Good morning, everyone. I am very pleased to be speaking with you today. It is good to be in the CEO role again. I want to kick off by focusing on four key things. The first is stability. I am laser-focused on getting the group onto a stronger and more stable footing. I want to reassure our people, our investors, and all our stakeholders that we have a very strong business and many exciting opportunities ahead. The second is agility. I want to rebuild a culture of quick decision-making, flexibility, and responsiveness. Over the past few years, we have lost a bit of the entrepreneurial culture that the company was founded on. I want to empower our leaders to take decisions and drive accountability. The third is investment. We need to accelerate investment in the business, in talent, in technology, in our facilities, and more importantly, in R&D.
Investment fuel growth, and we need to make sure that we are investing exactly where we need to for the long term. Finally, of course, long-term growth. This is our priority. Stepping in as CEO, I am ensuring that we are focused on striking a better balance between optimizing margin and pursuing sustainable profit growth. To deliver the first two, stability and agility, we've refined our management structure, and I will walk you through how we plan to run the business for the next couple of years. We'll then present our 2025 full-year results and walk you through both the highs and the lows of the year so that you have a very clear picture of where we stand today.
Finally, we'll explain where we go from here, what we'll be focusing on in 2026 and in the coming years, where we will be investing, and how we will drive sustainable growth. Hikma is a great company with three impressive, diverse businesses, and despite the challenges we faced this year, we have so much confidence in our future. We've taken a lot of action in the past two months, and we'll continue to take action in the months ahead to set things straight so that we can continue on our clear path to grow. One of the most important things we have done is mobilize and energize our teams. We have great talent at Hikma. Many of our very capable and experienced leaders have been with us for a long time, and other more recent joiners have brought great industry experience and excellent track records.
They are embracing the changes and moving the business forward. To help me in the day-to-day management of the business and to ensure that we start moving faster and more effectively, we have created two new deputy CEO positions. Mazen, who's currently the Vice Chairman and President of MENA, has been appointed Vice Chairman and Deputy CEO, MENA, with responsibility now for all our activities in MENA. What's new is that MENA Injectables will now report directly to him and his team. Khalid will take on the role of Deputy CEO, North America and EU. He will oversee all Hikma activities in North America and Europe, and he will be accountable for delivering both the Hikma Rx and Injectable North America and Europe results. Khalid will step down from the role of the CFO.
The board has initiated a search for a new CFO, and in the interim, Arabi El-Kurdi , currently VP, Finance, will become Acting CFO until a permanent CFO is appointed. Hafrun, currently Global Head of R&D and President, Hikma Rx, will add management of our Injectables commercial activities in the U.S. to her responsibilities and will become President, U.S., in addition to her R&D role. At the board level, I will relinquish my Executive Chairman responsibilities to fully focus on being CEO. Victoria Hull, our Senior Independent Director, will step into the Chair role, and Douglas Hurt, our Audit Committee Chair, will assume the Senior Independent Director role. We have also identified some talent gaps, and we are actively recruiting new talent where appropriate or promoting from within.
I feel that we've put together an organizational structure that is practical and leverages the strong talent that we have across the business. The changes will enable us to address our challenges and execute group strategy with more agility and greater accountability. Moving on to our 2025 results, we have delivered a solid group performance in line with our guidance. Thanks to strong momentum in our Branded and Hikma Rx businesses and growth in all geographies, we grew revenue by 6% and core operating profit by 3% and maintained resilient margins. Our EBITDA margin was a very healthy 25.5%. As we flagged over the course of 2025, Injectables profitability was impacted by our product and geographic mix, and it is clear that further focus on and investment in this business is now needed to ensure a stronger growth trajectory going forward.
Our cash generation remains very strong, and I'm very proud that our return on invested capital remains in the mid-teens. We have an excellent track record of consistently delivering high returns, and I am committing to maintaining them around this level. Now, let me hand over to Khalid, who will take us through the 2025 performance in more detail.
Thanks, Said. Let me start with Branded. The Branded business had an excellent year. Revenue increased 10%, with a core operating margin of 26.4%. We grew double-digit in both of our largest markets, Algeria and Saudi Arabia, and saw good growth in most other markets across the MENA region. This growth reflects our focus on launching more complex and higher-value products, where we continue to make good progress and gain market share in key therapeutic areas. We saw a particularly strong performance from certain diabetes and oncology products. IQVIA data shows that our diabetes portfolio grew by nearly 40% during the year, outpacing the market growth of 17%. In oncology, over the past 5 years, our CAGR is 35% versus the market growth of around 10%. We are also leveraging partnerships to bring more innovative products to our markets across a variety of therapeutic areas.
We are now the largest pharmaceutical company by sales in MENA, an achievement we are hugely proud of. We expect the business to continue to build on this strong momentum. Now, turning to Hikma Rx, this business had another good year, generating over $1 billion in revenue, which was in line with our expectations. The base business performed extremely well during the year, with good demand for our more differentiated products like generic Advair and fluticasone nasal spray. Price erosion was mid-single digit, which was in line with our expectations. Core operating margin was ahead of expectations at 17.3%, driven by reduced sales and marketing costs following the outsourcing of Glaukos.
Contract manufacturing remains an important contributor to this business, there has been good progress in preparing our Columbus site for a significant upcoming CMO contract, and we expect to see revenues linked to this contract in 2026. The injectable business delivered a strong top-line performance, growing 7%, which is in line with the guidance we set at the beginning of the year. North America, sales grew 5%. This reflects a full-year contribution from the Xellia acquisition and recent launches, which more than offset increased competition on certain products in our base business, which we flagged over the course of the year. In Europe, we grew 23%, reflecting strong performance across both our established and recently entered markets, in particular, Germany and France. In MENA, we grew 9%, supported by strong performance from in-licensed biosimilar and innovative products.
Core operating profit was down 6%, and core operating margin declined from 35%- 31%. I'd like to drill down a bit into the margin decline in injectables so that it is very clear why the margin is coming down and what we expect in terms of margin going forward. In 2024, our injectable operating margin was around 35%. Over the course of 2025, a few things happened that put pressure on margin. First, we saw competition on two of our highest-margin products, testosterone and calcitonin. Second, we were able to offset this lost revenue with growth in Europe and MENA, but MENA sales, in particular, came at a lower margin. Third, partner and third-party manufactured products also helped to drive top-line growth, but these products have a lower margin due to royalty and profit share arrangement.
We were impacted by the strength of the euro. At year-end, we had to write down some inventory, namely liraglutide, after the price dropped significantly and some VANCO READY as we transition to TYSAVAN, and this accounts for the slight miss to our margin guidance, which came in at 31% versus our guidance range of 32%-33%. All in all, 2025 was a tough year for injectable profitability. In November, we guided to a 30% floor in margin for this business. We are today guiding lower than this for 2026. What changed? Since November, we have had a management change and have done a deep dive into our projections. We are increasing our expectation for R&D spend. This is perhaps one of the most significant drags on margin.
A priority for 2026 will be to accelerate and execute on R&D projects that were put on hold in 2025. Secondly, we have lowered our expectation for our CMO business. Some of our customers now require domestic U.S. production, which we are not yet able to offer. Thirdly, we have identified gaps in our sales and marketing teams, which we are filling. Finally, we have had to reflect delays in the timing of some product launches. With all of these factors at play, at least for a few years, we expect margins to be closer to 27% or 28%, but we don't want to be held to a strict margin target. As we have been reviewing our business in the past few months, we can see that we have been leaving a lot of opportunities on the table due to their sub 30% margin profile.
From 2027, we are expecting a return to growth in absolute profit. We aim to strike a better balance between optimizing margin and pursuing sustainable profit growth. Importantly, at a group level, we do not expect injectables to be a drag to margins, given the strong ongoing performance of Hikma Rx and Brand. Turning to cash flow and balance sheet, we continue to have a healthy balance sheet. We ended the year with a net debt to core EBITDA ratio of 1.6 times. This is up slightly from last year. Our total debt went up around $300 million due to legal settlement, CapEx increases, and product acquisitions. We were pleased to be upgraded to a BBB credit rating from both S&P and Fitch during the year.
We are continuing to invest in capacity expansions and upgrades to our sites across North America, MENA, and Europe, which is reflected in our increased CapEx in 2025 of close to $200 million. Operating cash flow, excluding the one-off legal settlement, grew by 10%. That wraps up 2025. Said will take look at the growth drivers for 2026 and beyond for each of our businesses.
Thank you, Khalid. Let's start with injectables. I am very optimistic about the potential of this business. The opportunities are there. We just need to focus our efforts and make sure we are investing as much as we can in the right products and capacity. The way we will be managing the business from today will enable us to sharpen our focus on each of our markets. In North America, Hafrun will oversee our commercial efforts. She will be supported by Jon Kafer, VP Commercial of U.S. Injectables, who has more than 30 years’ experience in the U.S. hospital market. The MENA injectable teams are the local experts with a track record of signing partnerships and bringing exciting products to the region. This team will be reporting into Mazen going forward as part of his broader MENA role.
Finally, in Europe, Khalid will be overseeing the team as we continue to pursue the rapid growth we have delivered in recent years. Looking at some select drivers of growth, one of our largest near-term opportunities as TYSAVAN, our TYSAVAN ready-to-use bags. We launched the product in December 2025. We expect steady growth over 2026 and beyond as we look to take market share from other less optimal presentations. We are also exploring launching this product in Europe and MENA through our own commercial teams and out-licensing to partners. Our expansion in Europe has only just begun. As you could see from the strong growth in 2025, there is strong demand for our products in the EU market. We have some good launches planned for the coming years.
In MENA, we have continued to strengthen our biosimilar leadership position as we have added six new biosimilars to our pipeline. Around one-third of MENA Injectables revenue comes from our portfolio of biosimilars. As we have stated already, we will be accelerating our investments in injectables. R&D is a priority, and you will see a big step-up in R&D spend in injectables in 2026 and 2027 to bring the level of spend up to where it should be, around 5%-6% of revenue. We'll be focusing on added differentiated and more complex products to our portfolio. There is more to come on this in a few minutes from Hafrun. We are also investing in capacity across our network. Work on the Bedford site continues.
The timelines are in line with the update we gave in November, which means the site will come online in 2028. Bedford will support our growing pipeline of RTU products and add capacity to build a stronger CMO business. The outlook for the Hikma Rx business is very encouraging. We are ramping up readiness for our large CMO contract, are winning new CMO mandates, and expect to see a good contribution from CMO in 2026. This will help to offset of expected erosion of the top line from generic competition on sodium oxybate. At the operating level, profit level, the contribution from sodium oxybate will be neutral to positive. Other important products in this division include generic Advair, which we expect will continue to do well, and fluticasone nasal spray, where we also have a strong market share and manufacturing expertise.
What is truly impressive about this business is that we have been able to gradually improve the margin while also making a significant increase in R&D spend. We are now guiding for close to 20% operating margin in 2026, which is after an expected significant increase in R&D spend. This increase in R&D spend is essential for driving growth in this division over the medium term. Hafrun will cover our R&D priorities in the coming slides. We have reached an impressive milestone in the branded business this year. We are now the number one pharma company by revenue in MENA, and we are very, very proud of this. In this business, our success comes from experienced commercial teams, an increasingly complex product portfolio, strong local manufacturing, and strong partnerships.
We have been signing over a partnership a month across the last few years. You can see a selection of our partners on this slide. We are focused on therapeutic areas where we see good demand and value and have built a market-leading positions in oncology, for example. We have a strong pipeline of products that will launch in the coming years, reflecting our focus on first-to-market or first-generic treatments for chronic illnesses.
As with any pharma company, ensuring we have the right pipeline for the future is critical. We need to make sure that every dollar we spend on R&D counts. We have streamlined our approach and are focusing on the most promising opportunities. I want to pass things over now to Hafrun. In 2025, Hafrun began the transformation of our R&D organization. As a reminder, she has extensive experience leading R&D teams and has delivered many products launches over the course of her career. She will tell you more.
Thanks, Said. We made a lot of progress in the transformation of the R&D function when we established the Global R&D Organization last year. We streamlined the number of projects under development, reorganized the R&D teams into specific focus area, and we have established clear KPIs for the future. The first priority, portfolio balance, is key. We must make sure we are working on the right mix of simple and complex formulations to support the three business units with a steady flow of new revenues to compensate for price erosion and support the growth of the businesses. Adding complexity is about creating longer-term opportunities through a focus on complex and differentiated platforms. We are working to build and strengthen our in-house development capabilities in areas like ready-to-use and inhalation formulations. The third priority is manufacturing-driven differentiation.
Our manufacturing strength is a real differentiation for us, and we can leverage this to unlock technically challenging product, accelerate development, and improve scalability. Finally, speed. We need to shorten the development timelines and improve the first-cycle approval rates to enhance speed to market, capital efficiency, and return on the R&D investment. To deliver this, we have an excellent management team leading our three technology platforms. Two of these leaders were recently hired and bring 20-30 years of experience in R&D. Currently, we are developing a range of product aimed at advancing all three business areas. In the U.S. and Europe alone, these product have addressable market size of about $90 billion, presenting a significant growth opportunities.
I feel we have a good balance across the various stages of development, with 55% either filed, approved, or tentatively approved, and 55% under development, and 80% of our pipeline should get approved before 2030. We have many opportunities coming in the next few years. These slides give a bit of a better picture of the type of products we will launch and where and when. From now to 2029, we expect to launch over 250 products with a good balance across simple and complex formulations across regions. The number of launches looks to drop off, the complexity increases as we begin to add respiratory and ready-to-use product in the U.S.
In 2026, we are targeting 26 launches in the U.S. for product with a current market size of $6.7 billion, including nine oral solids and 12 injectables, including two complex long-acting injectables. In 2027, we will launch further three long-acting injectables and one peptide formulation in addition to simple and complex solid oral products. We expect that 2028 will be a big year for launching nasal products. This is when we expect to launch epinephrine nasal spray in the U.S. and two other nasal products. This should also be a good year for injectable ready-to-use pipeline, with three ready-to-use bag product to be launched. Let's take a closer look at our ready-to-use plans. Our ready-to-use pipeline has an addressable market of around $1.3 billion.
The majority will be submitted via 505(b)(2) pathway, which adds differentiation through product innovation and creates competitive barriers beyond standard generics. The 15 ready-to-use products represent medium to long-term value creation opportunities, with initial loans anticipated from 2028 onward. Our expertise in ready-to-use come from Xellia and the R&D center in Zagreb, which was acquired through the acquisition. TYSAVAN is a great example of the type of ready-to-use product that the Zagreb team can develop. Another focus area is respiratory, nasal, semisolid, and liquids. Here we have 20 products in our pipeline with an addressable market of $18 billion in the U.S. alone. 13 are complex respiratory and nasal drug-device combinations with a significant potential. This is an area where we already have a strong market position as the largest supplier of nasal sprays in the U.S. market.
I mentioned epinephrine before. This is an important upcoming launch for us in the U.S. in 2028. In addition, we submitted the product in the U.K. last year and will be submitting in Europe this year. We had a proven success in difficult-to-develop and manufacture inhalation products, our generic Advair being the main one. Today, our inhalation pipeline covers around two-thirds of the U.S. respiratory market and includes blockbuster like Breo Ellipta products, low global warming potential pMDIs, and generic Respimat platform. We are developing these products through our in-house R&D team and strategic partners. Like the nasals, we also see potential in expanding our respiratory franchise beyond the U.S. Our solid oral pipeline is a critical for growth in both Hikma Rx and the branded businesses. We have 146 product in this category, with accessible market of $29 billion in the U.S. alone.
We have the capacity to develop all kinds of solid oral formulations internally, both simple and complex. These three products are a great example of how we have been able to improve the quality of products in this part of our pipeline. As you can see, we are really excited about R&D and investing more now to ensure future growth. We have a strong pipeline and a great teams across the businesses, and we look forward to keeping you updated. I now hand it back to Said.
Thank you, Hafrun. Hopefully, we've been able to provide you with a better picture of the strong potential of the opportunities we are going after. Clearly, there is a lot of work still to do, but I am confident we have the right team in place to deliver it with a high level of energy and commitment. What does this mean for 2026? We've taken a hard look at the business in the past couple of months, and I believe our guidance reflects a realistic picture of what we can achieve this year, taking into account all of the investments that we plan to make. We expect group revenue to grow in the range of 2%-4% and deliver $720 million-$770 million of core operating profit.
We expect injectable revenue growth in the low single digits, with core operating margin in the range of 27%-28%, and branded revenue to grow 6%-8% in constant currency, with core operating margin of around 25%. We expect Hikma Rx revenue to be broadly flat, with core operating margin close to 20%. As we wrap up, I want to remind you of our track record of delivering attractive revenue and profit growth and high returns. In the past few years, we have delivered mid-to-high single-digit top-line growth and mid-single-digit profit growth, while maintaining returns on capital in the mid-to-high teens. Now that I am CEO again full time, I am confident that we can maintain and even exceed this level of growth and returns in the coming years. I have conviction in our strategy, the clear opportunities we see for the company, and the team that will deliver it.