Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for joining us on today's Convatec Trading Update. My name is Ru, and I'll be the operator on today's call. After the prepared remarks, there will be a Q&A session. If you have dialed in, please press star followed by one to register a question, and to withdraw your question, it's star followed by two. If you've joined us on the webcast, please click the questions tab and type your question into the Q&A box. It's now my pleasure to hand over to Jonny Mason, Chief Financial Officer, to begin. Please go ahead when you're ready.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our AGM Trading update call. I'm going to present a summary of our sales performance and strategic progress for the first four months of the year before taking any questions. The headline is that we've made a strong start to the year, and we're on track to deliver our targets for 2025. I'll talk first about sales excluding Innovamatrix, which represented 97% of the group total. Organic revenue growth was 6.7%, broad-based across all four categories. In Advanced Wound Care, organic growth excluding Innovamatrix was low to mid-single digit. Growth was strong in North America, helped by increasing ConvaFoam revenues, and there was good growth across global emerging markets where, in particular, China was back to growth. Europe started slower but will accelerate through 2025, supported by new product launches, principally ConvaFoam.
In general, our Foam and Hydrofiber products performed well, and we're confident of delivering our guidance for the full year, which is unchanged at mid-single digit excluding InnovaMatrix. In ostomy care, organic growth was again mid-single digit, with good growth in North America and in global emerging markets led by Brazil and China. Home services was a driver of growth, supporting new patient referrals in North America and in Europe. On Esteem Body, our new One Piece Soft Convex product, we're delighted with the positive customer feedback, and this product is growing share in North America, Europe, and now starting in some key global emerging markets. Our guidance for the full year is unchanged at mid-single digit growth. In continence care, organic growth was mid to high single digit.
There was further strong performance in North America, which is over 90% of the category sales, driven by our focus on excellent customer service at our home services group, and that continued to grow market share. Outside of the U.S., growth was very strong, off a small base, but we do expect that to continue to contribute at least a point of growth to the category. Our guidance for the full year is unchanged at mid to high single digit. On infusion care, organic growth was double digit. As expected, we benefited from positive phasing in the period, which will normalize in the remainder of the year. Our guidance for the full year remains high single digit.
We continued to see strong underlying demand for our infusion sets in diabetes and non-diabetes treatments, with faster growth from new customers, new products, and new therapies, in particular from our Neria Guard technology. Looking further forward, we're excited about the strong growth potential for our infusion set technology in both diabetes and non-diabetes therapies. Now I'll say a few words about InnovaMatrix. As expected, uncertainty caused by the now postponed Local Coverage Determinations impacted sales going into 2025, which declined year on year, reducing our group organic growth rate from 6.7%, excluding InnovaMatrix, to 6.2%, including. As reported last month, we welcomed the second postponement of the LCDs, which allows continued Medicare coverage for diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers at least through 2025. We increased our sales guidance for the year, and we now expect sales will be at least $75 million. InnovaMatrix is an excellent product.
With 510(k) approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, it delivers strong real-world results for patients and is trusted by clinicians. While uncertainty remains regarding the future of the LCDs, we are firmly focused on securing long-term Medicare coverage for DFUs and VLUs, and our randomized controlled trials are on track to publish in 2026. We're also actively engaging with patients and healthcare professionals to grow sales in other indications, and we have launched outside the U.S., although that is a much smaller market. We believe that Innovamatrix is a great product which will contribute strongly to growth in the future. Now let me turn to the progress we've made on our strategy. Innovation remains a key focus, and we're making good progress with launching our strongest-ever new product pipeline.
In AWC, we were delighted to receive in April regulatory clearance in the EU and the U.K. for ComboNiox, our breakthrough nitric oxide dressing. We're planning an initial market launch later this year. For ConvaFoam, the win rate in evaluations in the U.S. remained very good at over 50%, and we've launched in Europe. In ostomy care, Esteem Body continued to launch strongly across key markets including Italy, Poland, and the U.S. Additionally, Flexi-Seal Air, the next generation of our market-leading fecal management system, is due to launch in Q3 this year. In continence care, GentleCath Air for Women grew share in Europe and the U.S. The equivalent solutions for men and with a bag, GentleCath Pocket and Set, are due to launch in the first half of 2026. In infusion care, AbbVie's pump therapy for advanced Parkinson's disease continued to progress well using our NeriaGuard infusion sets.
Each of these new products are examples of innovations with clear benefits for customers and healthcare providers. Our new product pipeline is the strongest it has ever been, with eight launches over the next two years, underpinning our revenue growth targets. Now moving to simplification and productivity, where our initiatives continued to progress well. In operations, we continue to increase automation across our factories, and procurement is delivering purchasing efficiencies. In commercial, we improved productivity further, including the use of AI in areas such as marketing automation, translation, and customer service. In G&A, we delivered incremental savings by further expanding the scope of our global business services function. On guidance for the year, we've tightened the growth range for revenue excluding Innovamatrix to be between 5.5% and 7%, increasing the lower end by 50 basis points. Revenue guidance for each category is unchanged.
For InnovaMatrix, we are now expecting sales of at least $75 million in 2025. Other guidance remains unchanged. Adjusted operating profit margin is expected to be between 22%-22.5%, and that is despite a small FX headwind and including any impact from tariffs, which we do not expect to be material. We expect another year of double-digit EPS growth with strong cash conversion. In summary, we have had a strong start to 2025 with broad-based growth across all categories and we are on track to deliver our targets for the year. Growth is supported by our strongest-ever new product innovation pipeline, and our simplification and productivity initiatives continue to deliver steady improvements in operating margin. We are focused on providing high-quality chronic care solutions for customers, patients, and healthcare professionals.
Looking ahead, we also remain on track to deliver our medium-term targets, and we're well-positioned to consistently deliver strong revenue growth and double-digit adjusted EPS growth. Thank you very much. I'll now be happy to take any questions.
Thank you. We'll now start today's Q&A session. If you have dialed into the call, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad to register a question. If you would like to withdraw your question, it's star followed by two. If you have joined us on the webcast, please click the questions tab and then type in your question. Our first question today comes from Hassan Al-Wakeel from Barclays. Your line's now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Three, please. Two on ostomy and one on the margin. On ostomy, can you talk about the momentum and share dynamics you're seeing in China given the slowdown your peer has been seeing? Appreciate you have been under-indexed here, but maybe an update on how big China is for your ostomy business today. Secondly, if you could talk about share dynamics in terms of patient starts in the US and how these trends make you feel about the potential to accelerate growth in your US ostomy franchise, particularly with Esteem Body. Finally, on the margin, you're already at your 2025 guidance in the second half of 2024. At the full year, you were talking about lost Innovamatrix sales being offset by productivity this year.
Given you're expecting less sales to fall away, is the upper end of the margin range more likely, and what to your mind supports upside to this range? Thank you.
Thanks, Hassan. Good morning. Good questions. Taking those in order, ostomy in China, look, we are much smaller than others who have commented on this market. I think we've said previously, it's low single digits as a proportion of the group. Nevertheless, we're really pleased with progress there. We are growing significantly ahead of the market. We are gaining share, and we are looking forward to good growth continuing in China and ostomy for the foreseeable. In the U.S. on ostomy, we're pleased with how our progress is developing in the U.S. Whereas some years ago we were losing share, we're not anymore. We have converted new patient starts to a positive number. That's come mostly through improved commercial execution. Esteem Body's launched, and it is making good progress, early days.
Remember, the U.S. is primarily a two-piece market, and Natura Body is the two-piece equivalent of Esteem Body. That is still to come. We are looking forward to that launching in 2027. That is what will really start to move the dial for us in the U.S., we believe. On margin, yeah, remember there is a little bit of seasonality in the margin. Last year, half one was lower than half two. We would expect the same again this year. That is for two reasons. Firstly, the benefit of our initiatives builds through the year, so the productivity gets greater in the second half than the first. Secondly, there is a small difference in sales. Sales in H2 are a bit stronger than H1, so that tips the operating margin a little bit. We have had good news on Innovamatrix, you are quite right.
We're also absorbing a small FX headwind, and there may be something on tariffs. We're not expecting tariffs to be material, but whatever it is, we will be absorbing that within our guidance. We feel that steady delivery of operating margin expansion, half one on half one and half two on half two, is what you should expect to be seeing.
Excellent. Thank you.
Our next question today comes from Graham Doyle from UBS. Your line's now open. Please proceed.
Good morning. Thanks, guys. Just two questions on the wound business, please. Just on Innovamatrix, have you got any sense yet as to how the sales trajectory has changed in the last sort of month, month and a half? How do you feel about the sort of growth prospects in the second half of that piece of business? Just on ComboNiox, which looks super exciting. Do you have a view now as to how you position that? Is it somewhere between a traditional antimicrobial and a biologic? Is there something clever you can do with InnovaMatrix in terms of bundling that to make it more appealing to payers? Thank you.
Thanks, Graham. InnovaMatrix sales, look, it's early days, isn't it, since the LCD was postponed for the second time. It's gone well since then. We've slightly firmed our guidance on InnovaMatrix in that on the initial postponement, we said it would be about $75 million. And in the few weeks that have elapsed since then, we see the downside risk to that number reducing. So we're now saying it's going to be at least $75 million. We hope we'll do better, but there is still uncertainty in the market. Last year, sales ramped in the second half. Will they do so this year? Look, we'll have to wait and see. I think takeaways we tried to give in the statement were that we're very focused on the future strength of InnovaMatrix.
It is long-term coverage by Medicare, selling into other indications as well, launching outside of the U.S., and delivering our RCTs in 2026. There is a lot of activity going on there. We are very confident about the future for Innovamatrix, but as regards this year, still a bit of uncertainty. Let's see. On ComboNiox, look, we are talking about this as being a breakthrough technology. We really see this as being a new category. It is a multimodal action. It is both antimicrobial and accelerates wound healing. We will be building it over time. We think it is very special. We are starting in Europe. Looking forward to it attracting a strong reimbursement position, as is warranted by the value that it adds for patients and healthcare providers. I think that is how we see it. It is going to be a good starting. It will start small.
Good. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question today comes from Julien Dumoulin from Jefferies. Your line's now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, Jonny. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one relates to the guidance for the year that you have slightly raised to 5.5%-7%. Just curious because that represents 150 basis points of difference. Just curious what would trigger you to be more at the upper end versus the lower end, maybe the one, two, or three building blocks on this, and the three factors would be particularly helpful. Second question on InnovaMatrix. You have said sales declined in the first four months. Is it possible just to get a sense of how much the decline is? Just a very rough estimate would be super helpful. And the last point is on the continence markets. You highlighted that you expect further launches in 2026, if I'm right. Just curious what they refer to and how impactful they could be from next year onwards. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Julien. Great questions again. Guidance, yes, we've increased the lower end of the range. Growth is we've had a strong start in all four categories, broad-based growth. We are tightening the range for the year because we've obviously got four months under our belt, and that's taking some uncertainty out. What would take us to the upper end rather than the lower end? It's really about good execution, in particular of the product launches. They're going well. Someone's typing very loudly. Would they mind going on mute? Yeah. In particular of the product launches, we've started well, and we're very pleased with how they're going. What's very interesting is new products launching in all four categories.
If that continues to proceed well for the rest of the year, which we hope it will, then we would expect to be towards the upper end of the range. We want to be sensible. We do not want to overpromise. Stuff happens sometimes. Let us just stay grounded. On InnovaMatrix, the decline. Yeah. Look, you can calculate it from the arithmetic simply. It has taken 50 basis points off the group's organic revenue growth. That translates into a decline for Innovamatrix itself of less than 10%, but it is a high single-digit decline. Our guidance for the year currently saying at least 75, that is a 25% drop for the year. That is because, as I referenced earlier, last year, the sales ramped in the second half. Will they ramp this year in the second half with the ongoing uncertainty of the LCD? We do not know yet.
We're working hard on it. Let's see. On continence care, Pocket and Set are coming in 2026. Very excited about those new products. They've been developed. We've touched them. We've felt them. We're getting ready for the launches. They are the male and the bag equivalent of the female that we launched last year. The female is progressing really well because it is a discreet, ready-to-use version in a much nicer form factor of our very good FeelClean technology, our proprietary FeelClean technology, hydrophilic, frictionless with the application just of water. It's got a superiority claim with the FDA for greater comfort and ease of use than competitor products. We've combined great polymer technology with a more discreet and easier-to-use product in the female version. That's what we're doing for male and for the version with a bag as well.
Very much looking forward to those launches next year, which will complete the portfolio and give us a proper set of products to be working with in the market.
Our next question today comes from Kane Slutzkin from Deutsche Bank. Your line's now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Morning, Jonny. Just quickly on the growth outside of, I guess, InnovaMatrix and obviously outside of the normalization in infusion care for the remainder of the year, there's nothing really to be aware of in terms of other phasing of growth, I assume. Just on the non-DFU value indications, just want to confirm that growth is still kind of, I think, sort of mid-teen you were referring to. Also, just there hasn't been any knock-on effect, has there, from what you're seeing on the DFU value side onto other indications in terms of sales. Just maybe a sort of high-level question. Quite interesting to see Medtronic planning to spin off their diabetes division. We've also seen Ypsomed sort of a sale of their diabetes business.
Just sort of interested in if you guys have any thoughts on those developments, and does a sort of more focused diabetes sort of standalone company, is that more positive for you to some degree in that they'll be sort of more focused?
Thanks, Kane. Sales phasing, yes, you're right. Infusion care was positively phased in the first four months, and we had pointed to that right from the beginning of the year. The other thing, as expected, is that wound care was a bit lighter than we are expecting it to be for the full year. In Europe, we've just launched ConvaFoam. That is going to build through the year. Both of those two slight phasing effects, infusion care, wound care, we're still confident in the guidance we've given for the full year, in particular that wound care will deliver mid-single digits, excluding Innovamatrix. On InnovaMatrix, look, we'll give more detail at the half year. It's still early days since the LCD was postponed for the second time. Our teams are working hard now both on DFU, VLU. They're back on that case and also on other indications.
I think it's too early to be more detailed and specific about how all that lot's going other than to say we're feeling more confident about delivering at least $75 million given the few weeks that have evolved since the LCD was postponed. On Medtronic and on Ypsomed, look, main thing is they are both very strong partners of ours. We have good relationships with them. We talk to them all the time. We share ambitions for developing and innovating in this sector, and we are optimistic about the growth prospects. We're growing very nicely with both partners. Will a split-off and a more focused diabetes entity make much difference? It can't be bad. Don't know really. We've already got great plans and good prospects with these people, so we're looking forward to a strong future with them.
Our next question comes from Anchal Verma from J.P. Morgan. Your line's now open. Please proceed.
Hi. Good morning. I just have two questions, please. First, on continence care, have you seen any or can you talk to the share dynamics you've seen in continence care, especially in the U.S.? Are you taking any share from the current competitors there? Do you expect the patient volume increases to continue? Essentially, can we expect a similar performance year to date to continue and the trajectory to continue for the rest of the year? The second one was just on tariffs. Just to clarify, you mentioned there will be some impact, but it's manageable. Is the potential impact mainly from wound care products being imported into the U.S. as your chronic care products should be exempt under the Nairobi Protocol? Products being shipped from your infusion care facility in Mexico should also fall under USMCA?
Thank you, Anchal. Yes. So continence care. Yes. So continence care in the U.S., I think your question was that. Yes, we are seeing new patient starts. We are gaining share. We are growing quicker than the market. The trends that we have enjoyed over previous years of increasing proportions of hydrophilic product and also of Convatec product within the mix of what we sell are continuing. Would we expect that to continue for the rest of the year? Broadly, yes. The business is performing very well. We are pleased with how it is going. We expect it to continue. On tariffs, taking that in reverse order, we do expect to be exempt under the Nairobi Protocol, as you described, for the chronic care products and specifically for those produced in Mexico. I mentioned that whatever tariffs end up being, we do not think it will be material.
That's right. We've looked at it. There are some of our products, most notably, for instance, our fecal management system product, which is used in an acute setting where we don't think that qualifies under the chronic care definitions and possibly some of the wound care as well. No change to our initial guidance, which is we don't think this is material. We'll accommodate it within the guidance we've given. Yes, we think the Nairobi Protocol exemptions continue to apply.
Our next question comes from Veronika Dubajova from Citi. Your line's now open. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Bonnie. Good morning, Jonny. And thanks for taking my question. I'll keep it to two, please. I want to circle back to your ComboNiox launch plans. You mentioned, reading between the lines, that it sounds like you'd like to see premium reimbursement here. Can you talk through the plans that you have to build this category and how long you think it might take? It's a very exciting product, so it'd be great to understand when you think it can be available at that premium pricing. My second question is just around China, just to follow up, obviously. Are you seeing any changes in consumer behavior?
I mean, I know you're coming in from a low base, but just curious to understand if you are seeing any changes in consumer behavior, but growing in spite of that, or you're just not seeing the changes that have been referenced by your competitor. Thank you.
Sure. Hi, Veronica. Welcome back. Combine Niox category build plans. Yeah. Look, it revolves around we believe this is special, and I think I referred to it as a new category. We want to take it carefully, build properly knowledge among healthcare providers, and build that base of evidence, which we believe will be very convincing. We are talking about an initial market launch in Europe later this year. Our plans are to build the launch, I suppose, more deliberately and steadily than for a more directly replacement product. ConvaFoam is replacing previous foam, etc. This is new. We want to take it steady and get it right. As we go then, we'll be building that body of evidence, and our launch in the US will follow later next year.
That body of evidence designed to achieve reimbursement levels, which are reflective of its very strong value to patients and to the healthcare providers. I hope that helps. On China, on a macro level, we do see different behavior among the customers, the hospital institutions, and other things. Some years ago, the market was growing very quickly. We think those days are not going to be repeated, at least not in the foreseeable. We now see steady growth, strong growth by developed market standards, but not as strong as it used to be. That is in wound care and ostomy care. I mentioned, I think, in the outset that wound care has returned to growth. The anti-corruption campaign running in the Chinese market, as we reported last year, impacted growth, turned it negative for 12-18 months.
Now that's settled back down a bit more to business as usual. We're seeing good growth there and continuing good growth in ostomy care. Yeah. More back towards a more steady state growth rate, I think, in China.
Our next question today comes from Ed Ridley-Day from Redburn Atlantic. Your line's now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you. Just to follow up on continence, if we look at the European opportunity, which is also very interesting for you, could you just give us a bit more color there about which countries and on what product lines you're seeing the most demand in terms of the acceleration there? On Neria, clearly getting some traction. Jonny, can you give us a bit more color about how we should potentially model that acceleration for Neria in the coming years? Thanks.
Yeah. Yeah. Continence care in Europe is still very small for us. One of the issues we had previously was that the European market is more of a compact market, and our products did not compete as strongly. Now that we have got GentleCath Air for Women, that is doing really well. That is a highly appropriate product for the European market. We started off in France, where it is growing nicely. We have it launched in the U.S., as well. We will roll out steadily to other European markets over time. I think we said in our remarks that the U.S., is still over 90% of our category. Europe is good. It is a good start. Combined with global emerging markets, it is adding over a point of growth to the category total, but it is still very small.
Let's watch this and let's build on it with our two new products, Pocket and Set, which are coming out next year. On your NerioGuard question, we're pleased with how the revenue in infusion care is diversifying over time. Growth in diabetes is strong. It's in the high single digits. Growth outside in non-diabetes therapies is much stronger. It's currently around 10% of the business. I know we've been saying that for a while, but when it's that size, even with faster growth, it stays roughly that size for a while. It's around 10%, and it's growing much faster. Yeah. I think you should be expecting strong double-digit growth in NerioGuard in the non-diabetes therapies for a while to come.
Our next question comes from Christian Glennie from Stifel. Your line's now open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you. Good morning, Jonny. First, as it relates to InnovaMatrix and the status there. Did you have to do any sort of restructuring of your sales force or maybe thinking about how things would play out, obviously preparing for when those SOPs would have been coming in, and then you've had to sort of reshuffle things and/or sort of rehire potentially? Has there been any disruption on the sales force and sort of commercial side supporting InnovaMatrix? And then on the trials themselves, DFU and VLU, just an update maybe on the sort of how you're progressing with recruitment into those trials, and can we be a bit more specific in terms of data in 2026 in terms of timing, first half, second half, that sort of thing? Thank you. And then I'll follow up on guidance. Thanks.
Yeah. Okay. Those two then. InnovaMatrix, we did not embark upon any restructuring of the sales force. Bear in mind the timings right up until the second postponement in April, we were not sure if it was going to happen or not. We certainly did not restructure. The other factor, of course, is that we are very confident about this product for the long run. It is not our intention to reduce investment to drive growth in InnovaMatrix. That said, the uncertainty in the market was a bit disrupting among our customers, among our colleagues. They were not sure what the future was going to be. It has had an impact. That is why our sales are down. It has had an impact both with our customers and with some of our colleagues, but it was not triggered by us. That is why we are focusing now on getting ahead with this year.
Whilst we're confident of delivering $75 million, let's see what the upside might be. It's still uncertain. We're not sure of that. On the trials, yeah, look, patient recruitment is well underway on both. We haven't got specific about dates in 2026 for those two trials to report. That's partly because they've been designed in a modular format to respond to whatever the requirements end up being. If requirements are specified by CMS, we'll adapt accordingly. For now, we're pursuing the trials. VLU is a bit ahead of DFU, but we'd rather not be specific about that until we learn more from CMS, and then we'll report accordingly.
Thank you. The follow-up was on guidance. Could wound care end up being mid-single digit at the half year? Similarly, could infusion still be at double digit at the half year point? Thank you.
Possible. Both are possible. What we're most focused on is where is the year going to end up? We think high single digits for infusion care. I know I'm repeating myself. Mid-single digits for wound care. Yes, what you've said is they are possible outcomes.
Our next question today comes from Miles Dixon from Peel Hunt. Your line's now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you, Jonny. I think you might have already partially answered this, but on the LCD topic, how has this changed the way that you think about collecting data more broadly, whether it be RCT or real-world evidence? Do you expect that it has any effect on out-of-year R&D costs, or do you see it very much as something which you'll adapt as the CMS tells you and it's particularly associated with skin and skin subs? Thank you.
Thanks, Miles. Yeah. Look, clinical evidence, the gathering of, the dissemination of, has always been part of our strategy. We were planning to do RCTs for InnovaMatrix anyway. Now, obviously, with the beautiful clarity of hindsight, we might have started a bit sooner, but they were in our plans. We are very much based on clinical evidence in terms of how we innovate with new products. As regards the R&D expenditure, no, it makes no difference because it was planned already. We are investing roughly 5% of OpEx in R&D, technology and innovation, as we call it. We expect to continue to do so going forward. All of our new products will have appropriate clinical evidence plans associated with them.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Aisya Noor from Morgan Stanley. Your line's now open. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks. Good morning. Yeah, thanks for the questions. Just two quick ones left from my side. The first one is similar to questions asked before. Around the infusion care business, you called out B Parkinson as a driver in the four-month period. What does the launch pipeline look like in the next kind of three to six months? Are most of the phasing benefits for the first half done as of today, or could you see a little bit more spillover into the second or third quarter? Second question, just a housekeeping one on the contribution from the home care acquisition you made. I had something like maybe $10 million of annual sales or so. Could you just update us on your expected sales contribution from that acquisition for 2025? Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. Look, the AbbVie sales are growing very nicely. It's relatively early days in their U.S., launch. Just to be clear, though, and maybe we were not about this, the phasing impacts are more on the diabetes side. Those are two separate topics. In diabetes therapies, which is still the biggest part of the business, we have some big customers. With those customers, we have close relationships and good visibility over the order phasing. We have purchase orders, we have forward plans, etc. That's why we are able to predict the phasing of the sales through the year. It's on the diabetes side that we've enjoyed some positive phasing in the first period. AbbVie will continue to grow strongly, but it does not move the needle on phasing to the same extent. On the home care acquisition, that's about right. Yeah.
That's kind of what we're expecting for the year ahead. For the first four months, there's been a small adjustment relating to that acquisition between total growth and organic growth. It's going well, but very small. It's a small foothold in European continents.
Thank you. Our final question comes from Richard Felton from Goldman Sachs. Your line's now open. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Just two for me, please. The first one, on your wound business, in the statement, you call out a slightly slower start to the year in Europe. Just wondering if you could share some color on what was driving that and how much confidence and visibility you have on improvement in the second half in Europe for wound. Then just follow up on the continence business in the U.S. For the home services group, can you just remind us of what the share of ComboTec products is and what the share of hydrophilic products is in your mix currently? Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. Wound care in Europe, there was some small, what you might call natural phasing in wound care in that it finished quite strongly towards the second half of last year and then a bit slower start this year, just down to customer ordering patterns. What gives us confidence of the mid-single digits for the year is that Convafoam has only just got into Europe, and it's building nicely. The combination of natural phasing in wound care in Europe and ConvaFoam build is what makes us confident we'll get to mid-single digits for the year. In continence care, yeah, it's just over we sell almost one in every two catheters in the U.S., through our home services group. A bit over half of those are ComboTec product, and that's been growing at a point or two per year.
We'd expect that growth to continue as the ComboTec product portfolio improves. For instance, we've just got GentleCath Air for Women going in the U.S. That will help. The hydrophilic product, we are over 60% of what we sell through Home Services Group is hydrophilic. I think that compares to a market average of about 40%. I think that was the last question. Just remains to say thank you very much for your attention this morning. We're really pleased with a strong start to the year. On track is the headline, on track to deliver targets this year and in the medium term. Any further questions, you know where we are. Please do let us know. Otherwise, have a great day.
Thank you all for your active participation on today's call. You may now disconnect your line.