Good day, and welcome to the Convatec conference call. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Jonny Mason, who's the CFO. Jonny, please go ahead.
Thanks very much, and good morning, everybody. Welcome, as Scott said, to our trading update for the 10 months to date. I'm gonna make a few opening remarks, and then we'll be happy to take any questions that you may have. The strong performance seen in the first half of this year continues, and we're very pleased with the progress on executing our strategic strategy.
This performance was further confirmation that Convatec has pivoted over recent years to a higher level of organic sales growth. For this year, we're on track to deliver the higher growth, which we guided to at the half year. Today, we're narrowing that range towards the upper end, reflecting the strong delivery to date and the shorter period of the year still to go.
We're also on track to deliver expanded operating margin this year of at least 20.5% on a constant currency basis, and then to continue to increase the margin to the mid-20s by 2026 or 2027. And this increase in operating margin and the sales growth will lead to double-digit compound growth in EPS and free cash flow going forward from 2024.
So looking at the 10 months to the end of October, organic revenue grew 6.7%, and on a reported basis, it was lower at 2.5%, principally reflecting the exit of the low growth, low margin foster care business last year.
In Advanced Wound Care, organic growth was high single digits, consistent with the first six months, and the main three sources of growth there were in global emerging markets, where we grew in the mid-teens and continued to gain share. In China, we did see a small impact from the nationwide anti-bribery and corruption campaign, because of the reduced access to healthcare professionals over the last few months.
But we think this is temporary and will normalize next year. And in fact, companies with strong governance practices may benefit from this over time. But the impact on the overall group was not material. Secondly, in the antimicrobial segment, where we are a world leader, our AQUACEL Ag+ Extra products continued to grow, to grow well globally. Excuse me.
Thirdly, in biologics, our InnovaMatrix product, the unique porcine placental-derived extracellular matrix, continued its strong growth and was significantly additive to the category as it was in the first half. We continued to expand our InnovaMatrix sales force, targeting physicians' offices, and InnovaMatrix was also successfully added to some hospital GPO contracts as we began to sell into the hospital selling setting as well, leveraging the synergies of our strong U.S. sales and distribution network.
Moving on to ostomy care. We delivered mid-single-digit growth as anticipated. Growth in ConvaTec ostomy products, which is what drives margin expansion, was strong and in line with the first half. The reduction in growth in this category is from Flexi-Seal, which is our leading fecal management system, and which we reported at the half year.
That improved to a reduction of mid-single digits as we moved past the high post-surgery comparisons. And this drag is going to phase out by the end of the year. Notably, in FMS, we won the HPG contract, the HealthTrust Performance Group GPO contract, which will support FMS sales into future years.
And growth in ostomy continued to be very strong in global emerging markets, where, too, we continued to gain share. In continence care, growth was mid- to high-single digits. And remembering that this is predominantly a U.S. business, the growth was delivered with continued very good customer satisfaction and loyal distributors and with strong price growth. There was a slight moderation in growth since the first half, which was phasing. It was as expected and was in line with the guidance for the year.
In infusion care, growth was high single digit and was slightly stronger than in the first half. There was good growth across the portfolio, from our established products with our biggest customers, from our existing portfolio of infusion sets, but particularly with new insulin pumps and new customers in theAIDs , from new and innovative infusion sets, such as the Extended Wear Infusion Set, which is the only product in the market which lasts for up to a week... and that's twice as long as the current standard of care.
Finally, strong applications outside of diabetes, which are growing in double digits. While on the topic of infusion care, I thought I'd address the GLP-1 question, of which there's been obviously a lot of coverage. We don't expect GLP-1s to have a material impact on our infusion care business, and let me explain why.
When it comes to insulin, to intensive insulin therapy, GLP-1s are effective medicines for patients who produce some insulin. But for GLP-1s to work with the pancreas, the body needs to be capable of producing sufficient insulin. Our products are used in the treatment of insulin-intensive patients, and these are the 10% of all people with diabetes who do not produce sufficient insulin. 33 million people who need to inject insulin to manage the blood sugar in their body, and GLP-1s don't help in these circumstances.
Of these insulin-intensive patients, 95% of them still use multiple daily injections to manage their condition, and only 4% currently use pump therapy, despite its proven superior clinical outcomes. So the growth in our business is predicated on the increase in the penetration of insulin pump therapy, displacing multiple daily injections over time.
It is about supporting more patients with the ultimate insulin delivery systems. Specifically, at present, we service over 1 million patients, and there are more than 30 million patients who are insulin intensive and do not currently use pump therapy. So we remain confident in our ability to grow at high single digits for the following reasons.
First of all, the opportunity to penetrate the 95% of multiple daily injection users, as I've just described, and we are working with partners on a wide variety of developments in insulin pump therapy, which will provide better choices for patients and encourage conversion.
And the attractive opportunity for infusion sets outside of diabetes, where we see a couple of points of progress per annum from new therapies which use subcutaneous infusion, including Parkinson's, immunoglobulin deficiency, and anemia. That covers the performance in our categories.
Now, a few words on our strategic progress, and you've been reading the bullets in the release, so I'll just make a couple of observations. New product launches, especially in wound care and infusion care, are progressing well. That includes the InnovaMatrix, ConvaFoam, extended wear infusion sets for the Medtronic 780G, sets for Tandem's Mobi, and for AbbVie's new Parkinson's therapy in particular.
In ostomy care, the development of our new one-piece convex pouching system, Esteem Body, is progressing well and on track for launch early next year. And this is very exciting. This is ConvaTec's first significant new product launch in ostomy in nearly a decade. In continence care, we began launching our new GentleCath for Women in France. This is a compact catheter offering, using our proprietary FeelClean technology, which is designed for urethral protection and to reduce the risk of UTIs.
This will help to build our commercial presence in the European continence market. We also completed two acquisitions for $28 million together, which will further strengthen our home services in the US. In operations, as announced earlier this year, we are closing our EuroTec facility in the Netherlands and migrating manufacturing to our larger and more efficient site in Slovakia, which is expected to be completed by year-end. We're also restructuring some of our management activities in Switzerland.
This is all part of our network optimization program to improve gross margin through operating efficiencies. Finally, we further extended our global business services to improve G&A efficiency by adding another location in Asia to provide round-the-clock services support to our organization. Let me just summarize. We're very pleased with the progress this year.
Convatec has committed to a higher level of organic sales growth over recent years. We're on track to deliver our increased sales growth guidance for this year, narrowing the range to the upper end as the year progresses. We're also on track to deliver expanded operating margin this year and mid-teens in 2026 or 2027.
The combination of that sales growth and EBIT margin expansion will lead to double-digit compound growth in EPS and free cash flow from 2024. That's my summary, and we will now be happy to take any questions that anyone may have. Thank you very much.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. We'll take now our first question from Jack Reynolds-Clark, from RBC Capital Markets. You can go ahead now. Thank you.
Hi there. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two to start with, please. So just on the tightened range, just wondering, kind of, if you could talk us through what's giving you the confidence in that tightened range and the factors that kind of might impact where you come in that range?
Obviously, the growth in the first 10 months was kind of slightly below the bottom of that range. So I guess, what we need to get you to the top of that range. And then just also on wound care, the guidance from H1 implies a meaningful acceleration there in the final two months of the year. Just kind of wondering what visibility you have on achieving that. Thank you.
Okay. Well, those two questions are related. Yes, we do expect acceleration in sales growth towards the end of this year, hence, the bottom of our range is slightly above year-to-date. There are three main factors in that. One is FMS, as I mentioned in my summary. You know, that was going through some tough COVID-related comparatives at the beginning of the year, which will have phased through by the end of the year.
Coupled with winning the new GPO contract, means that FMS sales growth will be stronger. In wound care, we've also got the building effect of InnovaMatrix, where it was organic only for three months in the first half, and it'll be organic for the full second half year. So that will also help to grow the wound care sales.
That will be able to think with your second question, which is: Why will wound care accelerate towards the end of the year? It's mostly driven by InnovaMatrix. And then there are some comparatives at the end of this last year, which were a bit weaker than we're expecting them to be this year, just normal phasing.
But when you combine all of those three effects, you know, that's why we are confident that sales growth for the remaining of the year will be stronger than it was for the 10 months to date. Albeit, we're very pleased with the 10 months to date, 6.7%. You know, we think that's a really good growth performance.
Okay, great. That's super clear. And then if I could just squeeze in one more. You mentioned the contract wins in InnovaMatrix in hospital. I was wondering if you could give us some more details around that and how you see that developing as a driver of the segment?
It's very early days. I think we've said previously that the vast majority of our sales in InnovaMatrix are in physicians' offices, and that's where we are driving the majority of the growth this year and going forward.
But we are starting to benefit from the synergies with our existing wound care sales force, which is, you know, very strong and well distributed. And we've got ourselves listed on some of these GPO contracts now. So, it's a small start, but it's a promising start, and we look forward to developing that business through hospitals steadily as we go forward.
Okay. That's great. Thanks very much.
We'll take now our next question from Hassan Al-Wakeel, from Barclays. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Hi, thank you for taking my questions. I have three, please. Firstly, Jonny, can you talk about the headwinds you're facing in wounds in China? How much is China down in the wound care business, I guess over the last few months? And when do you expect this to recede, and is double-digit growth still realistic for this year?
And what about full year 2024? Secondly, Karim talked about improving inventory in the second half when we caught up in September. How is that progressing, and how should we think about working capital and free cash flow improving this year, given that it has lagged margins?
And then thirdly, as you look into FY 2024, can you talk about any key growth considerations, whether you expect any regulatory reform, and ultimately, if consensus expectations of mid-single-digit growth is reasonable to your mind? Thank you.
Sure. Okay. So China first, headwinds in China. Yeah, look, we have seen wound care slow a bit in China. It is still double-digit growth. I think it's important to say, but slower than it was before. We do think that that will pass through and will normalize next year. But it has taken a little bit off the wound care growth this year, and therefore, will it still be double-digit growth this year? It'll be close.
You know, without the China effect, would you be confident on reaching double-digit? It'll be close to double-digit, I think it's fair to say and, you know, there's still a bit of trading to be done, so let's see. I think you might have asked about 2024 as well.
Just important to say, when we reference wound care and double digit, that was specifically for 2023. What we have said is that wound care is a high single digit business growing, going forward, and that's what we expect it to be in 2024 as well. I think that was the first question. So one, inventory.
Obviously, look, this is a trading update. We're not updating on the margin and cash flow and the full works until our full year results in March. But I think it's fair to say that inventory is improving in the second half. We referred to various factors at the half year, which were temporary, such as the closure of one of the factories in the Netherlands, and building for a specific contract.
Those factors have passed through. It will still be a year of significant inventory build. But, you know, we will, this year, have reached what we think is the right level of strategic resilience in our inventory holding. So there will be improvement in the second half. But it will certainly be a build, year-on-year, and then we'll be normalizing going forward thereafter.
Cash flow in general, we're on track for the leverage that we thought we would be when we disclosed that at the half year, except that we've made two small acquisitions in addition. So adding GBP 28 million to the debt leaves us, at this year-end, about 2.3 times in terms of leverage. And then we're not guiding on 2024 today.
You know, I don't think you'd expect us to. That'll come next time we speak. But we set out at the half year that we're expecting Ostomy Care and Continence Care to be mid-single-digit growth. Infusion Care and Wound Care are going to be high single-digit growth, and nothing has occurred to change our view on that. So that is what you should be looking forward to in 2024, as well as continued progression on our operating margin expansion towards mid-20s by 2026 or 2027.
No, that's, that's really helpful. Just, just to follow up, anything on any regulatory reform that we should expect, and what's the base case on China resolving in terms of timing, please?
The business reform, not particularly. And in terms of China, look, we think it will start to normalize and we'd expect to be doing double-digit, double-digit growth there in wound care next year. You know, important to say, in Ostomy Care, the growth is still mid-teens. That's less effective because it's more of a direct-to-consumer sales channel.
Perfect.
So we're expecting good growth in China next year. I think that's, but that's as much as we want to say at this stage.
Thanks, Jonny.
We'll take now our next question from Anchal Verma from JP Morgan. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Hi, good morning. I have two questions, please. Firstly, on the EBIT margin guidance, that's been reiterated despite the narrowing up of the revenue guidance. Are you seeing any specific headwinds at the EBIT level that's refrained you from raising the EBIT margin guidance, or are you just being conservative?
And then secondly, this is building on Anchal's question. For next year, can you just provide us an update of the product pipeline looking into next year? And what are the key launches that would be growth catalyst for next year? Thank you.
Sure. So first of all, on EBIT margin, no, no new headings that, that we haven't referred to before. Inflation this year is turning out in the range that we expected it to, which was 5%-7% for this year, full year towards the top of that range.
And in terms of pricing, you know, pricing is firm this year as we reported at the half year. So second half, consistent, no real, no real change there. We're not updating margin guidance, but it's a trading update. Yeah, we're updating our sales growth, and just reconfirming that we're on track with everything we said for margin. So I think that's how you should interpret the update today.
Yeah, and then in terms of product pipeline, you know, the most exciting one that we're looking forward to next year, you could say, is Esteem Body, which is our new one-piece convex ostomy product. And that'll be out early in the new year. And then obviously the GentleCath for women is launching now in France.
And that then will launch in other markets next year. So, you know, that's very, very much looking forward to that. VYALEV has launched in Japan already, so the Parkinson's treatment in our infusion care business, and that too will roll out next year.
And then obviously with building and continuing to launch, ConvaFoam has been progressing well in the US in its early stages of evaluation. We're looking forward to sales of ConvaFoam growing, and then to launch- to be launching that in new markets outside of the US as well.
So, you know, across all of the categories, wound care, ostomy care, continence care, and infusion care, we've got new product launches adding to our pipeline and building our sales work in the new year.
Thank you. That's very clear. And if I could just have a quick follow-up on the inflation comments around for this year. Is it fair to assume a similar run rate going to FY 2024? I know it's still early days, but just any early indication you guys have seen, if you've gotten around to budgeting for next year.
No, we're expecting inflation to be less next year. Five to seven percent this year. Our guidance for next year is in the kind of three to five percent range. So still higher than it was pre-COVID times, but lower than this year. And why is that? We can see clearly prices of some of our materials, some of the cost of goods have been starting to come down. Resins, materials, you know, freight, even utilities, the price rises have been moderating. So we still think prices will be going up, but at a slower rate than they have been this year.
That's very helpful. Thank you.
We'll take now our next question from Kavya Deshpande from UBS. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Morning, guys. It's Kavya from UBS. Thanks for taking my questions. Two please. So first is, it's early days, but in the update you talk about double-digit EPS growth from 2024. So just to clarify, should we assume double-digit growth in 2024? And then secondly, just going back to your launch pipeline, very interesting launches next year.
The Tandem Mobi is obviously the first fully wearable diabetes pump for which you'll be making infusion sets. Just curious, should we be as excited by this as we were by the seven-day extended wear pump, which has obviously gone very well? Thank you.
So the first question is easy. Yes, that's what we mean by that. So double digits, double-digit growth in EPS and cash flow measures will be in 2024 and thereafter. Tandem Mobi, you asked about, look, it's an exciting development and should you be excited about it? Yes, and so are we. But it's only one. Extended wear is particularly exciting for us, of course, because it's something unique to Convatec, which is performing really well. It has very good feedback from customers, from patients, in terms of the utility that they're getting out of that improved product.
So currently, yes, it's supporting the s780G , but that extended wear technology is a platform that we are planning on being able to use for other applications going forward as well. We should be excited about Tandem Mobi, but also about the Beta Bionics and the AbbVie products too.
Okay. Thank you very much.
We'll take now our next question from Lisa Clive from Bernstein. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Great. Thanks very much. To follow up on China, can you remind us of your actual proportion of sales in wound and ostomy coming from China? Just given how much this market has fluctuated for various parts of medtech, it's just helpful to get a better view on your specific exposure.
And then, could you comment on the U.S. ostomy market? Have you seen any impact from Coloplast gaining share there, or is that mainly affecting Hollister as they have 50% of the market? Clearly, your performance in ostomy globally has been much better and actually sort of in line above market the last two quarters, it looks like. So just wondering how that differs perhaps across the U.S. and Europe. Thanks.
Lisa, it's a bit hard to hear you. I think the question was, the first question was, ostomy and wounds in China, what proportion is that? Look, China for us is still a relatively small presence. It's in low single digits in terms of our total sales, but growing very nicely.
And, you know, we're roughly equally represented by ostomy and wounds in China. So, I suppose that's why when we see impact, it's less of a material impact on the group than others might have. But very important for us in the future. We're making great progress, and we're very excited about the prospects in that market.
In terms of ostomy in the U.S., look, we've been improving our performance in ostomy in the U.S., and we have stabilized what was previously a position of declining market share. And we've stabilized new patient starts, and that has been delivered by improved commercial execution, fundamentally.
Focusing on applying our commercial activities properly across the continuum of care, and targeting, you know, the right hospitals, the right outpatient clinics, and deploying our home services to start growing ostomy sales direct to the customer. But we're only claiming stabilization at this stage, and all of that is before launching new products.
I think, you know, as I mentioned earlier on, ConvaTec hasn't launched a new product in ostomy for nearly a decade, and that's why we're really particularly excited about the coming new procedure products, which will give us the tools to start tackling growth and market share more actively in certain markets, including the U.S.
Okay. Thanks for that.
We'll take now our next question from Sam England, from Berenberg. The line is open now. Thank you.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. And the first one, call out positive pricing in the U.S. for continence care. I was just wondering how pricing development is looking across the other segments, given the work you're doing with the pricing Center of Excellence, and how to think about pricing as we head into 2024.
And then secondly, in wounds, just wondering how you're thinking about the reimbursement landscape for biologics, given some of the changes in the U.S. and the commentary from some of the larger biologics players in recent months.
Yeah. So I caught the second question. Did you? I didn't catch the first one. Did you get pricing of what?
The cost.
So, okay. I think I'm sorry that I couldn't hear the first question, but I think it was pricing, pricing across the group and in continence in particular, was it? Sorry, go ahead. Please clarify.
No, just saying you did, you called out positive pricing in continence care, so I just wondered if you had any comments on pricing in the other, other segments as well.
Yeah, got it. Okay. Right. So, with pricing in general, we have been pointing to a small positive impact from pricing across our categories in general. This is a reversal of historic trends, where pricing had a negative impact on margin. The impact of improving our pricing practices with our Center of Excellence has meant, over the past couple of years, a 50-100 basis points positive price move generally across the business.
And, that's what you should continue to expect this year. At the half year, it was a bit more than that. And the reason I called out continence was because, you know, in continence this year, we have benefited from an increase in the reimbursement rates, which has taken our average price across the group up higher than normal.
But that is a one-time effect, and we wouldn't, we wouldn't expect that to continue. Going forward, back to that 50-100 basis points price contribution is, is how we would suggest planning for it. And in terms of, wound care reimbursement, look, there's been a lot of coverage, of this, with, with an LCD issued by three of the MACs and then, and then withdrawn.
We're watching it carefully. We're not expecting much change, in 2024. We do think at some point in the future, there will probably be, a reimbursement correction to some of the biologics pricing levels. But that is a, a changing situation. We can't call what it will be, and it's, and it's not likely to be in 2024, in our view. Might be a bit later than that.
Okay, great. Thanks very much. I hope I've got your questions at the end, but. Yeah, that's great. Thanks. Okay. Goodbye.
We'll take now our next question from Robert Davies, from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open now. Thank you.
So yes, thanks for taking my question. I had a couple. One was just if you could provide a little bit more color on your comments around China and some of the hospital access issues, just to sort of to that to improve.
And the second one was on your medium-term outlook or targets, I guess, for margins for 2026, 2027, getting to mid-20s. Can you just kind of remind us the kind of key building blocks to get there? Because I guess sequentially, over the last sort of two, three years, that's a bigger jump up than you've already posted. I just wondered where your confidence come to seeing the, I guess, in theory, 500 basis points in three years' time of that sort of margin step up? Thank you.
Yeah, sure thing. Look, on China, I'm not sure how much there is to say, really, but we spend time, our commercial teams, talking to the healthcare professionals, sharing education and training with them, inviting them to seminars to educate them about our products and our services and what we can offer for the benefit of customers. What we've observed is that the impact of the nationwide anti-corruption campaign is that they've been less interested and participating. I guess-
Mm-hmm.
a bit of caution on, a bit of caution on their part. And so, we see already that it looks like that might be past its peak. And we expect that to normalize through next year. It is very much an impact on wound care. I think I mentioned this already. Our ostomy care business has more of a direct-to-consumer channel, and therefore, that's less impacted.
And then on margins, yeah, margin mid-twenties, yeah, we remain confident on delivering that margin target because it's by operating levers which are in our control. The major pieces of it, and this is consistent with what we've set out previously, first of all, it's cost efficiency. And we call that simplification and productivity in three different areas.
G&A, we've made good strides in G&A, improving G&A over the last few years, and we've set out a target of 7 points of sales, and then we'll see. With G&A, we're not doing anything that others haven't already done before. You know, we're establishing a global business services operation.
We're standardizing processes, we're centralizing activities, we're getting economies of scale, and we're using experts to do things excellently with the best digital tools. So it's a path trodden by others, that's why we're confident we can get there. The second piece of simplification and productivity is in operations. We have 5 big factories, 9 altogether, and of those factories, only one is currently fully automated. The second one's on the way, and then others will follow.
Again, this is not doing things that others haven't already done. But by automating a lot of work on continuous improvement that our operations teams are pursuing, we can drive efficiency in operations and improve margin as a result. I referred earlier in the call to our network optimization strategy.
We've closed one of the small factories. The year before, we closed another one. Just bringing the operations up to a fully automated and efficient scale is the second of our big building blocks. Then the third one, simplification and efficiency, is in the commercial area, sales and marketing expenditure, which is our biggest single expenditure. And only recently have we finished rolling out a basic CRM system across the globe. Previously, we didn't have that.
So standardizing the approach to commercial expenditure, rigorous reporting and analysis, ensuring productive use of time and of that significant expenditure will also enable our commercial expenditure to leverage with sales over time. And then. Okay, thank you. Sorry, just one last.
Let me just make a couple more points. Beyond simplification and productivity, we've got mix. You know, we are improving the mix of our business. First of all, there was the corporate focus. Getting out of hospital care and into biologics makes a big difference. You know, exiting a low margin, low growth business into a high margin, high growth business. Then across categories, our higher margin businesses being infusion care and wound care, are growing faster than the others.
Then within categories, we are continuously improving the mix of the profitability of the SKUs we sell. Notably, in ostomy, we've been nationalizing the portfolio of SKUs. In continence, we've been improving the mix of ConvaTec manufactured SKUs. So all of those mix factors—Mm-hmm—are important levers in delivering the operating margin. Importantly, we aren't reliant on price increases.
You know, we're not banking on price increases to deliver this margin increase. We are expecting price to be roughly neutral, marginally positive, perhaps, as a factor. And then now that we've got the top line moving, of course, the operating leverage helps to absorb the ongoing inflation in the cost lines. So that's the plan. Thank you. Okay, that's great. Thank you very much. Okay.
We take now our next question from James Sherkin from Nomura. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Thanks, guys. Sorry, man, I've actually got quarter to back in. Everything's actually been addressed. Thank you. But, just one quick one, Jonny. Just can you remind me, in InnovaMatrix, just how much is that adding to growth for the full year, or could you just remind me for the first half, was it 2% extra growth?
Yeah. What we said for InnovaMatrix in the first half is that it added two points of organic growth to the wound care category.
Okay.
Um-
Okay. And then you obviously had that idea for-
So Wound Care was-
Yeah.
Wound care was 8% organic growth. And effectively, the preexisting portfolio was about 6. So InnovaMatrix was adding over 2, and that's the same sort of pattern you should expect for the rest of the year.
Okay, perfect. All right. Thanks, guys. Cheers.
Yeah.
I take now our next question from Seb Jantet from Liberum. Your line is open now. Thank you.
Hi, Jonny. Can you hear me all right?
Yes, I can. Thank you.
Good. Okay, so just a quick couple of questions around the Extended Wear Set. So, I'm just wondering, I can't remember whether the Extended Wear Set is exclusive to Medtronic or whether you also sell it to your other partners. And secondly, just picking up on your point about it being a differentiator, I'm just wondering, do you have any IP protection around that? Are you aware of any other kind of companies working on Extended Wear Sets?
Yes, at the moment, extended wear is sold just with the Medtronic set, the 780G, the 780G products, and it's proving, you know, as we've said, fairly popular with patients and customers. We do, of course, have IP around that technology. You know, I think I referred to in the call, the concept of extended wear is something that we...
That is very interesting to our customers and partners, and we're in conversations. Reflecting on the conversations generally around this fast-changing suite of technology products serving the insulin-intensive customers, and we talk to our partners about developing the new products. They're very interested in extended wear, in the concept of extended wear. So, you know, let's see. But it shouldn't be a surprise if that feature of extended wear becomes more widely available in over a few years.
Brilliant. Thank you.
Okay, well-
Is there any last one here? Sorry.
No, I was just gonna say exactly the same thing, which is I think it looks like we have used all of our questions. So, I think it just remains for me to say, you know, thanks very much for your time and your attention.
You know, our idea today was to say we're very much on track to deliver the targets we set out at the half year in this full year, which is, you know, stronger organic sales growth and an expanding operating margin, leading from next year to the double-digit growth in the EPS and cash flow. Very much on track is our message today. Thanks very much for your time, and we look forward to seeing you after the year.
Thank you very much for joining today's call. You may now disconnect. Thank you.