Welcome to BioGaia Q3 report for 2025. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions and answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now, I will hand the conference over to CEO Theresa Agnew and CFO Alexander Kotsinas. Please go ahead.
Hi, this is Theresa Agnew, CEO of BioGaia , and Alex and I are here to present our Q3 results. Sales were SEK 327 million, which is an increase of 7% due to higher sales in the Americas as well as Asia Pacific. Growth overall was 14% when excluding currency effects. Year to date, our growth is 8% excluding currency effects and 4% including currency. Our sales in Asia Pacific for the quarter increased by 17%, in the Americas increased by 10%, and in EMEA decreased by 4%, primarily due to sales in Eastern Europe. We saw strong growth following increased media investments in the U.S. and other prioritized direct markets such as Canada, the U.K., and Australia. With our increased media, we've been attracting new consumers to the brand and enhancing our brand awareness. For the quarter, our EBIT is SEK 86 million, and our EBIT margin is 26%.
As you can see, this compares to a 14% EBIT margin last year. This was lower due to the metabolism impairment loss of SEK 51 million. Our year-to-date EBIT margin is now 27%. Just to remind you of our BioGaia company strategy, we have three strategic pillars. The first is grow the core, in which we focus on gut health, colic, oral health, as well as immune health. Our second is expansion through direct markets, and our third is breakthrough innovation. This is where there are market creation opportunities for using probiotics in new areas. The foundations of our company are, of course, our people and culture, investing for profitable growth, digital as an enabler of our business as well as our go-to-market, driven by science, which has been a foundation for over 30 years for the company, and sustainable solutions with a strong focus on sustainability.
We are delivering on our strategy. In terms of our grow the core, we're driving growth of our pediatric and adult health segments. We're investing in marketing and selling activities to drive strong growth in our direct markets, as I mentioned, such as in the U.S. We're successfully launching new products in our core health areas. Last year, we launched BioGaia Gastrus action capsules, and this quarter, we're rolling it out to more markets. This quarter, we also launched ProDentis Fresh Breath , which is a new product that combines our probiotics with zinc. It works on gums, teeth, as well as giving you fresh breath. We're rolling out many of our other products in partner markets and direct markets as well.
In terms of our second strategy, expansion through direct markets, we launched France as a direct market in Q2, and that market is starting to do well in Q3. We're preparing to launch Germany and Austria in early 2026. Actually, in Q3, France had its strongest month with record sales in September. We have a high ambition in France to continue our growth into next year. Australia, which we launched in 2024, now with all of our marketing and selling efforts, BioGaia Protectis Drops is now number one in the market. We also have record sales in the U.S. market due to the investments that we've been putting into that market. Our direct markets are growing ahead of our partner markets.
In terms of our third strategic area, breakthrough innovation, as you may have seen in a press release, we've established a new subsidiary called BioGaia New Sciences that will focus on skin health, which is a new breakthrough innovation area for us. We are rolling out our BioGaia probiotic ointment to more markets. Now you will see we have new launches of our probiotic ointment. Speaking of launches, this shows you all the launches we have had of products as we expand our new products into more markets for the quarter. We have rolled out our probiotic ointment in Sweden, Finland, and the U.K. We launched ProDentis Fresh Breath lozenges, as I mentioned, in the U.S. In Argentina, we rolled out a number of our products. Slovakia, and in the U.S., we launched our BioGaia GastroSphere Action capsules that we had launched in Finland for the first time last year.
Also in Australia and New Zealand, we rolled out GastroSphere Action capsules. All of these launches are doing very well, especially GastroSphere Action is driving increased sales in our adult gut health area. As well, it's continuing to do extremely well in Finland after a year of launch without cannibalizing our chewable Gastrus product. Some of the key events that happened during the quarter, as I said, we launched our BioGaia New Sciences subsidiary at an extraordinary general meeting in August. We resolved to elect Maurizio Graber as our new Chairman of the Board. Also, Maurizio entered into an agreement to purchase some class B shares from the anchor shareholder Anatom Holding. BioGaia also announced distribution in Germany and Austria for the future, so we will be starting that in early 2026.
We also announced the launch of a new product, ProDentis Fresh Breath, and as I said, that launched first in the U.S. in the quarter. More recently, we announced the publication of a study on our new patented strain, L. reuteri BGR46. This has actually been published in a journal called Beneficial Microbes. We also introduced a press release on this, talking about how, as expected, this new strain, it's a new patented strain, is safe and well characterized. In terms of sales per segment, in our pediatric area in the quarter, it grew by 7%, and if you exclude currency effects, it's 14%. This is mainly due to increased sales of Protectis drops in Asia Pacific and Latin America. Specifically, some markets that did very well were Indonesia, Vietnam, and Mexico. In terms of adult health, our sales increased by 6% in the quarter, increasing 13% excluding currency effects.
We saw particularly strong growth of BioGaia Gastrus in the U.S. and BioGaia ProDentis mainly in the U.S. as well. As you can see, our pediatric business remains at about 75% of our sales. In terms of the regions, as I said earlier, EMEA sales decreased by 4%. This was mainly due to Eastern Europe and Italy. One comment on Italy: Italy is growing well for us this year. The decline that we saw was mainly due to order variability because we saw higher orders in Q2. In France, as I said, we achieved record sales in September. We're driving increased distribution and recommendations through pharmacies, so we anticipate that this will continue. In Turkey, we have signed a long-term distribution agreement with one of our partners, Abbott. Abbott is actually a longstanding BioGaia partner.
We partner with them in the Middle East, in Latin America, and some other Asia Pacific markets. We have now signed an agreement with Abbott Turkey for the market of Turkey. In Asia Pacific, our sales increased by 17%. This was mainly seen in Vietnam, Australia, as well as Indonesia. Specifically in Australia, one of our direct markets, we are expanding distribution, increasing our marketing activities, and growing market share in the market. In the Americas, our sales increased by 10%. This was mainly due to the U.S. and Mexico growth. In particular, on the U.S., we're achieving record-breaking sales in the quarter. We successfully launched the two new products, as I said, which are BioGaia GastroSphere Action capsules and the BioGaia ProDentis Fresh Breath. Both products are getting off to a fast start in the U.S. I will now turn it over to Alex to go through our financials in more detail.
Thank you, Theresa. If we just summarize the key financials, we see that our sales grew 7% from SEK 304 million- SEK 327 million. Our gross profit grew 9%, and our EBIT grew 108% from SEK 41 million- SEK 86 million, and a margin of 26% in the quarter versus 14% in the same quarter last year. If we look at the sales, as we heard previously, we had a sales growth of 7%. However, excluding currency effects, we had an organic growth of 14%. The gross margin improved from 73% last year to 74% this year, mainly due to an improved margin in pediatrics, which is the largest segment, but also an improvement in the adult health.
The main explanation for the improved margin is mainly different geographical sales compared to a year ago, more favorable geographic shift, for example, in direct markets where we do have a higher gross margin, but also partly due to some price improvements, price increases, which we have done during the last year, which are obviously impacting the margin positively. Year to date, then we have a gross margin which is flat compared to a year ago, down 1% in pediatrics, however, up 6% in adult health. If we move on to our expenses, our total expenses were SEK 157 million in the quarter, which is then 13% lower compared to one year ago. If we look at the different lines, sales and marketing cost at SEK 116 million versus SEK 96 million last year, that's an increase of 21%.
This is an effect of increased sales and marketing activities, mainly in our subsidiaries, and then mainly, of course, in North America and the U.S. where we have the largest operations. That is why the sales and marketing costs have increased due to those increased investments. In terms of R&D, R&D costs decreased to SEK 26 million, as Theresa mentioned previously, due to the metabolism impairment loss, which we took in the same quarter last year. Excluding that, we had a growth in R&D spending in the quarter. Administration costs at SEK 11 million, an increase of 18%. There are some startup-related costs to going direct, which are included in this line. Other than that, it's basically the same costs. We have other OpEx, which is basically exchange losses on receivables at a cost of SEK 4 million in the quarter.
Also worth to note that it's a substantial cost in year to date of SEK 33 million. If we move on to the next, the profit and loss, just to summarize, our sales grew 7%, our cost grew 13%, and therefore our EBIT, the adjusted EBIT declined 8%. The adjustment again was this impairment loss one year ago. If we move on to the cash flow, the cash flow from operating activities increased by SEK 10 million to SEK 110 million, mainly due to a positive change in working capital. The positive change in working capital is related to lower receivables. We had quite high sales in the second quarter this year, and a lot of those payments came in the third quarter. The receivables decreased by SEK 49 million. We had higher payables of SEK 2 million, and this was offset by a higher inventory of SEK 10 million.
All of these variations are basically normal variations that we have. There is nothing, no one-offs or anything like that. That leads to a cash flow for the period of SEK 107 million versus SEK 111 million last year. Basically a flat cash flow and a cash at the end of the period of SEK 728 million versus SEK 1.11 billion in the same quarter last year. With that, I hand over to Theresa for some concluding remarks.
In summary, as we said in the third quarter, our overall organic growth was 14% and an overall increase of 7%. If you look year to date, we also grew 8% organically and up 4% with the currency effects. In the pediatric segment, we grew 7% in the quarter, 14% excluding the foreign currency effects. Strong growth of BioGaia Protectis Drops, as I said, in Asia Pacific and Latin America. The adult health segment is growing nicely for us, 13% organically and 6% including exchange effects. Year to date, 16% as well as 20% excluding the currency exchange effects. We are seeing particularly strong growth of our BioGaia Gastrus product line, which falls into our adult gut health segment, as well as the BioGaia ProDentis, which falls into our oral health segment in the U.S. In Americas and Asia Pacific, those two regions both delivered double-digit growth.
Sales in EMEA declined slightly compared to the same quarter last year. That was primarily driven by weaker performance in Eastern Europe. We are investing in marketing and selling activities this year to drive strong growth in our direct markets. We have seen a nice result of that with strong double-digit growth in the quarter and year to date in the U.S. Some of this is obviously offset by currency effects, as well as lower sales in EMEA due to certain partners. When we take markets direct, what we typically see is we see lower sales up front when we're establishing the direct markets because our partners are typically selling through their prior inventory. As we are establishing these direct markets in France and Germany, we'll see some lower sales, and then that will then pick up once the prior inventory is sold through.
The strong double-digit growth in the markets where we're investing is offset by these things. Our adjusted operating margin of 26% is for the quarter and then 27% year to date. As we said, we also had an extraordinary general meeting to elect Maurizio Graber as our new Chairman. We will now turn it over for any questions that you may have.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Kristofer Liljeberg from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. It's good to hear that direct sales seem to do well. Is it possible to give a figure for how large share of total sales that now represent? That's my first question. The second question is on the extra marketing investment. Is it possible to quantify how that has impacted sales? You're talking about good momentum in the U.S., but maybe if you could quantify that. When it comes to the reason for weakness in Eastern Europe, anything particular there? If I remember correctly, you have one large distributor, so I don't know if it's some destocking stocking effects impacting there as well. Thank you.
Yeah. The first question around what percentage of our sales the direct markets now represent, that's approximately 36% of our overall sales. Frankly, we anticipate that to continue to grow because as we grow the business in France and then Germany and Austria next year, it will get to be a bigger percentage of our sales. In terms of our marketing investment, to quantify that more, the majority of our investment by far is in the U.S. We also have made some smaller investments in the U.K., Canada, and Australia. The U.S. business is doing extremely well. Over 20% growth in the U.S., so very, very strong results from our investments around marketing and media. In terms of Eastern Europe, you are right. We have one.
Before you say, could I just follow up on these two? The 20% growth in the U.S., I guess that's currency adjusted. Is that in the quarter or year to date?
That's overall year to date. What I'm quoting is more year to date, but similar also in the quarter itself.
Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you. Just on the first one, the 36% overall or 36% share in direct sales, is that in the quarter or last month or however?
That's in the quarter.
Perfect. Thank you. My final question, sorry.
Yes. In Eastern Europe, you are right. We have one partner, Evo Pharma, that covers about 16 markets across Eastern Europe. There is some order variability that is happening there. We anticipate that there will be increased orders and there's transferability from one quarter to the other in terms of those markets.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Mattias Vadsten from SEB. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. First one, I was curious to hear a bit more on EMEA. Maybe if you could quantify what impact the transition to own sales had in Q3 year- over- year on growth. Is that a reason, a role for EMEA declining here? Also, if you can talk about the impact this could have on organic growth for the coming quarters. If you see sort of EMEA returning to growth near-term based on order variability in Eastern Europe, that's the first one. Thanks.
Yeah. In terms of own sales in EMEA, because we have taken France direct, we have seen year to date a decline in sales because our partner has been then selling through their inventory, so not ordering from us and also selling through their inventory. We started selling in Q2, but in very small amounts. Now we're starting to see that pick up as expected. Whenever we take a market direct, we anticipate that there will be lower sales for a period of time, and then it will start to grow as inventory is sold through in the markets. That is the own markets, the own sales is a reason for decline in EMEA around France. France is a very big market for us in EMEA. That of course can be offset by some of the other markets, but they're much smaller. Finland, as an own market, is growing really well. U.K., as an own market, is growing double digits. Because France is such a large market for us in Europe, it offsets those.
Thanks. That was what I thought as well. In terms of Germany and Austria, could you just elaborate how we should see that transition, sort of how it looked in Q3, and how does it look in those markets?
Yes. Good question. We will see a similar effect with Germany and Austria, where we will see some declining orders in terms of the partner ordering from us, and they will be selling through their inventory into next year. We will be able to start selling. Just like France, we'll see a period of time where we will start to increase sales in early next year and then see more benefit in the second half.
Perfect. Would you say this effect was already there in Q3?
I'm sorry?
For Germany and Austria?
Yes.
Would you say the impact? Okay. That was there in Q3.
Yes.
Okay. That all makes sense. Thank you very much. In terms of OpEx, it has been up some, I guess, with some variability, but sort of 20% for the four past quarters now. I'm just looking ahead. Q4 last year, you had quite a steep OpEx increase. Do you see the growth in OpEx coming down a little bit in the quarters ahead, or how should we see that? Thank you.
Yeah. The OpEx, I think in the fourth quarter, normally we have seasonal effects whereby we have some seasonally increased OpEx in the fourth quarter, for example, in the U.S. market. Without providing any guidance, I mean, our costs, normally they will go up somewhat in the fourth quarter.
Perfect. I have one final question, if that's okay. The new patent, that strain that you bring up in the presentation, L. reuteri BGR46, if you could just talk a bit in general about this and maybe how it would be included in your sort of broad product offering that you have today, and then maybe a potential combination with, yeah, DSM 17938 in Colic Drops, for instance. A general run-through of how you see that being included in the offering.
Yes. BGR46 is an important strain for us for the future. It is a patented strain that we will include in new products. We have talked before about how we look to launch a new product that will be a combination product of our DSM 17 strain and our new patented strain. This is the new patented strain that would then be in combination with our DSM 17 strain in new products. We will have more information out on that in the near future. We are conducting a clinical study on a new dropped product. More to come on that when we get our results in. We will be including this strain in multiple new products across what we call our grow the core. It will be in colic-oriented products. It will be in other categories as well, immune health, gut health, and so forth.
Very clear answer. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Matthias Hegblom from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks so much. I have two questions, please. Firstly, with a new Chairman as well as a new principal shareholder, I'm curious to hear how the board's work has changed, if at all. Is there, for example, a strategic review plan together with the board to reassure all interests are aligned with regards to the path ahead? Secondly, sort of related to this, I guess we're in the middle of budget planning heading into 2026. With OpEx up 29% year to date, investor feedback suggests this remains a focus area. At least help me think about the pace of OpEx going into 2026, at least directionally.
Okay. In terms of the board, with Maurizio as our new Chairman, we have had two board meetings where we have talked about numerous things. We have also updated on our strategic plan. That has been included in all of our discussions with our new Chairman. We will be doing, as a typical part of our process, a strategic review in terms of our strategic plan with the board upcoming. That is a normal part of how we operate. M aurizio has now been involved in two board meetings thus far since August. If Alex wants to talk a little bit about OpEx , I think you had a question on the OpEx.
Yeah. Basically, I mean, we do have this ambition, of course. Our financial target is to have a 34% margin, and we're not there at the moment. Our ambition is to improve this going forward. We will improve our EBIT margin, basically, going forward without specifying exactly when, but that is our ambition for next year. Basically, our OpEx will not grow to the same extent as our gross profit will grow. It will grow to a lesser extent.
Also, just to add to that, as you know, with our direct markets, we have a level of investment that we do with the direct markets. We run a very lean organization, so we don't have a lot of fixed costs, but we are making investments in those direct markets of France as well as Germany.
Thank you. I have one follow-up. If OpEx is up 29% year to date and sales in the U.S. is up over 20%, where a majority of the investments have been targeted, how do investors build confidence that these investments actually do generate and translate into a good return?
Yeah. In terms of the future growth, what we can see is, some of the things that we've talked about in terms of direct markets, France and Germany, for instance, we have a lot of confidence in terms of how we will grow in those markets for the future. France is an extremely important European market for us. Frankly, Germany, we anticipate that we will grow our business substantially there because in the past, it has been smaller of the European businesses for us. We want to really focus in that market as well. If you look at where we're investing, we anticipate seeing the growth in those markets where we are investing: France, Germany, U.S., Canada.
I think everyone is aligned that these go direct-to-market initiatives have worked favorably. I think if there is a debate, it's more around this more short-term campaign investment, to say. I heard you say the majority of investment this year has been for the U.S., and the U.S. is up less than the OpEx for the group year to date. Is there any way you can share your confidence in that these more campaign-related investments as well translate into permanent good returns?
Yes. I mean, they are translating into good returns for us in the U.S. If you look at our spending in the U.S., we are driving considerable growth, as I said, over 20%. There are also currency impacts in terms of the U.S. dollar.
Okay. The 20% includes the headwind from FX. In local accounts, the growth year to date in the U.S. may be even higher than 20%.
That's correct.
That's correct.
Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you so much.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Kristofer Liljeberg from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead. Kristofer Liljeberg, your line is now unmuted. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Two follow-up questions from me. I think you said that France had a record month in September. Is that also compared with the previous distributor's sales in a given month?
We don't track it by the previous distributor's sales in a given month. We don't have all of that information from our distributors, but just in terms of our sales in the French market.
Yeah, is this since you started to sell directly, or shipments or sales you have booked to a distributor previously in a given month as well?
Yes. Yes. It is versus our sales to the distributor in a particular month. We do not always get all of the sellout information and what the sales is in market from our partners.
Yeah, that sounds very positive given that there must have been some months where they have had where the previous distributors have built inventory, etc.
Yes, it is very positive for us. With our taking this market direct, we now have a broader opportunity for distribution. We are still working on this, but the sales force that we have hired actually has access to even more distribution points than our previous partner. That is one of our goals, to drive our distribution further.
Great. Thank you. Nice to see the pediatric margin improving in the quarter. I think, Alex, you mentioned some price adjustment, etc. It sounds this should be a sustainable level or was it a very positive mix also in the quarter that explains this.
Yeah, it's always difficult to know exactly, but I mean, we hope it's fairly sustainable, yes, unless there are some negative surprises. It should be sustainable.
Great. Thank you so much.
There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you for your questions. We appreciate the time to review our Q3 results. We will speak with you again for next quarter. Thank you.