Hello, everyone. I'm Siggi Olafsson, CEO of Hikma Pharmaceuticals, and I'm here with Khalid Nabilsi, the CFO. I'll provide an update on our strategic progress, and I'll then hand it over to Khalid to run through our financial results for the first half of 2020. We have delivered a strong first half results, which are ahead of our initial expectations. Core Group revenue was $1.1 billion, up 9% over last year, reflecting a good performance in each of our three businesses. In Injectables, we saw an increase in demand for our end market products, particularly those used in the treatment of COVID-19 patients, and a good cost control. Our Generics business also had a good start to the year. We saw a good demand across our portfolio and a better-than-expected contribution from new launches. Unlike Injectables, the impact of COVID-19 on the Generics business was minimal.
Finally, our Brand business also performed well, especially in our Tier 1 market. Core Group operating profit was up 15% compared to last year, which primarily reflects the strong performance in Injectables. It is important to note that the impact of COVID-19 was broadly neutral on expenses, with increased costs related to employee benefits and shipping, offset by lower marketing and travel expenses. Let's look a bit closer at the impact of COVID-19 on our business. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted people and communities around the world. The pandemic has caused fluctuation in global demand across our markets for both Injectables and non-Injectables. In the U.S., for example, we saw over the course of the first half, some pull forward in demand, driven by more 90-day claims and refill relaxations and lower healthcare utilization.
There was a spike in demand for COVID-19-related products and a decrease in demand for products used in elective surgeries and oncology products as hospitals focused on COVID-19 patients. We are now starting to see inpatient visits increasing and the improvement in acute script growth as healthcare utilization picks up, but elective procedures are still slow to recover. During these challenging times, our top priority has been the health and safety of our employees and the millions of patients across our markets who count on our medicines. First and foremost, we put in place control measures to ensure the health and safety of our employees. The next priority has been the production of medicine in highest demand.
Thanks to the investments in capacity that we have made in recent years, the tireless effort of our commercial manufacturing, operation, and procurement teams, to name a few, and our broad product portfolio, we have been able to supply the products most needed during the pandemic. Now, let's turn to Injectables. In the first half of the year, our global Injectables business performed well, with revenue up 13% and core operating profit up 22%, with a strong margin at 42%. The continued good performance of our Injectables business reflects our strong market position, the breadth of our portfolio, as well as our quality and flexible operations. In the U.S., core Injectables revenue grew 10% to $347 million. The chart on the left shows the different drivers of U.S. Injectables revenue over the past few quarters.
You can see that our base business, represented in the blue line, has remained relatively stable when compared to the end of last year. However, you can also see that there was a surge in demand in our base business in the first quarter, which reflected in the pull forward in demand that we saw when the pandemic hit. You can also see the subsequent decline in the base business as selective surgeries were canceled. This stability in our base business was supported by a more benign pricing environment. We saw a minimal price erosion in the first half of the year compared to the second half of last year. So growth in the first half was driven by the purple and green lines. The purple line represent the products being used to treat COVID-19, which include anesthetics, pain medicines, neuromuscular blocking agents, and anti-infectives.
We worked closely with our customers to understand treatment protocols and quickly modified production plans to prioritize the medicines that were in highest demand. I should also point out that some of these products, primarily the strong pain medication, had been declining before the pandemic hit, as some of our competitors were returning to the market. Further growth was driven by the new launches represented in green. It is nice to see the steady contribution from new launches for quite a few quarters now. In the first half of the year, we launched in total six products, including propofol, daptomycin, and nicardipine bags. Moving to slide seven, I'd like to expand a bit on our success in launching new injectable products. You can see we have been launching a good number of products. Over the last 18 months, we launched 20 products in the U.S.
Many of these products are small opportunities, but as I highlighted in the previous slide, you can see that together, they make a nice contribution and deliver a steady growth over time. What's interesting to highlight is that during the initial spike in March, April, we were supplying 10 of the top 13 most used products for COVID-19 ventilator patients in ICUs. Following the approval and launch of propofol, this increased to 11 out of 13. Overall, we have an impressive track record of launches when compared to our peers. This means our portfolio is growing. We now have a broad portfolio of 109 products, and our portfolio is becoming increasingly diversified. This is creating opportunities for us and reducing our concentration risk. To ensure our pipeline can continue to deliver, we are investing more in injectable research and development, and our pipeline keeps getting stronger.
Today, we have 135 products in our U.S. injectable pipeline, of which 43 are filed and 67 are in active development. We talk a lot about developing more differentiated and complex products, and this remains a very important focus for us. For example, our pipeline includes products that require containment and handling precaution, complex technologies, difficult to develop or source APIs, and so on. Gradually, the number of these complex products in our pipeline is growing. That is why you see more of these in the development stage. And as we continue to invest in these types of products and as our capabilities develop, you should expect to see these types of products to increase as a percentage of the overall pipeline. As we look towards the second half of the year, we are already starting to see a shift in product mix.
The treatment protocols for COVID-19 are changing, and with less patients on ventilators, we are seeing a slowing of demand for some of our pain management and anesthesia products, for example. While elective procedures are expected to come back, this is happening slowly. Thanks to the flexibility of our manufacturing facilities, we will be able to shift our capacity around in order to accommodate new sources of demand. We have signed a supply agreement with Gilead for remdesivir that has been granted, conditional marketing authorization in the EU and emergency use authorization in the US as a COVID-19 treatment. We will be supplying remdesivir from our facility in Portugal, where we have invested significantly to expand our capacity and improve our capabilities. This, along with our excellent quality track record, will enable us to supply this critical product.
Our MENA and European injectables business continued to perform well and support revenue growth for the segment. MENA revenue was up 25%, and EU revenue was up 24% in the first half. In Europe, in the first half of the year, we saw some increased demand related to COVID-19. We were able to leverage our broad portfolio of more than 80 products to meet this increase in demand and serve our patients. We are allocating more resources to this region. With the investment in capacity we have made and our strong local manufacturing, we now have scope to manufacture products for this region and are exploring opportunities to enter adjacent market, including France and Spain. In MENA, we continue to drive demand across our portfolio and saw good performance in our markets, particularly in Saudi Arabia.
Our biosimilar products, which we licensed from Celltrion, continue to perform well and drive growth in the region. In the first half of the year, we also signed an exclusive license agreement with Sun Pharma for their injectable biologic product, Ilumya. This is another great example of how we are adding more novel products to our portfolio.... We also continue to grow our portfolios in these regions in the first half, launching new products in both Europe and MENA. Now, let's turn to our generics business. The generics business performed really well in the first half. Here, we are benefiting from a strengthening of the foundation, which is enabling us to maintain a strong performance and deliver a better-than-expected results. As in 2019, we are continuing to see the benefit of the commercial and operational improvements we have rolled out over the past few years.
We have been able to prioritize the production of high demands products and maintain supply continuity during this very challenging operating environment. Thanks to our strong customer relationships and improved service levels, we have been able to increase volumes on existing contracts and win new businesses. We continue to launch products and look for ways to optimize our portfolio to focus on higher value opportunities. In the first half, we had a better-than-expected contribution from new launches and started to see the benefit of this portfolio optimization process on the bottom line. Of course, the market remains very competitive. While we saw relatively stable pricing in first half of the year, we expect price erosion to accelerate in the second half of the year, as we saw in second half of 2019.
So we are reiterating our expectation of around 5%-7% price erosion for the full year. Overall, we are very pleased with the strength of this business, and believe it is very well positioned to continue to deliver sustainable growth. As I mentioned, a key strength is our broad and diversified product portfolio. With a broad portfolio, we are well-placed to meet the demand of our customers, and we benefit from the strength of our commercial teams and the strong relationships they have built over time with our key customers. They've been able to drive our demand for our products, not just with the products where we see limited competition, but also in markets where we are one of three or more competitors.
In fact, around 66% of generics revenue is generated by products that have between 3 and 5 players on the market, and further 19% from products with 6 or more players. This really highlights our ability to compete and manage our portfolio well, even in established markets, when we are up against numerous competitors. Our high quality operations, strong customer relationships, and ability to deliver consistent supply sets us apart, enabling us to sustain a good market position. For 29 of our products in the 3-5-player market, or 53%, we are the market leader. We are also the market leader for 13% of our products in the 6 and more category. But the market remains highly competitive. We are seeing increased competition on some of our top products, and so bringing new products to market is essential for the growth.
In the first half of the year, we launched three products. These launches have helped us to offset competition on our base business and related price erosion. These launches are great examples of how we are growing and diversifying our product portfolio. In 2015, we had a very small portfolio, and the top 10 products contributed 93% of revenue. Today, the top 10 products contribute around 52% of revenue. The new launches enable us to maintain or even further reduce the concentration of our portfolio. In order to drive sustainable long-term growth and to further diversify our portfolio, we need to ensure we have a good pipeline. As with injectables, we are focusing on building a pipeline of more differentiated, complex products. Last year, we did a detailed review of our pipeline, and I identified projects that we think will give us a good return on investment.
These products are technically challenging to manufacture and have limited competition. We have a total of 73 products in our pipeline, of which 19 are filed. These includes products such as nasal sprays, dry powder inhalers, and some Paragraph IV opportunities, which we expect to start launching from 2020 onwards. Finally, let's look at our branded business. Our branded business continues to grow steadily, with revenues up 14% in the first half. We continue to be very well positioned in the region. We are the fifth largest pharma company in the region and one of the largest local player. The market is reasonably big, around $14 billion, and has been growing steadily or 6% over the past years.... Our strong market position enables enables us to capture growth opportunities in the region and navigate challenges.
As in injectables and generics, we did see some disruption in the branded business in the first half as a result of COVID-19. This included shipping delays, limited marketing activities, and interruption of manufacturing due to curfews and other restrictions. We also saw a reduction in demand for our anti-infectives, which are an important part of our portfolio, as everyone stayed home and doctors and clinics were closed. Despite these challenges, our strong sales and marketing function and large product portfolio, with more than 250 products across different therapeutic areas, enabled us to drive growth in the first half. Zooming in on our tier one markets, we saw good results in these markets, driven by the resilient performance of our broad product portfolio. Algeria had a strong recovery after a difficult 2019, when political and economic disruption negatively impacted our performance.
Since then, the team has done an excellent job in turning that business around, and it is on a much stronger footing today. In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, we saw a good demand across our in-market portfolio, and we continue to launch new products, navigating through the challenges of working remotely. In Saudi Arabia, we launched three products, and in Egypt, we rolled out some of the in-license product from Chiesi agreement, which we announced earlier this year. This strong performance of our portfolio and new launches has helped us to offset the reduction in demand on certain products like anti-infectives. Some of the success that we have had in the first half, managing the challenges posed by COVID-19, can be attributed to the more differentiated and more tailored approach to marketing that we have been adopting in recent years.
We are increasingly changing our approach from a traditional sales approach to a more collaborative approach with all stakeholders in the healthcare field. We are dedicating time to meeting with doctors and pharmacists, regulatory bodies, and policymakers. We are performing advisory boards and organizing focus groups. All of these forums are aimed to build a clear understanding of our patients' needs, now and in the future. As we understand these needs better, we can provide training and education that is useful to doctors, and make sure that we are developing the most relevant products. With this mindset, our teams were able to respond quickly to the challenges posed by the distancing restriction, and were able to find new ways to reach healthcare providers across the region. This included detailing doctors online and hosting virtual conferences. For example, we organized a COVID-19 awareness campaign to help both doctors and patients.
We hosted several webinars with both international and local speakers. These were really well-attended, and due to their virtual nature, we were able to reach doctors and healthcare providers across the entire MENA region, as compared to our previous events, where attendance has been limited to the local doctors. As with our other businesses, we are working to develop our pipeline and add more complex products. In our branded business, this means focusing on our strategic therapeutic areas and markets. Our product portfolio for this business is increasingly focused on certain higher value areas, including oncology, diabetes, CNS, and respiratory. A key element of our strategy is to expand our portfolio through partnership. Partnerships have played an important role in our growth story for branded, and we continue to look for the right opportunities to further diversify our portfolio.
Overall, we have a strong start to the year, and we continue to make good strategic progress across our business. I will now hand it over to Khalid to take you through the financials.
Thank you, Siggi. Good morning, everyone. As you have heard from Siggi, Hikma has made a strong start to the year, despite challenging market conditions that have arisen as a result of COVID-19. I'm pleased to report that the group has delivered good growth across our three segments in the first half of 2020. The commitment of our employees to deliver better health, our broad product portfolio, and flexible manufacturing capabilities, enabled us to achieve this strong performance, with core revenue up 9% and core operating profit up 15%. Given the strong performance with core EPS up 17%, the board is recommending an interim dividend of $0.16 per share, up from $0.14.... Turning to our injectable business, this business delivered double-digit revenue growth, driven by strong demand across our portfolio.
The U.S. business, which makes up just over 70% of core revenue, grew 10%. We were able to leverage our broad portfolio of over 100 products and our flexible manufacturing facilities to meet increased demand. As Siggi highlighted, during the first half, we saw an increase in demand for COVID-19 related products. We also had a good contribution from recently launched products. This increase in sales helped to offset increased competition on certain products and reduced demand as a result of a slowdown in elective surgeries. MENA sales were up 23% in constant currency, a very strong result. This was driven by a good performance across most of our markets, as well as continued growth of our biosimilar products.
In constant currency, our European sales were also very positive, up 27%, reflecting a good performance from new launches, an increase in demand related to COVID-19, and a higher demand for contract manufacturing. We maintained a strong core operating margin at 42%. This was up from 39% in the first half of 2019, reflecting the change in product mix in the U.S. and stable operating expenses. Generics. Our generic business continues to perform well. We saw good demand for our differentiated products and a better-than-expected contribution from new launches. We also saw some additional demand related to COVID-19. This was offset by increased competition in certain products. Generic core operating profit increased by 1% to $72 million, due to improvement in product mix, which was largely offset by higher legal fees and inventory-related provisions. The generic core operating margin was 19.5%.
As for the branded, in constant currency, our branded business, it grew 13%. Our largest market, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, performed well, reflecting our strong market position and good demand for our marketed portfolio. I'm pleased to say that Algeria delivered a strong performance following lower sales in 2019 due to political and economic disruptions, which have now subsided. We also saw good growth in most of other markets and a good contribution from new launches. We did see disruptions across our MENA markets related to COVID-19, including a reduction in demand for pharmacy products such as anti-infectives. This was offset by an overall resilient performance from the broader portfolio. Branded core operating margin was 18.5%, down from 20.2% in H1 2019, due to lower gross margin and a slight increase in operating expenses.
R&D and CapEx, we continue to focus on growing our pipeline. We invested $62 million in core R&D, up 7% due to higher investment in R&D programs across our businesses as we build our pipeline of differentiated products. As a percentage of core revenue, core R&D was 5.5%. Our CapEx spend was $66 million. More than half was invested in the U.S. on upgrading equipment and adding new technologies. Around $22 million was spent in MENA, strengthening and expanding our manufacturing capabilities. Six million was spent in the E.U. as we completed expansion of our manufacturing facility in Portugal. As for cash flow and balance sheet, the group continues to generate strong cash flow, with operating cash flow of $292 million.
Net debt increased to $511 million due to the increase in total debt, reflecting the full utilization of our $150 million International Finance Corporation facility and the purchase of 12.8 million ordinary shares from Boehringer Ingelheim in connection with BI disposal of its 16.5% stake in Hikma, which was paid through a combination of cash and existing facilities. The group has a strong cash balance of $416 million. We continue to have a very strong balance sheet with a net debt to core EBITDA ratio of 0.81 times. In July, we issued a new 5-year, EUR 500 million bond, which carries an annual coupon of 3.25%. Finally, the outlook for 2020. I'm pleased to announce that we have raised our guidance for the year. First, for the injectable.
As we look to the second half, we are expecting our product mix to shift again as the treatment protocols for COVID change. This could mean a slowdown in demand for some of our products, like the pain management products. While we don't expect this to be immediately offset by demand for products commonly used for elective surgeries, which are returning gradually, we expect strong demand in our contract manufacturing business in the second half. We now expect injectable revenue to be between $950 million and $980 million in 2020. We expect core operating margin to be in the range of 38%-40%. For generics, while we expect competition to increase in the second half, we believe we can maintain the good performance achieved in the first half and are nudging up our generic guidance.
We now expect generic revenue to be in the range of $720 million-$760 million, and core operating margin to be around 21%, up from 20%. Our guidance includes $20 million-$40 million from generic Advil, which we continue to expect to launch in the second half of the year. Excluding the benefit from generic Advil, we would expect the core operating margin for the generic business to be between 17%-19%, up from the previous range of 16%-18%. And finally, for branded, as usual, we expect a stronger second half for the branded business in terms of absolute revenue. However, the segment will have a tougher comp in the second half, so we continue to expect branded revenue to grow in the mid-single digits in constant currency for the full year.
We expect group core net finance expense to be around $47 million, and the core effective tax rate to be around 22%-23%. We expect group capital expenditures to be around $120 million. Now I will hand over to Siggi.
Thank you, Khalid. I would like to close by saying I am proud of what our teams have achieved across the group, enabling us to deliver high-quality medicines to the people that need them. We have a positive outlook for all three businesses and look forward to the second half with confidence.