Hello and welcome back, everyone. Very happy to have MedCap here with us for the next presentation and CEO Anders Dahlberg to present the company. In the interest of time, I think I'll hand it right over to you, Anders, for the presentation.
Thank you, Erik. Glad to be here. So I'm going to present MedCap. And MedCap is, since 20 years, an investor in small and medium-sized life science companies. Profitable small and medium-sized life companies that we invest in and develop further in a model where we combine the scale of a larger group as MedCap with the entrepreneurship of smaller companies, staying close to the end users and close to the customers. So today, I'm going to give you an overview of the group, both in terms of financials and the operations that we have, and then talk a little bit about some of the achievements in last year and also in the first quarter, a few comments on that before we move into financial targets. And to conclude with why we think that MedCap is a great home for companies, for us as employees, and for you as investors.
So we create value by providing products and services that really make a difference for the end users, that create efficiencies for the healthcare system and overall health economics, and I will speak a little bit to some of the products and services as we move through the presentation. S o today, the group has sales above SEK 1.2 billion and EBITDA of about SEK 260 million. We will come back to financials, but I think before I do that, I want to talk more about what we actually do, o ur companies. S o our group is reporting in two segments. One third is specialty pharma and 2/3 in med tech. If we dive further into it, it's really 1/3 pharma, as we said, 1/3 assistive technology, and 1/3 in medical devices, nutrition, and probiotics. Our heritage is very much from the Nordic region.
Our sales today are still a little shy of 75% in the Nordic region. However, we see that through organic growth as well as acquisitions, the European piece is growing, and today, we have a European strategy in terms of where we want to grow as a group and also where we want to grow in terms of investments in new companies. So what do we do? We have today five clusters of operations, and we have, aside from these five clusters, we continue to also look at new potential clusters or platforms, we can call them, to add to the group. S o today, I'll give you a quick overview. First, we have our assistive technology cluster, which provides products that simplify the everyday life for persons with special needs, so this is for providing mobility, accessibility, but also communication and cognitive tools.
The drivers in this is really the prevalence of diagnoses such as autism and ADHD, but also an elderly population. Our operations are strong in the Nordics, Netherlands, U.K., and also provide exports through other markets in Europe, but also globally. Our next cluster is Cardiolex, where we provide easy-to-use digital workflow for ECG for hospitals and cardiologists. Drivers here is really cardio diagnostics as well as the digitalization and integration of data at hospitals. The operations is primarily in Germany, followed by the Nordics, and again with exports into other European markets. Our third platform is Inpac, which is in consumer health primarily and is riding on the trends in terms of wellness and fitness, being a contract manufacturer and partner to the brands.
And our fourth cluster and fourth last platform within the medical device area is Multi-Ply, which provides specialized components, carbon fiber components for medical imaging and X-ray equipment. And here we have a global customer base of OEM manufacturers of primarily mammography systems. So the first four clusters is what we report in our med tech segment. And then to the far right, we have our pharma business area with Unimedic, which is based on two businesses. One is our pharmaceutical portfolio that we continue to develop our own pharmaceuticals and being a partner to international pharma companies wanting to distribute in the Nordics. And the other part is a contract manufacturing where we manufacture liquid pharmaceuticals for our own portfolio, but also for external customers. So with that, you have an overview of our group as it looks today.
We continue our journey to have strong focus on organic growth, setting ambitious business plan targets for each of the companies within the group, but also looking at add-on acquisitions to grow each of these clusters where we have domain expertise and knowledge about the market. Then, as I said in the beginning, we also look at how we can grow the group with new platforms and clusters aside to these. Let's turn to some of the events over the last year, but also over the last quarter, which we reported a month ago. If we look into or back into 2022, some of the highlights included Unimedic's growth of its own product portfolio. As I mentioned before, it's a core part of the strategy to develop more and more of our own pharmaceuticals.
So we had good growth in the Nordic region for our own portfolio, but also in terms of outlicensing to other markets outside of the Nordics. Abilia, which is in the assistive technology cluster, continued to gain trust from its important tender customers. Abilia also made an acquisition in Norway in terms of acquiring Cognita, which provides cognitive and communication tools, primarily digital tools, which strengthens our offering primarily in Norway. Inpac, which is our probiotics and nutrition business, has had a strong growth over the last couple of years, and management has been very successful in terms of taking market share, providing good service to customers. And we decided in 2022 to take the decision to move the operations into a new modern facility, which also adds capacity.
Cardiolex, our ECG business, continued to see the synergies of being both a German and a Nordic company, where we combine the digital offering that we have in the Nordics with the German platform of the product portfolio there, which means that we can address new customers in more segments in the market. Point number six, Multi-Ply successfully transferred three of its production sites into one new modern facility. This was a decision that was taken in 2020 to move into one new modern site again on the back of strong good growth for the company. So we had a successful move without any interruption to customers and deliveries. If we turn to MedCap, we announced a public offer to acquire AdderaCare towards the end of the year, which was then finalized in the first quarter.
Overall, the group of companies, on the back of good performance in all our entities, could deliver its high sales and EBITDA results yet. We had a 21% sales growth and a 28% EBITDA growth. With that, we'll turn to some more recent updates in terms of financials and the first quarter. The first quarter continued with strong growth. We had 45% growth, where, of course, the acquisition of AdderaCare contributes strongly. I think what's really encouraging and nice to see is that more than half of our growth in the first quarter was organic growth. Good demand in both of our business areas, and the largest uplift was in the pharmaceutical area. Again, this links back to what we presented on the previous slide in terms of growing our own portfolio.
And as we grow our own portfolio, both sales growth, but also the share of own products also supports profitability. So the profitability increased by 33%, excluding one-time effects associated to the acquisition, and we had a margin of about 20%. This was a margin dilution of a couple of percentage points, which was expected as the AdderaCare entities came in with a product portfolio of physical assistive products, which typically have a lower margin. Over time, we will, of course, work to find improvements in terms of profitability and margins in the AdderaCare portfolio. But the first step there was to identify and execute on the cost synergies. So in the first quarter, we could identify and execute of SEK 14 million of cost savings, of which approximately half will impact 2023.
Then the last financial comment to make here in terms of where we stand after the first quarter is that we still have a very strong balance sheet. We continue to have a net cash position, which means that there's plenty of room for making investments and acquisitions. And we'll come back to this also as we talk through our financial targets and investment strategy. A few years ago, the group set a target of reaching SEK 1.5 billion in sales in 2023. And we previously showed on the slide that we're at SEK 1.2 billion . And with the acquisitions made and the strong organic growth, we see that we're tracking well towards our targets. I think perhaps the more important target that we have even more focus on is the growth of EBITDA, to grow EBITDA by at least 15% per year.
Again, this is a target that we've outperformed for many years and did again in 2022 with 28% EBITDA growth. On the last slide, I mentioned that our cash, w e still have a positive cash position in Q1. That's what you see on the last financial target, to keep a net debt to EBITDA ratio below 3x. We're currently in the negatives, showing that we have ample room then to utilize our balance sheet for making acquisitions and investments. What is it that we look for then? We, of course, focus purely on life sciences. That is the sector where we have the network, where we have the understanding for the companies, and where we see that we can create value. We talk to companies and entrepreneurs in Europe.
To be more specific, I think most of the companies, of course, from our heritage is from both the Nordics. We also have a lot of dialogues in Germany, Benelux, and the U.K. primarily. We look at businesses that we call small to medium size, which range from anything very small, like a product company of maybe SEK 10 million, could be something that we could acquire as an add-on acquisition. But I would say that most of the conversations we have are with companies that are in the size between maybe SEK 50 million-SEK 150 million, SEK 200 million of revenue. We're a long-term owner and a long-term owner with a majority ownership, but we're also open to own together with an entrepreneur that over time wants to find the succession for their company.
What we look for when we have a conversation with a company is that it's going to need to have profitability. It's a proven company that has shown profitability, shown success in the market, commercially proven. They have a position that we understand. They have a position in the market that we believe in, but they also have a potential. That potential could be both on the operational side that we see that we can improve efficiency in the company, or commercially, that there are opportunities to grow the company into new market segments with new distributors or into new geographical markets. What it all comes down to is to make sure that there's the right people to drive the business forward. Sometimes the person who's been running and owning the company wants to continue and wants to work together with us with that.
In other cases, there may be a succession situation where the owner wants to hand over and it's up to us to find new management. So this is where we spend a lot of our time in terms of the group company of MedCap. And our model, as I said in the beginning, combines a sector focus, sector expertise, and network with the entrepreneurship of smaller organizations where there are decentralized local decision-making, integrity of brands and the DNA of the businesses to maintain quick and agile decision-making, but also having the long-term mindset of a long-term owner. And combining that with the scale that's available in a larger group in terms of business development, M&A, but also governance and financing. And this is the model that we've operated for 20 years and continue to deliver profitable growth with.
So over time, as I said, organic growth. I want to underline that all the time because I think that's really important that in terms of where we spend a lot of our time and where our management teams in each of the companies spend their time is, of course, in terms of developing the business, in terms of setting new ambitious targets, setting new strategies, meeting new distributors, growing the business and the product portfolio. But then in addition to that, we want to utilize our financial strength to make add-on acquisitions. And over time, we typically make or have made one to three acquisitions per year, typically. This has built the clusters that we have today, and this is what can continue to build on those clusters, but also build new clusters.
So I want to have this as the summary slide, why we think it's great to be working with MedCap and why we think it's also a good investment. We work in an industry that creates value, that really makes a difference. We've delivered profitable growth through the model that we have. We believe that the combination of the scale of the group with the entrepreneurship of smaller companies is successful and has been proven successful. And we also operate in a market where we see that there are a lot of companies out there. There's a fragmented market. It's a large market.
Healthcare, of course, in itself has a lot of growth, but there's also a lot of innovation and new things coming in, which means that there are still a lot of small to medium-sized companies where we think over time we could be a good home for those companies. So with that, I'll end the presentation and open up for questions.
Perfect. Thank you very much, Anders. So first question, you may not agree, but from my point of view, it seems like a lot of your companies thinking mainly about Abilia and AdderaCare has some, I would call them more simple products, maybe not high-tech products. So I was just wondering if, like, are those sort of companies your sweet spot in that you can develop those geographically, etc.?
Or is there a rationale to also look towards maybe more high-tech companies that could have wider moats, for example, and IPs to perhaps see less competition in the long term? Or what do you think about that?
Yeah, I think overall that innovation is important to have to protect your position and to have growth over time. So you need to be innovative, whether you're working with a physical product or whether you're working with an IT product or whether it's a chemical compound, you need to have innovation. So I wouldn't say that it's just because it's physical products that it's a basic. I still think you need to innovate in those areas.
I also think that if you look at our portfolio within assistive technology, you have a range from physical products that you may call basic into products that we invest a lot of R&D time into developing software, combining software and hardware to make the best for end users. So I think there's quite a bit of innovation. You mentioned IP. That doesn't mean that there's always IP into it, but creating innovation in a combined product and a combined service to the customers. I think that's where you strengthen your position. And that's something that we try to do in each of our companies.
Okay, okay. And you talked about the clusters earlier with assistive technology, etc. Which of those would you say has the lowest hanging fruit in terms of further geographical expansion into Europe?
It's definitely high on the agenda in both the assistive technology and the ECG side. Those are product-based businesses that we know have been successful in different geographical markets. We know that the end users are the same in more markets. The funding systems may be different. So there's a way forward that you need to understand, but that there should be a geographical opportunity to grow those two types of segments. In terms of the pharma business, we have grown that outside of the Nordics, and we can do that on some of the products where we have registrations that allow you to sell those into other markets. But it's a little bit of a different regulated market versus growing one of your assistive technology products. So it's different markets.
Okay, okay. And the own pharmaceutical portfolio has performed incredibly well throughout 2022 and now also Q1 2023. But could you talk about what's happening there with, I guess, melatonin has been a big contributor, also geographical expansion, but could you just add some color on what has been the main drivers in that portfolio?
Sure. So if we take a long perspective back, many, many years, then it started as really contract manufacturing, lower margins providing liquid manufacturing services to other companies. And then over time, the strategy has built to build a sales organization in the Nordics, and then, of course, to fill that sales organization with more products, which could be either our own registered pharmaceuticals or partner products. And the growth that we've seen, if we take sort of a five-year perspective, there's been a number of good partnerships that provided more products to sell in that channel towards the Nordic market.
That's contributed to the growth that we've seen over a number of years. And then, as you mentioned, melatonin came in as a product in our own portfolio about a year and a half ago, started well in terms of the Nordics and then exclusively licensed to another market in Europe. And that's also, of course, fueled growth.
You aim to release maybe one, sometimes two of these own portfolio products per year. It's now been a short while since you did so, and I guess you should be releasing something new in the near term. Do you have anything in the pipeline that could be released fairly soon, or do you see that further out?
We haven't communicated that we would do one every year, but if we look at the pace over time, it's typically been one every other year.
But then there could be alterations to a product, which could be a different size, a different strength, and so on. That means that we still take something new to the market, but it may not be a full new product. So obviously, that's a key part of the strategy to continue to develop those and find those products where sort of niche in areas where we think that it makes sense for us to develop a new product. We're not an R&D company in the sense that we have the type of portfolio of a pipeline that you would see in more R&D based, but there is continuous development in terms of taking known compounds, creating something new, maybe a new formulation, and bringing it to market.
Okay, okay, and then I was just curious on how the M&A scene has changed. It was very active in 2021. Everyone was buying companies. Valuation became quite elevated. You were prudently not buying too much back then, but now it seems like valuations have come down a bit. Activity hasn't really picked up yet, but what are you seeing in terms of possible acquisitions right now?
So we'll speak generally, but I think versus 2021, we definitely see a difference, then it was a very active market, and as you say, we saw a lot of possible transactions, but we also declined to do them at those levels. In terms of the change towards where we are now, I think, of course, the current climate will reduce valuations somewhat, at the same time, we're speaking to often profitable companies, so they're not in a squeeze where they need to sell. It's a long-term dialogue when it's a good timing for them to join MedCap.
So valuations may come down somewhat, but I think overall, the intensity of the deal-making that was in 2021 has cooled down, which in our world, I think, benefits us in a way.
Okay, okay. Perfect. Thank you very much, Anders. That was all the questions I had for you today. So we'll take a short pause and return with Sedana in a few minutes. Thank you very much.
Thank you.