I would now like to hand the conference over to Hartley Atkinson, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and thank you everyone for joining our call today. What we'll do is we'll go through the presentation, and then, as has been mentioned, have time for questions afterwards. I'll just read out the page numbers as well so that everyone knows where we're at in terms of the presentation pages. First page obviously, and then the second page is a disclaimer, which I assume everyone is well aware of and has read. Moving now to page three, which is just a brief summary of kind of where we're at. We have our established Australia-New Zealand business, pleased to have good sales growth of 23% across both Australia and New Zealand. Certainly, Australia was very solid with 31% growth. New Zealand as well, though, grew at 8%, and the OTC business, which is the front-end higher margin consumer business, still grew at 12%.
We are still getting good performance in the New Zealand market. Looking across to the box on the right at the top, what we are putting a lot of work in at the moment is continuing to expand our global footprint. Europe, the U.K., and the E.U., North America, U.S., Canada, then Asia, doing a lot of work on there, including China, but not just China. We have Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Korea, and also South Africa. A lot of work has gone into that business over the last few months. Looking down the second row, certainly the innovative R&D pipeline is still a really important part of our business going forward. We have made good progress as well with our big project for off-patent injectables. Actually, interestingly, we are working hard on a project that will also add IP to this as well.
We are hoping to be able to announce something in future about this project, which we see would add considerable value to our existing project. There are some significant global market opportunities, and that is a really important part of our business. That is why we are spending a reasonable amount of money on R&D. On the right, on the second row, importantly, we have five R&D programs which are being commercialized, had a number of meetings, got a number of projects underway. We did close five agreements in the first half, but we do have a lot of other agreements that are under negotiation presently. Just in terms of around the globe, we are now selling in 85 countries. We have added some countries like Egypt and Thailand to the list.
Flicking on to the next page, page number four, you can see on the bottom, you can see the sales graph. Certainly, the first half sales were a touch under NZD 115 million. They were growing overall, including licensing income was growing at 33% overall, which we saw as a pleasing result. Certainly, Australia, we had good growth, but also Asia and international as well, where we did have some headwinds last year in that first half, now cleared them away, and they are sort of on to more where we would have expected. The international business hubs, that is certainly a key. That does take time, and there is a lot of work has to go into them as well. Certainly, both South Africa and the U.K., we believe, will start to contribute to earnings sometime in the second half of this financial year. EBIT was up.
Operating profit, which I guess is the one we tend to look at more, was up to NZD 4.7 million operating profit versus last year we had a loss in the first half. We are seeing, though, and we are doing increasing in spend and business development and also R&D. We still have got that investment. I still think it's probably important to note, though, that we're increasing gross profit by about 36%, and expenses, say, we're up 18%. We're not being silly. We're going hard at investing and growing, but we're not getting ahead of the curve. That's quite important. R&D, I think, as we mentioned, we're growing that and still reaffirming our target of NZD 300 million for the next financial year. That's page number four. Moving on to page number five, our largest market, Australia. Yeah, look, 31% growth.
The revenues grew to NZD 66.5 million. We're getting good growth across actually all our channels. If we had to call out anything, we'd probably call out eye care, pain relief, and our iron supplements, which actually, interestingly, the iron supplements were the first product we ever launched in Australia. Even many years later, we're still getting strong growth from those types of products. Pleasingly as well, the operating profit increased from NZD 4 million to NZD 9.6 million. Yeah, that's consistent. We believe in the past, we've talked about investment in sales and marketing. We increased Field Force a couple of years ago. We're seeing it takes a while often to see the benefits of these sort of investments, and it's all kind of part of that, really. It's good, and we see good support and progress in the Australian market.
Flicking on then to the next page, page number six, which is New Zealand. Look, we did see steady growth, and we do see ongoing opportunities. Quite frustrating sometimes the amount of negativity we see in this country. Look, our OTC business, for example, as I said, grew at 12%. Getting good double-digit growth in our consumer-facing business. Despite various doom and gloom, we're still making good progress in our New Zealand business. That was mainly led by allergy, dermatology, and eye care. Seeing some good advances in those areas. Operating profit improved. It should say, by the way, it says NZD 3 million. It should say NZD 3.7 million, which is on the graph on the right. Profit improved, NZD 4.1 million, up from NZD 3.7 million. Primarily really just driven by revenue growth. That is New Zealand on page number six.
Flicking to the next page, page number seven. Yeah, Asia, we're pleased. We got good sort of strong growth. Also, what's important is broadening out across Asia as well. Sales increased to NZD 7.5 million, which was up 69% from last year. Certainly, markets like Korea were back to normal with the doctors back at work. It is broadening the range a bit, like we've launched recently in Thailand to add that. Pleasingly too, we've seen the operating profit rise from NZD 500,000 to NZD 2.1 million. That's getting an increase in both sales and profit in that Asian market. Still a lot of potential and a lot of work to do in the Asian market. Flicking on to page number eight is this snapshot of the global map.
You can see we're slowly getting a bit more yellow as time goes on, with yellow being where we've launched product. A bit more spread around Africa and North Africa. Some sort of we still need to get some registrations in order to be able to sell in markets like Brazil and some of the other North African markets as well. That's still underway. You see the red dots are where we have our own sales offices. That's where a lot of work is going into consolidating and growing these operations. Certainly, South Africa we called out, and the U.K. are ones we see as making contributions in the second half. Canada is a bit further behind, and the U.S. is really at a very formative stage. Flicking on now to page number nine, the international expansion page.
Now, apologies if this top left graph looks a bit rainbow-like. We're just trying to sort of make clear the various parts of it. You can see basically our sales this first half were NZD 11 million for product sales and NZD 1.9 million for licensing income. Quite a lot of the times, though, licensing income will be things like sales milestones, which is sort of almost part of product sales, really. It's like deferred royalties. A good chunk of that was actually related to sales milestone. There is some good progress. The sales, if you just look at the sales and royalties, they were up 104% from the same period last time. I think, as I mentioned before, up to 85 countries now, including a couple of larger countries being Egypt and Thailand. Licensing income was a bit more significant this first half than last year.
We did NZD 1.9 million, up from NZD 0.2 million. Yeah, look, there is still an operating loss within the international, mainly because all the R&D is going through that. There is still a lot of R&D work that's continuing to grow the R&D pipeline. That is that slide number nine. Flicking on just to quickly go through a bit of a snapshot of our global footprint, just to give you a flavor. Look, we're trying to avoid, to be honest, a blow-by-blow account of exactly what every time, because you can see the overall number. There are a lot of moving parts. To be frank, sometimes some things will go not as well as we'd hope, but we work on them. It is just really the overall number.
We'll just give you a snapshot of some of the things that are kind of underway and stand out to us anyway. Combogesic t ablets in the U.K., yeah, making some good progress with distribution there and extended that to 2,500 stores, also now selling within independent pharmacies as well. Combogesic IV, which is the same as Maxigesic IV. We're just starting to get some momentum now with NHS formulary listings. Hospitals are always almost quite painful because there's a lot of barriers and committees you have to go through. You can bash away for literally 18 months without a lot happening. Once you start to make progress, it builds from there. We are busy expanding our product range with both our AFT IP-based products and also in-license products. Pipeline and filings are something that's very much a focus in the U.K. market.
As I mentioned, we're expecting break-even in the second half of this financial year. South Africa, we're making actually quite rapid progress. We have a very experienced CEO there who was ex-head of hospital revision for the biggest pharma company in South Africa. Very lucky to have someone of his caliber, and I think that's really important, actually. We have accelerated our launch program quite a lot. Initially, we planned on about four products in the second half, but that's going to be much more like 18 products. That is sort of South Africa's kind of kicking off with a hiss and a roar. We have got quite a significant existing pipeline, and we are keeping adding to that. We do see that that will contribute to earnings late in the second half. Canada is a little bit more just happening.
We've just launched Combogesic IV , and we're also working on OTC offerings. We have hired a CEO, once again, a very experienced CEO. He used to be head of Aspen Canada, and we're also lucky to have him. We have our own small sales force. The key thing, really, is we've got a number of existing launches planned and a significant launch pipeline. That is sort of a quick comment on Canada. Flicking now to the next page, number 11. In the United States, which obviously you know is the largest pharma market in the world, we've sort of got two parts of business. We've got our IP-based products, a couple of patented products registered. We're launching our OTC products as well, which are running more ourselves. With our patented products, we have licensees.
We are working still closely with Hikma on our Combogesic IV and Combogesic Rapid , and that is still underway. In Europe, last year we talked about how we had acquired some products from a bankrupt German cannabis company that had some pharma licenses. Those are now largely being sorted through the regulatory system, and we are just starting the launches literally about now and going into the second half of this financial year. That progress will start to come through. In Hong Kong, there is a big pipeline, a lot of filings in Hong Kong to really accelerate that. The same in Singapore, which is growing strongly. We have a lot of products we are launching there and extending into the private hospital market and also extending our OTC business. We have just got a listing with Guardian, which we have not been able to get until this date.
There is a lot of potential in the Singapore market as well. Even though it is a small country, it still has the same population as here in New Zealand. Page number 11, going on to page number 12. For our R&D pipeline, some products we have finished our developments, and we are commercializing them. Just come back from BIO- Europe in Vienna, which is very positive. We had packed three-day meetings with a lot of companies that were interested in our products. While we are on the run, the last month, we did complete an out-licensing deal to Chengdu-based Grand Life Sciences Group, which is a top five pharma company in China for our intravenous iron drug. The reason we did that deal was because in China, you really cannot do drug development and registration without involving a local company.
We're holding off on most of our markets, although interestingly, we seem to be getting approached, even if we're not asking for it, by a number of parties that have seen the preliminary study results, which in our view are quite spectacular. We are attracting interest, whether we're trying or not. At this stage, we've limited it to this China deal, which is also important given China is the world's second largest pharma market. We have got a number of Maxigesic still line extensions to put out with our existing partners. That's underway. We do have some other projects: Crystaderm, Micolette, Kiwisoothe, and Capsaicin. A number of these, we're getting three of these. We're getting dossiers ready to file into Europe to further add to our existing bundle of products.
Actually, got a lot of interest in some of these products because they're still very much things that average doctors are going to use for their average patients. There's a lot of interest still in these types of products. That's kind of important to get some licensing income in to help offset some of the R&D spend. You can see on that graph on the right, R&D spend up a bit, NZD 9.5 million from NZD 8.9 million. Look, the R&D is not going to go away. It's going to keep slowly climbing. We still see there's a big upside from doing the R&D and having the IP-based products. That's page number 12. Flicking on to page number 13.
Yeah, this is where we do strongly believe a lot of value resides, which may not really be recognized presently, but I think will become more obvious provided we can successfully develop these products and feed them into both our own markets and our licensee markets. We have a big project for hospital injectables, which has been undertaken in China. We have three dossiers ready already for this calendar year, which is really good progress given this thing only really just started about 14 months ago. We have made some very good progress on that. One of the key points too is our project to add intellectual property to some of these products, and that's underway, like I mentioned. That has a good upside if we can successfully conclude that. There is a migraine project, then Pascomer for Port Wine Stain, the injectable iron product.
We have completed our first phase three study, which was very positive. There is a larger confirmatory phase three study, which will have up to 1,000 patients, which will be undertaken in New Zealand, China, India, the United States, and Europe. Certainly, that is a big undertaking. We have joint funding with Hyloris, a Belgian company, and other agreements, like with our licensees in China, who will fund some of the study. That is just to help keep that R&D cost down. There is an antibiotic eye drop for drug-resistant eye infections. We had our first FDA meeting and are looking to submit our IND. IND means investigational new drug, and that is what has to be approved by FDA before you can dose a drug into human patients. That is a key point. It means middle of next year, we should be going into clinical studies, which is important.
Strawberry birthmarks, we made really good progress on that, actually. Had our first pre-IND meeting with U.S. FDA. My summary of it was actually very positive. If anything, slightly simplified the project, which is always welcome. Making good progress. We have the other projects, which are still underway in earlier phase. That R&D portfolio is, to me, very exciting. I believe if we can pull it off, it will be very valuable in time. That is page number 13. Now I will flick to page number 14 and hand you over to our CFO, Malcolm Tubby.
Thanks, Hartley. Yeah, on slide 14, starting revenue of NZD 114.9 million, which Hartley has taken us through in detail. Gross profit of just under NZD 50 million, growing at a slightly faster rate than revenue with the 1.5 percentage point improvement in the margin.
Operating expenses of NZD 45 million, up 18%. These include the startup and scaling costs of our business hubs, the increase in the R&D spend, and the more one-off nature cost of the ERP migration to NetSuite, which went live on the 1st of October and will be a continuing project through the year. That gets us down to an operating profit of NZD 4.7 million, up NZD 6.5 million on last year's results, which were impacted by those couple of those one-off events that we had. Moving to the balance sheet on slide 15. Increase in working capital up to around NZD 60 million in line with the revenue growth. Net debt staying in around that NZD 20 million mark. We are in advanced discussions for the renewal of the facility, which at the minute, it's a three-year term to April 2026.
It'll be another three-year term taking us out to 2029, and we'll have that in place in the coming weeks. Moving on to the cash flow on slide 16. Yep. Primarily, the change in the cash is the increase in working capital. We drew a little bit down on the net debt on the debt facility, but it left the net debt around the NZD 20 million mark. We've got the dividend payment in there in financing activities. I'll pass you back to Hartley for the next slide.
Thank you, Malcolm. Just to sum up our outlook, the key is we are positioned to drive future growth in both revenue and earnings, and that's certainly our goal. Consistent with prior years, we do have over many years seen second half sales and earnings are greater than the first half.
We do see continued expansion in our Australasian portfolio because sometimes it's sort of people say, "Well, you're focused on international, but does that mean Australia isn't really going to grow?" Look, that's not the case. We still see this good ongoing business in our Australasian portfolio and lots of growth still left. We do also focus on increasing contributions from our international business hubs as they start to generate scale. This will be a work in progress and something which will be a multi-year project. Our R&D and international expansion, look, this does come a bit at the expense of short-term earnings. We are spending money for the future, but they will very much support extension of our growth, which has literally gone on for decades. That's what we're really focusing on.
Certainly, both product and geographic diversification will also sort of help us as well because it's true when you have lots of countries and lots of things, you can always get a road bump somewhere that you can never plan for. Having a good diversified portfolio and a good diversified geographic reach, we see has been really important. On top of the fact as well that pharma usually is pretty resilient to economic undertones as well. Look, we are spending. That's sort of the reason why we are just maintaining our NZD 20 million-NZD 24 million original guidance. If something changes, we'll certainly inform the market. At this point in time, we are keeping that guidance. We're also very focused, as we've been saying, on that pathway towards NZD 300 million annual revenue by the end of next financial year. Look, thank you very much.
I guess it's a good and opportune time to hand over for any questions there may be. Thank you.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star, one, on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star, then two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question today will come from Matt Montgomerie with Forsyth Barr. Please go ahead.
Hi guys, good morning. Well done on a solid result. Maybe first one for me is just on Australia. Clearly, a very strong revenue growth in the half.
It'd be useful just to provide, I think, a bit more color around what drove that, and particularly in relation to the growth between, I guess, new products that you've been launching relative to the base business in that market.
Yeah, Malcolm can answer part of that, but I guess just quickly my side. I mean, look, it was pretty across the board, and there were some very old products that were growing pretty strongly, like our iron products, our eye care, the hospital business. The new products are certainly growing, but often it takes a while for them to get to a big enough size that their growth starts to really contribute. Malcolm, maybe you can comment a bit further, but it was pretty across the board, wasn't it, in general?
Yeah, most of that growth came from the existing products that we've had prior to FY 2024.
Roughly 4%-5% of that overall growth for Australia and New Zealand came out of new products.
Right, that's very helpful. Then secondly, just in relation to guidance, I suppose, would you expect to grow EBIT in the second half of last year versus the second half of, in the second half of this coming year versus the second half of last year?
Would we expect to grow? Yeah, you've got some other one-off costs that you need to look at that'll be bigger in the second half of this year than last year. The ERP cost, that's going to be, that'll carry on through this year. Amortization, you'll have noticed, is higher now than it was last year, and then the increased R&D spend.
Okay, just maybe on the R&D spend, where would you expect that to be for the P&L for FY 2026?
We do not break it down to that level of detail. We set total spend NZD 15 million, made NZD 15 million maybe to NZD 17 million for the year.
That is referring to the sixth and the first half, right? You are saying the total spend.
Yes, the total spend. Hang on, that was back on slide. Sorry, I will just get you to it.
Just through the P&L, if we double.
Yes, we do not break it down to that level of detail.
If we double the first half, would that be fair?
Yes, but you may need a little bit more. The range is NZD 15 million-NZD 17 million total spend, and most of that would be in the P&L. Okay.
I guess what I'm really trying to get at in the root cause is if you take your second half of last year and then the first half that you've reported today, that equals EBIT of just over NZD 24 million, and your guidance midpoint is NZD 22 million. You've got very strong growth in the IND business with margins being quite high still.
Yeah. We were not doing an ERP implementation last year. We are this year. That's an increasing cost. Amortization is double what it was in the first half last year. You've got to allow for those and then the increased R&D spend.
What's the ERP cost?
We've moved from Greent ree to NetSuite. We went live on NetSuite on the 1st of October. That's phase one. Now we're moving into ongoing phases of the implementation.
In terms of the cost on the P&L?
About NZD 750,00 for the first half.
And would be similar in the second half?
Yeah.
Okay, I'll leave it there, but maybe we can take it offline.
Yeah, we've still got quite a few costs, I guess, we're saying, Malcolm's saying. We'll obviously keep closely monitoring it, and if something changes, then we'll obviously inform the market. At this point in time, we're still maintaining our guidance is what we're saying.
Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star, then one, on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by as we pull for questions. Showing no further questions at this time, I'll now hand the call back to Hartley Atkinson for closing remarks.
Good. Thank you very much, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call. Look, just to reiterate, we're pleased with the overall result.
As we have said, we are very focused on growing the business. We do have some investment, obviously, but I hope people appreciate we are not running after the market to raise capital. This is all done out of internal profits, which, when we talk to pharma companies overseas, they do honestly say that it is pretty unusual that we are able to do that. Yeah, look, it is very much a journey, and we are certainly growth-orientated. We thank you very much for your attention and support. Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.