Good afternoon. This is the Corrado Farsetta Conference Operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Medacta Group Full Year 2024 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the Conference Call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Francesco Siccardi, CEO of Medacta Group. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, and good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Medacta 2024 full year results. I am here with Corrado Farsetta, Medacta CFO, and we will guide you through the presentation we released this morning. First of all, let's just remember our disclaimers. The highlights of 2024 started with our revenue release that we already published a few weeks ago: a very good growth, over 16% in constant currency, surpassing EUR 590 million. This is combined with good, excellent profitability, with a 28% EBITDA margin in constant currency, or EUR 27.1 million, a good increase of 19.4% over 2023. The net profit as well increased by almost 54% to EUR 73 million, roughly, and we are proposing a dividend of CHF 0.69 per share, which represents an increase of over 25% year over year. 2024 is now the fifth year of very, very strong growth.
Between 2020 and 2024, the CAGR has been 18%, 18.1%. This considerable above-market revenue growth is a result of our innovative products that have been and are able to often change the way things are done. The more innovation we put in the market, the more medical education is required to support the safe introduction of this innovation and the safe adoption of this innovation by our customers. We have the need to further penetrate the different geographies where we are present, and we do it by constantly expanding our sales force and team in the different regions where Medacta is active. We have already released the sales figures a few weeks ago, so I will not go too much into the details, but this growth was supported by all our geographies with very strong performance in Europe, in North America, in Asia-Pacific, and in Latin America.
Under a business line point of view, we had across all our lines two to three to four times above-market growth for hip, knees, extremities, and spine. We have been slightly changing the product mix compared to the past, and this is mainly related to the strong acceleration of knees, which is basically now at the same level of the hips. Extremities and spine represent roughly 80%-90% each. The products related to those performances are very well-established products, very strong strategy on the hip, still focusing on anterior minimal invasive surgery, which allows Medacta to grow more than two times the market year over year. There is still a very, very strong interest all over the geographies, and of course, as well in the U.S. with ASC developing so good need for minimal invasive procedures.
Very, very good expansion of our knee portfolio with the GMK SpheriKA continuously rolling out. The GMK SpheriKA is the first and still today the only implant specifically designed for kinematic alignment, which is a new and better personalized way to implant a total knee replacement, which is now becoming more and more accepted with solid data and very good performance. The growth of the knee in 2024 has been more than three times the market. Very good growth in spine as well, above 17%, more than 3x the market, combining here our implants with our technologies. This is a very important element to differentiate our portfolio in a very crowded market, which is the spine market. The highest growth we had was once again in the extremities with a CAGR of 36.5% and basically a growth of 5x more than the market in 2024.
Here as well is a combination of our very complete and competitive product portfolio in terms of implants supported by the NextAR technology, which is very unique in this space. All this growth comes in a very sustainable way. We did release this morning as well the 2024 sustainability report, where you can find a lot of information on our activities. Here we picked some highlights for 2024. Once again, we were able to source 100% of our electricity in our manufacturing plants from renewable sources. We had 97% of our new suppliers evaluated according to ESG indicators, and 98% of our employees trained on health and safety matters. Another KPI, which we are very proud of, is a 100% rate of return after maternal leave in our headquarters, thanks to the support we provide to our female employees.
You will find more details about the different pillars of our ESG report, caring for the environment, the supply chain control, caring for our people, and caring for the community. A lot of KPIs here as well. A big one is definitely almost 44% of greenhouse gas emission reduction in the last years, and this is despite our very, very solid growth. We mentioned responsible and reliable supply chain control. For our people, of course, we continue to professionally develop their careers. We have invested a lot in training hours for our employees, which has constantly increased. We recently finalized a company survey, and we had an outstanding 87% response, and we're providing a lot of feedback. We are very happy with the dialogue we have with our rapidly growing family and all our employees.
To give you an idea, almost 30% of the new employees we hired last year did come from an internal employee referral program, which was introduced a couple of years ago. Very successful. Last, we know we have a big impact on our community. With our Medacta for Life Foundation, we support a lot of initiatives, starting from the My School Ticino, which enables us to support not only our employees, but as well to give support to our community on top of different humanitarian projects that rely on us to get implants, support people, and know-how to help areas which are in need. Our commitments are listed here as well in terms on slide 14 of adoption of Task Force on Climate-related Financial disclosures. More details, as I said, will be available or are available on our sustainability report.
I would like now to ask Corrado to drive you through the financials in detail, and I will be back with you for the conclusions.
Thank you, Francesco. Let's have a look now at the key figures of our P&L, and I would start with the gross profit. This year, the gross profit was equal to EUR 399 million, with an increase of roughly 15% compared to the previous year. The gross profit margin was 57.6%. I would say the net from transactional net tax effect, the GP margin of this year was substantially in line with the previous year. Moving to the next one, here we see the adjusted EBITDA evolution over the last five years. Let's start with the 2024, where we have registered an EBITDA adjusted of EUR 160 million, which compared to the previous year, EUR 134 million, represents an increase of more than 19% year over year. The adjusted EBITDA margin increased as well by 1.7% net from effects effect.
You see this in the red line of this chart, passing from 26.3% to 28% net from translational effect in 2024. There is another line in this chart that we can have a look at, which is the highest line, the blue line, which illustrates the adjusted EBITDA margin evolution net from effects effect over the years. You see that despite the reduction of the reported EBITDA margin, which is the yellow line, net from effects effect, this EBITDA margin was constantly around 30%, with a nice jump in 2024 of 1.7%, as we just said. Moving to the next slide, we see that the net profit in 2024 surged as well, and we reached about EUR 73 million, with an increase, as Francesco said before, of 54% compared to the previous year. Just a few comments about this jump.
We say that the EBITDA margin expanded in 2024, but this improvement in the net profit is also explained from a better financial performance, which is primarily coming from intercompany balances, largely benefiting from more favorable effects evolution, particularly U.S. dollar versus Swiss franc, and lower effective tax rate in 2024, which went down to 17%, starting from 19.4% last year. This improvement is primarily attributable to the entering into force of the Swiss tax reform in 2024, 2025. Moving to the next, you see the usual CapEx pie. As usual, the largest chunk of this CapEx of EUR 99 million in 2024 is explained by growth investment. The biggest chunk is instruments, EUR 57.8 million. The second chunk, the biggest chunk, is composed by other tangible for EUR 23.8 million.
This number includes investments to expand the production facility here in Castel San Pietro and Rancate and the new logistics hub in Europe. Moving to the next, here you see the cash flow. In 2024, we were able to generate a robust cash flow from our operating activities of EUR 107 million, with an increase of more than 40% compared to the previous year. This robust cash flow generation was able to finance our strong investment plans of EUR 99 million and generate a small but positive free cash flow of EUR 8.3 million. Moving to the next one, here you see the very low leverage as a result of our ability to generate cash. Over the last five years, the leverage was constantly around one time, the EBITDA. This year, EUR 0.99, so very low. Moving to the next slide, you see here the dividend per share.
As Francesco mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, the board is going to propose a dividend of CHF 0.69 per share, representing an increase of 25% compared to the previous year. I believe that this concludes my part, and let me hand over to Francesco for the 2025 outlook and some final remarks.
Thank you, Corrado. Looking forward to 2025, we are targeting revenue growth in the range of 13% to 15% in constant currency and an adjusted EBITDA margin of around 27%. This includes the recent Parcus acquisition, and of course, it is subject to any unforeseen events. In terms of midterm outlook, we reiterated the midterm outlook we provided during our recent capital market day with a compound annual growth rate in constant currency expected to be in the low double-digit region and an adjusted EBITDA margin targeted to be around the 2024 reported EBITDA margin before any currency effect. In terms of key messages for 2024, very, very strong revenue growth, 16.2% year over year. This is linked to the very strong innovation impacting both patient outcome and healthcare system sustainability. This innovation is supported by medical education and personalized training of surgeons.
Of course, it does require an expansion of our sales reps and team in order to support this growth. The expansion of the adjusted EBITDA margin this year has been exceptionally strong, EUR 170 basis points to 28% cost and currency year- over- year. A record net profit of almost EUR 73 million, with an increase of, sorry, with a 12.3% of revenue. As we said, a proposed dividend of CHF 0.69 per share, which represents an increase of 25% year- over- year. This concludes our presentation, and we can open the forum for Q&A. Thank you very much.
Thank you. This is the Corrusco Conference Operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your Touchstone Telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Dylan van Haaften Stifel. Please go ahead.
Thanks, guys. Good afternoon. Maybe the first question, if we look at the embedded assumption for ortho growth, if we take Parcus out of the guide, that would sort of imply maybe if you're growing three times the market, that you're expecting maybe around 4% base ortho growth. Is that sort of the right way to look at it? Does that also embed that some of the backlog that you guys have already talked about is fully out? It was already out in the second half, and for that reason, we're seeing base ortho growth kind of step down. After that, I've got a follow up.
Yeah, I would say if you look at Parcus number, probably alone, it is around 2%-2.5% of 2025 guidance. Back to your market-related question, which speed is the market going to grow in 2025? I think we have a little bit less visibility as everybody else. 2024 was still, in my opinion, a little bit stronger than expected, with maybe the market, depending on the segment, around 5%-5.5%. Yes, I do expect the market to slow down a little bit. Of course, we will benefit if the market stays stronger. Yes, maybe without Parcus, you remove 2% from our guidance, and you have the, let's call it, core or pre-Parcus acquisition growth rate.
Understood. Thank you. Maybe just on the instrument CapEx. I think the instrument CapEx component grew in the 20s. Normally, I'd probably ask if we look at the core growth guide versus the current CapEx that is kind of going into the market, that would indicate that you're also seeing a lot of opportunity at the same time. Could you maybe just give us some color about how you're thinking about the opportunity last year? There was also an opportunity to be a bit more aggressive in the market, and I think your current CapEx growth also points that you might be seeing this in fiscal year 2025 as well.
Yes. As you pointed out, the instrumentation is a very good proxy of what we think we're going to do, especially in H1 2025, because all the instruments we produce in the second half of 2024 are going to be supporting our revenues in early 2025. Typically, we do have for every dollar of growth, a dollar in instruments or in CapEx, sorry. This is more or less what you have seen in 2024 as well. It is pretty much in line in terms of CapEx versus growth 2024 with the previous history.
Understood. Just the final question for you, Corrado, just because I didn't fully understand just on the financial income side, is there also a hedging impact? Are you guys now also hedging, and that's kind of some of the offset, or did I misunderstand?
If I understand correctly, the question is about the financial results, right?
Correct.
Okay. In this case, financial results are benefiting from a positive evolution of the U.S. dollar versus Swiss franc. As you may recall, we had a big amount of intercompany debt due to the specific situation of Medacta USA. They had to buy inventory and assets. This generates intercompany debt in U.S. dollar. Depending on the value of the U.S. dollar at the 31st of December, you can have a positive or limited negative effect on that financial result. This year, what we implemented was a reduction through several measures of this exposure. Thanks to this, we have this year had two different types of benefits. First of all, limited fluctuations of the results due to the limited exposure and fluctuations. Second, thanks to the evolution of the U.S. dollar versus Swiss franc, a positive effect, which was the opposite last year.
Last year, we had a bigger negative effect. This year, we have a smaller positive effect. This justifies the very, very low financial result of roughly $4 million compared to $15 million last year.
Excellent. Thanks so much, guys.
The next question is from Sandra Dietschy Octavian. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question. I have one on the SpheriKA. Is this already approved, or when can we expect regulatory clearance in Japan and Australia? Anything specific in these regions to consider, or is it fair to assume that it could become also a key growth driver in these regions? I have another one on the investment, specifically in education. I assume you held last year kind of more events than usual due to the 25th anniversary. Should we expect kind of a similar level of education events also this year, or how do you plan for that? Thank you.
Thank you, Sandra. Yes, so SpheriKA has been approved in Japan as well. It is not yet approved in Australia. We are working on it. There are different requirements and different time points. We need to collect data for different countries. Japan, yes, and Australia, not yet. Both countries are already adopting kinematic alignment with Sphere. We are already growing, if you want, as we did before SpheriKA in Europe, in Australia, and in Japan. Now with SpheriKA in Japan, we will further expect to accelerate. In terms of marketing and investment in medical education, the 25th anniversary was a very good branding initiative to push the message of the company celebration. We do not need the 25th anniversary to organize medical education events.
In fact, we are basically maintaining the same level because our educational events are organized in order to support the demand for medical education that the countries are collecting. In terms of Medacta Direct medical education, we do not expect to reduce it at all.
Yeah, makes sense. Thank you for clarifying.
Thank you.
The next question is from Aisyah Noor, Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thanks for taking my question. My first one is on pricing. What was your estimated pricing growth for 2024, and what is embedded in the guidance for 2025? My second question is just a housekeeping one on Parcus. Do you expect any one-off costs associated with the integration? My third one is a similar question to the first, which was around the market growth outlook for 2025. Clearly, the U.S. market was very strong in volumes for everyone, you and your peers. Does your guidance embed a more normal volume growth outlook for 2025, or is there some comp effect from 2024, so a little bit slower for the market in 2025? Thank you.
Yeah, I will take on the pricing question. We do have in our plan the price erosion, so not the price growth. This is pretty much in line with the historical price erosion, which has been a little bit slower than in the, let's say, pre-COVID years. It did stop. It did increase even a little bit in certain areas or reduced at group level. We have approximately a 1% price erosion built in our models, if you want. In terms of market growth, I would say that we do expect a little bit slower market growth than in 2024. Our guidance incorporates this slower or, let's say, more normal growth of the market because I think 4%-5%, or actually almost 6%, was expected in 2024 is definitely significantly more than the historical growth rate of orthopedics pre-COVID, for sure.
On the Parcus side, maybe I can leave it to Corrado. There are some one-time integration cost margin, but Corrado, if you want to give more color.
Yeah, sure. Basically, what we have in our P&L, of course, is the effect of the acquisition of a company. This is expected to slightly dilute the marginality. There will be, for sure, some integration costs in our P&L. They have been already planned. In 2025, what we expect to see is also an initial positive effect on the numbers coming from some synergies that we are planning to implement and to see in order to fully integrate this company in our business. We believe that the integration costs won't be very, very significant. There will be, for sure, but we are not talking about something that could change the, let's say, the face of our P&L significantly.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from Sam England Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Firstly, can you give us a bit more of an update on the GMK SpheriKA launch and the traction you've seen so far? In particular, has the momentum you saw in the second half of 2024 continued in Q1? How is the conversion of the pipeline of new surgeons progressing in the U.S. and the EU, where you've been in the market a bit longer? Secondly, on ASCs, can you give us a bit of an update on the market and the share of procedural volumes for ASCs in the U.S. market and for yourselves? Can you give us an update on your progress on single-use instrumentation sets? Are you seeing that supporting the traction that you're getting in the ASC market in the U.S.?
Yeah, so the GMK SpheriKA is rolling out extremely well. We have a very strong demand, and we expect the GMK SpheriKA to be our number one brand already by the end of next year. There is a lot of growth, some cannibalization of the Sphere knee, which remains in many markets for regulatory reasons or simply for preference of surgeons. The GMK SpheriKA is definitely taking over, becoming our number one knees expected, as I said, by the end of 2025. In the U.S., the ASC portion remains for us stable. It did not change from when we discussed it in January. It is almost, I would say, the double of the market. We have a bigger share within ASCs than outside of ASCs. The reason is twofold.
One is because our products are perfect for the ASC environments, minimal invasive procedure, single-use instruments, very effective techniques and technologies, not only in hip and knees, but as well in spine and in shoulder. This addresses, if you want, a little bit your last question about the efficiency instrumentation. That's our single-use brand. GMK Efficiency is definitely an area where we are further focusing, further pushing because it's very appreciated in the market, is differentiated in terms of service. There are a lot of advantages for the nurses, for the ASC, but as well for certain hospitals, which have an outsourced sterilization and related costs. There are a lot of benefits for different stakeholders.
Of course, there are benefits as well for us because it does reduce in a potentially significant way our need to invest in instruments and therefore our CapEx and potentially further improving our cash flow. Yes, we are definitely focusing and pushing even more on this solution.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from Graham Doyle at UBS. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just two for me. Firstly, on the margin and H2, there was some pretty good leverage on the sales and marketing line. So growth of like 8% or something in the second half. Is that sustainable, and have you just invested and therefore there's a bit less to go, or is that just a little bit of a pause? Secondly, on the hip side of things, we've seen some new entrants into the anterior market. Are you noticing anything there in terms of increased competition, or is it just a little bit too late from less innovative players? Would be good to get your take. Thank you.
Yeah, maybe a take on the anterior approach. The anterior approach has always been covered by all our competitors in terms of having an instrument, having an implant that can be implanted with an anterior approach. What they have often missed is the package, the leg positioner, and especially the focus and expertise of the sales force and the medical education elements. We do not see any new player in a significant way. The PU has always been there, the PU Centers, Smith & Nephew, Zimmer Biomet, Stryker. Actually, they were there before us. Yes, they are all present. They have always been present. We can continue to outperform the market, as you have seen, with our 8+% growth rate, which is probably two times the market growth on the hip side. On the margins, yes. Last year, at the end of H1, our top line was around 14%.
We did not have always excellent months. We were a little bit careful about some of the expansion of OpEx, in particular sales and marketing, but in particular non-sales-related OpEx. We then had a very positive increase of revenues, especially coming from the knee. Very often as well, or partially, coming from hip customers shifting to knees as well, or adopting knees as well, with a much lower, let's call it, customer acquisition cost and sales force expansion cost. That's where some of the incremental leverage did come through. Is this sustainable? Our guidance calls for basically a flat EBITDA margin, around 27%, which is basically in line with reported EBITDA of 2025. This includes as well Parcus Medical acquisition, which definitely has some dilution. Probably without, it would have been slightly better, potentially.
We're very happy about the possibility to accelerate our extremities and sports medicine because we see a lot of mid-term growth potential there. Therefore, we are very happy with the investment done and a little bit of the cost associated because the EBITDA remains very healthy.
Okay. That's really helpful. Maybe just one quick one on cash because it's one of the areas we get a little bit of pushback from being constructive on is this kind of overtime growth and share of single-use instrumentation for you guys. You just sort of flagged it earlier as being, I suppose, cash accretive or beneficial. Could you maybe explain how it's basically cash accretive and beneficial to the business as you go forward rather than reusable instruments? It'd just be good to better understand that, maybe.
Yeah. It's relatively simple. For every single new instrument, you have to invest roughly EUR 40,000. Instead, if somebody's using single-use instruments, you are selling those instruments basically at the cost, which is equivalent to the depreciation cost per case of an instrumentation. Under a pure P&L point of view, you would see a slightly higher cost of goods and definitely a smaller depreciation portion. You have a very big impact on the cash flow because you save the instrument-related cash contribution of EUR 40,000 per instrument. This is the general rule. We think that the cash flow will potentially improve if single-use instruments will increase. In the midterm, you will see probably a significant improvement of cash flow once our other tangible investment will decrease a bit as well because those are steps.
The manufacturing, when you build a building, which is what we are doing right now for 2024, 2025, you will still see a bit. You start to fill it up with machines. Yes, you have some portion of other tangibles, which will continue, but significantly less for two, three years, depending on the company growth rate that we're going to see. Those two elements, CapEx, other tangibles, and single-use instruments on the instrument side, both of them should contribute to a significant increase of free cash flow, while the operating cash flow, I think you have seen, has been quite phenomenal this year with a very good increase.
That's super helpful. No, the inventory was pretty impressive. Thanks, Lucas.
Yes. Thank you.
The next question is from Maria Vara, Bryan, Garnier. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. The first question will be on Parcus acquisition. I was just wondering if you could elaborate a bit more on what drove this acquisition, any key products bringing into the pipeline, and how this combines with existing offering. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you for the question. Parcus is a pure sports medicine player. They have a product portfolio of soft tissue anchors, which compete in the field with Smith & Nephew, with Arthrex, with Stryker. They were particularly strong on the shoulder-related sports medicine soft tissue anchors. Medacta was developing those product lines while we started our sports medicine venture, mainly focusing on the knee side. This accelerates significantly our ability to have a full product portfolio and therefore the ability to invest in dedicated sales force and accelerate our commercial penetration in many markets, especially in Europe, because we could skip the long and frustrating often phase of the medical device regulation regulatory step.
Having a lot of CE products, CE marked products readily available, very good design, very competitive in Europe, in the U.S., in Australia, where we have direct operations, was a very good opportunity. It is mainly product range acquisition and expansion with an existing sales force in the U.S. of agents on which we could, of course, distribute our existing sports medicine line as well. A lot of synergies there as well. Outside of the U.S., Parcus was present only through stocking distributors, while Medacta is present in a lot of countries with direct operations. We could take control where appropriate of our destiny, if you want, and accelerate their Parcus product presence in Europe, in Australia, and in Japan. Last but not least, Parcus has a manufacturing plant in Florida. The Medacta sports medicine line, given its size, was completely outsourced.
We have the opportunity to have a vertical integration in this line, which was not yet needed given our size. It does provide, of course, the possibility to expand margins rapidly and control once again the full supply chain from manufacturing to sales within the sports medicine line. It is a good acceleration, was a fantastic opportunity, very small infrastructure to be integrated, so relatively simple, basically an ERP and very little else in terms of people. We see a lot of opportunities to really accelerate in the $7 billion sports medicine market.
Thank you. That's very helpful. A last question on your current collaboration with THINK Surgical. I was wondering if you could provide any color, any kind of traction you're already seeing from this side as you got approval in August last year, and whether you are also considering other strategic opportunities in the space of enabling technologies for the rest of your pipeline to combine together with your NextAR. Thank you.
Yeah. I think THINK Surgical is a very good partnership. It's basically an opportunity to offer a robotic platform for those customers that are interested in using Medacta products. We did start to have cases done in different locations in the U.S. At the moment, the agreement is only for the U.S. simply because THINK Surgical is not present outside of the U.S. Every single customer that we can gain thanks to this collaboration is a customer that we would not have had without. There's only positive elements associated with this collaboration and definitely welcome the opportunity. It is an open platform, so it is often interesting for hospitals to lean over this solution instead of being linked to a specific vendor that then is forcing you to use one implant over the other.
Especially if you have multiple surgeons in the same location, open platforms can be a good solution. We see that happening in the U.S. We do, of course, remain very interested in the enabling technology segment. There are a lot of ongoing projects to further enforce our NextAR offering, and some come in the form of new software, new application, and potentially new hardware in the near future. There is probably not enough meat on the bone for me to share at the moment, and I will come back to you when it's appropriate.
Thank you. That's all from my side.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from Daniel Jelovcan, ZKB. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon from my side as well. Two questions, please. The first one, I remember last year we had some tailwinds from supply chain issues of your peers, which were mostly focused on, I think, the US and Japan, and the European market was a bit neglected, and you had enough capacity. Is probably that tailwind a bit over, so to say? That's why you are a bit more conservative for this year as well. Is that also an element? Maybe I just ask the first one.
Yeah. I would say the market growth in general, we see it slowing down to a more normalized level. The tailwind we had last year was definitely not expected. I think they had almost two years of supply chain disruption, and they managed to control their supply chain better now. Still, our guidance with 13%-15% remains a very aggressive guidance, as we said, three times the market at least. We want to make sure we meet our guidance. That is basically the rationale for the outlook.
Okay. Thanks. The second one, I mean, last year, you reorganized the U.S. spine sales force, which already had a much better second half, I think, versus first half. I guess it's not done overnight, but if you can give us an update about the U.S. sales force for spine.
Yeah. I would not use the word reorganization because it's probably too much of too big of a word. What we have been doing is basically to start to put in parallel to the current strategy of growing spine through distributors as well to grow directly with our direct sales force in spine in the U.S., which is exactly what we've been doing 10 years ago on the joint side. We remain very opportunistic in the way we add sales force to our businesses in the U.S., both on the joint side and in the spine. The spine was, before this implementation of strategy, 100% done through independent agents or distributors. Now we have started to do exactly what we did on the joint side, which can leverage our differentiating products better.
We can invest in certain territories directly, so we have more control over growth rate and as well cost of sales. We can especially tell the story the way we want, focusing on medical education and specialty products. That's why I wouldn't use the word reorganization, but simply adapt our sales force expansion to a trajectory that has been very successful on the joint in the past.
Okay. Great. Yeah. Thanks so much.
Thank you, Daniel.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. Gentlemen, Mr. Siccardi, there are no more questions registered at this time. I turn the conference back to you for any closing remarks.
Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you all for your interest and your question. I would like as well to thank all our employees, all our clients, suppliers, and partners worldwide for the great support they provided in 2024, and look forward to continue our journey in 2025 and beyond. Thanks again, and hope to see you soon in person. Bye.
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