number of medical appointments and also traffic to pharmacies that has had an impact on pharmaceutical sales. Also, of course, because of the various restrictions, the operational expenses reflecting how much actually the activity has also been brought down in certain aspects or moved to virtual environment, the operating expenses have been clearly lower than last year. Now with regard to the COVID, Orion has been able to continue the operations without interruption, also to provide products to the marketplace. And this has been able to do only by putting major effort in securing the health and safety of our employees, putting the patients in ongoing clinical trials, of course, as a priority throughout the pandemic.
So far, there has been no material disruptions on the availability of products, raw materials or materials that we use in our operations or in our capital expenditure programs. But of course, as the pandemic continues and we see the uneven growth pattern through the globe with all the potential stress on supply chains, one cannot count that this such a good performance is able to continue throughout the year. So the numbers for the net sales, we were able to mark not far from the net sales of last year when we enjoyed the good sales due to the pandemic hoarding effect. But we're 4% shy of that. In the operating profit, that was more clearly so because the last year, of course, there was the product mix and also the loading of the plants was very high during that period.
Operating margin, we were able to pass our target of 25%. Cash flow for the period was certainly lower than last year. And then if we look at the waterfall for the period. So the eSiHaler certainly as an entire category of dry powder inhalers has suffered due to the pandemic. And if we look at the overall category, we are pretty much along the lines with the category of dry powder inhalers when we look at the proportional how much we have come down.
And that certainly, of course, is something that we are working on. Nuveka, our new introduction to the market, is performing as it should at this stage. Next door, that's a tough one to forecast at this point because of the COVID situation, of course, because there's a very much dynamic also in the marketplace due to the number of entrants in a generic form in the area. With regard to Cimdax, we certainly had a decline there as we had anticipated for the year. The reference price products, a small decline there, and we'll have to see how that will pan out as the year moves on.
And then some other items that then resulted to 69,000,000 for the quarter. In terms of the operating profit, of course, having a little lower product sales, that certainly ate into our margin as well as the product mix. Those joined the were the main reasons. Then we had some positive gains on the exchange rate and milestones. However, of course, due to the lower activity, the fixed cost, the operating expenses, those were lower.
And we'll come back to that a little bit later on because there's one larger item that one should note in that package. No major changes in the geographical breakdown and the development of the sales. Finland continues to be the largest single country market Scandinavia, the important part and of course, the large European markets continue to be very important ones. And now subsequently with Nubeka, of course, then the North America is growing as well. In Finland, we certainly saw a decline in sales.
Scandinavia, that was mainly a result due to the lost tenders in biosimilars. Other parts of Europe and then North America, the business did fairly well. And then when we look at the business broken down by different businesses, so specialty products, which is mostly business today in generics, prescription products as well as self care products, some of them are considered pharmaceuticals, some are non pharmaceuticals. There, we saw the decline of 8%, which we consider in the current environment a fairly good result. And in Proprietary Products, we'll discuss that a little bit more.
Animal Health certainly, of course, took a hit with the loss of one of the key distributor arrangements that was terminated towards the end of last year. And then in Fermian, the loading of all the plants in Fermian are at the very high level as we speak. Then when we look at the league table of the products, our Parkinson franchise is doing well and is moving as we had originally planned pretty much. With eSiHaler, that certainly was a disappointment, I guess, for everybody who are operating in that market segment. With SIMDUX and DxDoor, those are, as we have indicated, the difficult ones to forecast for the year.
And maybe it will be fair to say that Dexter was performing a little bit better than we anticipated in the beginning of the year. Then the animal sedatives, we had a lot of shipments for the quarter. And then, of course, the highlight is that Nubeqa is climbing up the league table as one would expect. Then if we turn firstly to proprietary products and look at there, so the ECHELAR, we already saw, the SIMDUX and DEXLOR, those are a little bit the wildcards in terms of forecasting. Lubeka are doing well, and then there are some other products as well.
But if we start with the Easyhaler, and here we see that, of course, the we'd like to see the trend line to turn around and see the growth there. But still, if we look at the overall performance and compare that to the first part of the first half of last year's second quarter, we are not all that much off. But as said, the entire category of products have suffered from the pandemic. Then the Parkinson's franchise. Here, there are parts, as we have often said, there are deliveries to partners, and then the timing effect of those is one part of the business.
And of course, also in certain cases, as we are how we are then providing products to our distributors. But basically, what we are seeing there is a pretty flat line. Now turning to Dexdoor. And this is a tough one. We certainly can see that there is a pattern as the second or third wave, depending how you count these, as that emerged.
So the sales of Dexdoor picked up as that is a product that is used in ICU setting. And there probably will be some leftover for that. But this is a very, very dynamic market, and it's very, very difficult to forecast how that will evolve in terms of the volume share. And of course, the second part is the pricing of the product in that segment. Syndax, there, we have indicated that the loss of the IP coverage there, one should look at the declining trend line.
There, the first generic in the marketplace has yet to be emerged, and now I'm talking about the true generic product. That did not take place in the first quarter. We are expecting that to take place in the second quarter. However, that was probably one of the reasons that we did not lose volume share to generics. Of course, the price impact, just a mere threat of having a generic, will have an impact or has had an impact on the pricing of the product.
Then if we turn to Specialty Products, and here, if we look at the overall market performance, as said, the Scandinavia suffered from the biosimilar tenders. Finland, pretty much business as usual, and this reflects especially our large exposure to the self care market where the traffic was slower in the pharmacies. Eastern Europe and the rest of the world pretty much at par. Of course, we have to look at the absolute size of the numbers as well here. And then when we look at the prescription products and the self care products, certainly, self care products took proportionally a higher hit in the market.
And that, in our understanding, is mainly due to the slower traffic in the pharmacies, which are our distributor channel for self care products. So our largest single country market, Finland, and our largest segment in that are the reference price prescription products. And there, if we look at the entire market, declined by 10%. Orient sales certainly declined by the lower number, minus 7%. And by that, we did okay in that market.
And when we look at the market shares, then we are at the par compared to the comparison period with the reference price products, so 2524, sorry. And the self care products, slightly lower, 25% and the overall market share of 11%. And here you see also the breakdown in the bar we've broken down the sales in these respective segments. Then moving to the research and development. There are no major updates in this table.
So the RSNs is continuing that study. And once we have enough events, we will of course, with Bayer, the trial will be stopped and then reported. But so far, there are no events that would satisfy that criteria. Then the iron note, that was also a trial that we informed in the beginning of the year that, that has been initiated and that has been kicked off. The next subsequent trials, those relate to the products that have not been partnered, and there those trials are currently recruiting.
Then the eSeehaler Tiatropium, there the development work is continuing. Then we took last year, we started to tell the markets what are from the inside out, how we look at the company, the performance of against the various metrics. But we changed a little bit of the color coding. And this is now our of course, our own estimate, Are we proceeding against the target for this year? Are we behind the target?
Or is the situation such that today, we feel that, that target is not anymore achievable? Nubeqa being the key priority, of course, for the company, and we are working through together with Bayer and especially in Europe, we've already kicked off the co promotion in most European countries. As I said, the outcome of Arasens is still up in the air because we don't have the completion of the trial. And then the IronOad trial has started out, and we are in the process of recruiting in that trial. EZHaler, of course, we are looking forward to a growth that's a major franchise for the company, but the beginning of the year made that a little bit more challenging for the remaining part of the year.
Then the development program for 02/2008, we feel very strongly about that, and we want to move forward with that as expeditiously as possible. And hopefully, through the end of the year, we'll be able to tell more news about that. Then in Finland, our market position has been maintained, but the strengthening of the market position in the overall market, that has not taken place yet. Of course, just maintaining in the largest position in the market is an achievement by itself. In a similar fashion, then when we look at the performance of our Scandinavian operations, of course, when we look at the overall numbers, the biosimilar certainly ate into our performance, but there are many other categories where we did well.
We feel we have a good funnel of in licensing opportunities that we feel could be of interest to us. But of course, once we have something to tell, then we will, but looks good so far. Also, of course, we are continuously evaluating inorganic growth, meaning acquiring portfolios or in some cases also companies, and that work is going on. But so far, we have nothing to report on. Okay.
Of course, what we are talking about everybody today is the ECG. Carbon neutrality is one of those aspects. What we've been doing for years is, of course, first of all, identify our climate impact of the Scope one and two, which are on our own ramifications, what we do. We are working as we are energy intensive industry in certain parts of our operations, especially in API side. There, we have taken a serious action here and through the energy efficiency programs, also by converting to renewable energy, we've been able to reduce our greenhouse emissions substantially over the years.
We continue that work by investing in renewable energy, both in terms of heat and steam. We are also we have done the first work to develop the entire life cycle assessment for Scope three so that also our products across the life cycle, what is the impact of those products. And first one we did for IsiHaler, and we expect that the remaining carbon footprint after what we've all done, that we will be able to compensate by 2030 and thus being carbon neutral by that time. That's a tough target, but we have a good program. We have a good also track record in this regard, so we feel very strongly about this important matter.
In our outlook, there are no changes. So we estimate that in 'twenty one, the net sales will be slightly lower than in our comparable period last year, and the operating profit is estimated to be lower or clearly lower than in 2020. And here are the key assumptions behind our outlook. There are no material changes in this. What we discussed in the fourth quarter earnings call, of course, Nubeqa is one of the drivers here.
And there are some other products as well, but not a single one that would be such an important across the year. Of course, on the negative side, we note that especially in second quarter, that we had the major milestone events last year. Dexter was very strong through the first half last year as was Simdacs. With Animal Health, we lost an important distributorship arrangement, and that eats in our sales in that regard. In the operating profit, and here is one important matter that relates also to our operating expenses for the quarter.
We had roughly about CHF 1,000,000 a month, so about CHF 3,000,000 a quarter amortization relating to the Parkinson franchise repatriation that we repurchased back the product rights from Novartis. And those are now not anymore with us for 2021. So about CHF 3,000,000 of the OpEx savings relate to that. Of course, the milestones, Dexter or Simdacs, we said. And then the one question is that nobody has a very good answer is that when will the activities normalize.
Subsequently then, of course, that would increase our OpEx. And we'll all have to see how that year will develop. So far, our plans are that, that will not take place in the first quarter, unlikely to take place in the third quarter either. And then the upcoming events. We are going to hold a virtual Capital Markets Day in May on May 26.
And of course, we welcome you all to join. And then the half year report is in July on July 19. With that concludes my prepared remarks. At this stage, I'm happy to invite Yari Kossen, our CFO, to join me here at the podium, and we're happy to take questions. And Touka will take the questions Or do we take the telephone lines first?
All call Okay. We'll take the telephone lines first. So and as Tuukka said, kindly state your name and the organization you represent.
Thank Our first Comes from Jo Walton from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
You. Jo Walton from Credit Suisse. I'm just going to ask about the cost lines, if I may, just to see how representative they are and whether there is a chance that you will be able to undershoot on your costs for the year. So I understand that COGS will depend on the level of sales. You had strong sales in the first quarter last year, slightly weaker sales this year because of COVID.
But your sales and marketing expenses, excluding anything to do with your Parkinson's amortization, came down really quite markedly, 6,000,000 or so year on year in the quarter, and your R and D was also strongly down. Can you just tell us how much of that is better cost control than you were perhaps expecting and how much is just timing and will definitely reverse in the second half of the year? And then just another one on ODM-two zero three, you've done the partnering, there weren't any milestones. Can you tell us a little bit about any arrangement there? Could there be any income coming to you?
And if so, when might that be? Many fact oh, and I'll just ask the obligatory Newbeck question just in terms of, your investment there. Have you been doing any work marketing? Have you got involved yet? Or is this still really being led by Bayer from a marketing perspective in Europe?
Okay. How do we split? Maybe I'll start, and then Jari, you'll add on the cost side. Starting with the R and D, there our current view is that the cost of the R and D would be weighted towards the second half or towards the remaining part of the year. So we would internally, we do not multiply this by four, the first quarter, but would expect there to see that increase towards the second quarter when the activities, including the enrollment for the ongoing trials, starts to pick up.
In terms of the sales and marketing, that's a good question. I think it would be fair to say that for the first quarter, the saving that has been materialized, that probably has been materialized and is we are unable to pick that up. But then have we done anything special activities? No, we have not. On the other hand, not all the Nubeqa related co promotion activities have all kicked in yet.
So that we expect also to kick go upward a little bit. But that is a very good question, and we certainly do not have an exact answer to that question. As I mentioned, today, our view is that the first half will be slow. Whether third quarter will allow us more face to face marketing sales activities with customers? Or do we continue mostly virtually?
It remains to be seen. Today, we expect that the fourth quarter would see the resume of that. I don't know if, Jari, you want to add To
a little bit different to forecast, the level of activity. One could assume that last year, the last nine months, the COVID was going on all the time, and it might be that we actually will end up spending a little bit more than last year during this year, during the same time period because today as it is sees today, it might be that towards the end of the year, the situation is a little bit calmer. But how much that will have final impact, it's difficult to say, but I don't think we are talking about any really major numbers there. So it's quite likely that we will end up in the cost number, which is lower than last year. And then, of course, on top of that also, then the €12,000,000 from the amortization of the Novartis deal a few years back.
And you were also asking about the new BEKA role. So OREO definitely has been doing the co promotion in Germany, but and in some other markets, but Germany has, by far, been the most important. So it's not only Bayer anymore. So in Europe, as the launches proceed, ORION is also participating. But of course, U.
S. Clearly is the key market today, and their buyer continues to handle the matter on their own, of course.
But we still there's no change in the plan that we would expect Europe launches for Nubeqa to take place throughout the year. So when we close the year, there should be very few countries, maybe one or two, where the product would not have been launched. Then there was a question on the ODM-two zero three and the deal terms thereof. We do not expect any material income from that this year. So that is not in our forecast, and, we would advise against putting anything in your, spreadsheets on that.
There is the opportunity potentially as it progresses in other hands for you to get some income? And can I just clarify what Yari said? Is it possible that the marketing costs year on year will be lower? Because you have said that the the operating expenses should be similar. So just checking, that you think that the marketing costs can be lower despite your increased involvement with Newbekah.
I mean the Nubeqa, we are not planning to really add any personnel on the overall number. But of course, I mean, promotion in the normal world require traveling and stuff like that, which all have been on hold. So there definitely can be some impact on those. Like I mean, the travel costs, for example, during first quarter were almost zero in our numbers this year, which definitely is not a normal situation.
I think your question is good, but we just don't know the answer yet.
Our next question comes from K. C. Arikathlon from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone.
Thank you for taking my questions. Casey Arikutla from Goldman Sachs. I have two, please. On Nubeqa, I appreciate that the commercial side of things are being led by Bayer, but maybe you could talk a little bit about the treatment side of things. If ADRICENCE trial meets your expectations, how should we think about the target patient population and the treatment duration in this new indication?
And also on ADERNOTE that you're recruiting currently, how does the target population here compared to ASINS, please? That's the first one. The second question on M and A. Can you remind us where your key priorities are? Are you looking at transformative deals, your target therapeutic areas and if you're looking at early stage or late stage assets?
Okay.
On Lubeka, the RSNs and RNNote, the difference is that the basically in RNNote, the patient population has the they do not have the chemo underlying treatment. They are only on a hormone suppressive treatment, whereas on RSNs, they are on both. So that's the patient population difference. On the target, what we are currently targeting are, of course, patients who are on the label based on our MISS trial, which is a narrower patient population than should then the RSNs work out. And then when we currently look at these patients, all the feedback that we get is that the tolerability aspect of the product seem to be real patients, including their caregivers or physicians, seem to appreciate that.
The efficacy is there as far as, of course, you can see in the live patients. So in overall, whether how much of a conversion from the other treatments there have been, that then depends really on the market. And of course, in some markets, are newly or recently launched products, which, however, may not have received the same favorable position from the reimbursement authorities when we are comparing that to Nubeqa. So maybe that is something that speaks also favorably for Nubeqa in Europe. In terms of the M and A, the targets, what we are looking for, they are that would be geographically, it would be Europe, firstly.
Secondly, what we are looking for are areas that would fit in our footprint commercial footprint in neurodegenerative products as we have franchise there. So something towards the neurologists, of course, would be very much appreciated. The other side where we are looking is in oncology, but we respect that, in oncology, we probably have to be focusing there very much to narrower indications or in some cases even rare indications, but the oncologist would be one target audience. And that then also leads to hospital care products, because we have a very strong franchise in hospital care, especially in Continental Europe or in Southern Europe. And then a sort of separate item, there is our Animal Health franchise, where we have the strong position in the Nordic countries, certain Eastern European countries.
We have a good pipeline there as well as we are launching. But today, we are still missing our own sales operations in Europe.
I'm not talking about transformative So deals in that we have, of course, certain loan facilities available. And now, of course, the AGM granted also the Board rights to issue some shares, but definitely none of those rights or the available funds would allow us to make any kind of a transformative deal just to kind of give a description of what we are looking after. So the money is enough to make deals which have a good impact on the overall company, but definitely not enough to completely change the company. And at this stage, there are no plans to merge with anybody or anything like that, which would be called transformative. So they are normal add on acquisitions we are targeting in the areas Timo just mentioned.
Thanks, Erias. Good addition.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Sami Sarkomis from Nordea Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. I'll continue on Nubeqa. Firstly, coming back to the strong sales growth you did witness in Q1. You're saying that this was in line with your expectations. Do you anticipate a strong sequential sales growth also during the remainder of this year?
Or was there something special in Q1?
No. We would expect a continuation of a strong sales of that. And that then you may recall how we book the sales of Nubeqa. The number that we show, that is inclusive the product sales and the royalty. And the way it works is that the from the royalty are always deducted from the previous shipments of the product.
So there can be from our perspective, there can be quarter to quarter variations due to the shipments. But basically, from the marketplace, yes, we would certainly expect the sales to continue to climb up.
Okay.
Yes.
And then further on, Rebecca, do you still view June as the most likely timing for headline data on the RSENS study?
I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question. What was the RSN study? Was that on timing?
Yes. So it's still the most likely timing for RSN's headline data.
Well, that's difficult to say because we don't have the events yet. And the forecasting of events, that's tough science or art. So there's certainly we cannot promise that it's a second quarter or even the third quarter. It really depends how we will see the events. So unfortunately, we don't have anything more to give on that at this time.
Okay. And then finally, on CMDEX, it seems that you have become a bit more cautious regarding the outlook. You did earlier expect a somewhat smaller decline this year after 28% decline in Q4, but now it seems that this is no longer the case. What has surprised you here? And where do you see the decline on a full year level now?
Well, the positive one was for the first quarter that we did not see any true generics in the marketplace yet. So that is still to become we actually expected that we would have seen somebody, but we haven't seen that. We still expect in the first half, so in this quarter, that there would be. But of course, we don't have insight what other companies are doing. So I don't think anything really has changed from that perspective.
We are seeing that there is a price pressure. We saw that already. But of course, the volume, at least for the first quarter, was all with us, which is money in the bank so far. So I don't think there has not been any material changes in our line of thinking. So if I represented that in my opening remarks in my tone differently, then that's an error on me.
Okay. And do you expect a decline to ramp up from the Q1 level through the remainder of the year?
That's tough to see because it really depends how the competition would work. It depends how many competitors we see. Of course, when we look at the opening up the new contracts, we have been we are trying, of course, to secure the volume. And in some cases, then the contracts are such that the purchasing organization has the right to open them as far as the pricing goes, but we would still have always the matching right for the volume. So it's fairly dynamic today when we look at the situation.
But how this will evolve, it's really it's a tough one. I cannot give you much more guidance than it certainly will be a negative this year. Whether the first quarter would be the right then slope as we are moving forward, it's probably in the neighborhood there, but don't hold me to the last number.
But I guess it's quite clear that prices will not go up. And if we lose any volume, it means more decline line for us, and those are very difficult to forecast.
Okay. Thank you very much. Don't have any further questions. Thank you. Our next question comes from James Benthienis from Jefferies.
Please go ahead.
Hi, Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Just two, please. Just on the Arasen's trial, can you just remind us on the timing of that when you expect that to readout? And also how you think that could change the commercial opportunity?
And then the second question is just on the specialty business. There's sort of been this bifurcation of performance between Finland, Scandinavia and some of the other regions. So I'm just curious why that is also given in one of the slides you say how Finland and Scandinavia are performing behind your expectations for this year. So what was it that transpired that wasn't in your expectations at the start of the year? Thank you.
Okay. With regard to the RSNs trial, because that's an event driven trial, that's really difficult to estimate as we are approaching then to the end of the trial when we will have the last events, which are death in this trial. So that's a tough one. We of course, we expect that this year, it will be there, but which is the actual month, we just don't know that yet, unfortunately, for that. In terms of the SPP or the generic business, there are two aspects to it here.
One is the biosimilars effect that we saw in Scandinavia, and that resulted in this big decline there. We also saw last year the effect of certain countries in Scandinavia building up our stockpiling product. And of course, this was absent this year. But maybe the something that we've seen, a development throughout the pandemic, but has we've been affected by that because of our broad portfolio, especially when we look at the some of the seasonal flus or other infective diseases that are typical in the Northern Hemisphere. And those we have been missing as we are all sanitizing our hands all the time, wearing the masks, so we don't have the infections as much as we typically would have had throughout also the early part of the year.
Also, the traffic to pharmacies, which are the main distributors for our products, has been, in many cases, much lower than in the pre pandemic. So that probably has taken us not that we probably should have seen that, but it got verified through the first quarter.
That's great. And just a follow-up on the first part of my question. So if Arisense is positive then, I mean, do you think it will change the commercial opportunity for the product?
Thank you. I'm sorry. Of course, that would make us in par with competition. So that would be the first answer to that. We would be, I guess, from the perspective that we have is what we believe is very strong data on the tolerability of the product.
And then subsequently, we could also then meet the competition. And in, of course, a little bit different setting for the trial, but we could also have the efficacy point there as well. But as of today, we are with a narrower indication compared to the competition.
That's great. Thank you.
Thank
please press 01 on your telephone keypad. Once again, that's 01 on your telephone keypad if you wish to ask an audio question. Okay. There appears to be no further registered questions at this moment, So I'll hand back to the speakers.
Great. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. I have a few questions coming from the webcast chat. Let's start with the first ones coming from Peter Smith of Bank of America. First one is about Nubeka, surprise.
So Nubeka royalty looks good, but small number. Is this a clean number to project from? No one offs or anything else skewing it? I guess that you already addressed this, but do you want to add something, Timo?
No. Nubeka, as for any product where there are substantial partner business involved, be that Stalevo, be that Nubeqa, be that our animal health sedatives, there the quarter to quarter variation can be quite volatile. And the reason is just how the shipment takes place. In the case of Nubeqa, as I explained, the shipments product shipments, commercial product shipments are then deducted from the royalties. So it lacks that.
So having said that, there are nothing special in that. But of course, we are still in the early phases of the launch of the product. So there are in certain countries, certainly, there are pipeline filling. You would see that. And just the demand is fairly volatile at this early days of the launch because we are practically just launching in some countries.
Thanks, Timo. Then another one from Peter. This regards the business targets for this year and to the line which is covering the M and A opportunities. So we are stating that it is behind target. So Peter wants to know, is this due to elevated valuations in the market?
And then again, what's the outlook for this? Is it likely to turn red and be unattainable for this year?
Well, it takes two to tango, so that's a tough one. We have in our evaluation funnel, of course, we are monitoring quite extensively the marketplace. But that is true that the valuations we've seen quite high valuation inflation in the sector and in some subsegments of that. And that, of course, makes the case tough for companies such as Orion, which has to also secure and guard the bottom line, not only to the EBITDA level, but we have to also secure the EPS. So that makes or pushes us to find real synergies that can or something beyond the cost side.
With the cost side alone, you can never justify a transaction with current prices. So you have to see something else. We are working very hard on that. And I can only say that once we have something closed or something signed, we certainly will let the market know. But I think it's premature and it would be not fair to discuss further on any prospects in this regard.
The next one goes to Yari. This is about balance sheet. And from Willis Hsu from SCIO Capital, Can you please add some color to the big step up in the other current liabilities, which jumped to €323,800,000 in Q1 from 109,800,000.0 from last year? Do you expect it to return to historical level?
Yes. That actually is an event which happens almost every year with the exception of last year. And the reason is very simple, that we had our AGM in March, which means that the dividends were taken out of the equity and booked as liability, but they were paid only in April. So at the March, they showed up as a liability. Last year, the AGM was held only in May, and the dividends were also paid in May, which explains that last year, we didn't have these type of items in our balance sheet at the end of Q1.
Thanks, Jari. Then the final one from the webcast comes from Ansi Rausi from OP Markets, and it's about the outlook. If we think about NUPEKA sales growth, possibly Easyhaler sales rebound later this year, year on year lower sales and marketing costs and all the other things together, your guidance starts to seem a bit cautious. Is there something we should consider in addition to this €28,000,000 milestone bridge from 2020?
Of course. If we all we had was tailwind, that would be great. But we also need to plan for the lower number on Deckstor as we have flagged throughout also the first quarter. Also, Simdux, we expect there not only to have price pressure, but also, as Jari said, we expect there to have generic competition, which would mean loss of volume as well. Certainly, eSiHaler in our first quarter makes this year a little bit tougher for us.
On the cost side, I think the question is valid, as we discussed in the early part of the Q and A. That's a tough one to have or nobody has a very clear vision on that for the year, how that will work out. I still would caution to draw too much conclusions from the first quarter as there is a hazy fill outlook as we move forward for quite a number of products, are important products for Orient and how the market and the competition especially will evolve in those.
And also, I'd like to add that the total milestone number for last year was more than €40,000,000 and this year, the outlook is less than 5,000,000 the €28,000,000 were only the Newpeka related milestone from Bayer, but we also had more than €10,000,000 of other milestones last year, mostly related to new distribution rights of Salevo around the world. So the headwind compared to last year, during the last nine months of this year, from milestones is roughly €40,000,000 rather than the 28,000,000 only.
Good to catch.
Thank you. Now we have exhausted all the questions from the chat. Maybe we'll turn once more to the operator. Do we have any follow ups on the conference call lines?
Okay. So there are no registered questions at the moment.
Thank you. So it's then time about to wrap up.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, everybody, for joining the earnings call, and I hope to see most of you, as many as you can. You're all welcome to join our CMD. That's a virtual this year, so no excuses for missing that.
Thanks. Stay safe. Wear a mask and get vaccinated, if possible.