Okay, thanks everyone for joining us this morning. I'm Vijay Kumar, the Life Science Device Analyst at Evercore. A pleasure to have with us, Baxter, this morning. We have CFO, Joel Grade, and Clare Trachtman from Investor Relations. Joel, Clare, thanks for the time this morning.
Thanks for having us. It's great to be here, and thanks for everyone who's interested in our company.
Fantastic. So, Joel, obviously a lot of changes at Baxter. You know, with the renal sale, there's a lot of moving parts. It's been the last 12 months have not been easy. But when you review third quarter, what went right, what went wrong? I feel like some parts came in better. There were some moving parts. Maybe if you could just review third quarter.
Yeah. Yeah, thanks. So, sure, a lot of moving parts. I think the one thing I would say to that, though, maybe, and then I'll get to the quarter in a second, is that I think what you're seeing here now is almost the culmination, sort of getting to the end of the road of some of the really key strategic priorities that we announced back in January of 2023. That really talked about the fact that we were really reshaping and transforming the company in the sense that we talked about selling our BPS contract manufacturing. We talked about verticalizing the business. We talked about the separation of our kidney business. And so I, well, yes, a lot of moving parts.
There are also just some really key strategic actions that I think took us down to a place where we could really think about sort of, hey, how are we moving forward now as, if you want to call it, a new Baxter. And so, again, I know that wasn't your question, but I just wanted to comment on a little bit of that as it sort of, I think, really relates to some of the conversation we'll have today. So back to the quarter, your question specifically, I think what went well, I would say on our MPT business, I'd say you'll continue to perform, I'd say slightly above our expectations. I think the Novum pump has just continued to, again, there's really good demand for that. We have expected, have had, and continue to expect strong growth out of that product.
So I think that's been a really successful launch for us. From a pricing standpoint, there's obviously been, as you've heard from us throughout this year, been really positive pricing impact, primarily outside the U.S. this year related to MPT. And then, again, we've had solid kind of mid-single digit growth in our nutrition business to kind of wrap up ITT and then as well our Advanced Surgery businesses. We've had really solid demand globally for our products in that area. So I think all that to say, continued strong performance in that area. I think from a pharma perspective, I think the, I'd call it, we had a little blip. I'd call it more than anything else in that we've had strong growth in that and we continue to expect that throughout the year.
But in the third quarter, we did have some phasing impact of the timing of some of the injectables launches that we had. And again, I expect that to, we've already seen some recovery of that in the fourth quarter. And so again, I see that as a bit more of a blip, but that was an impact in the third quarter that was below our expectations. And then from an HST perspective, a couple of puts and takes there. And certainly that's the one part of the business that continued to have some challenges and again, was below our expectations. I will start with one positive in that, though, is that our U.S. PSS business, which you recall was a challenge we had in the first quarter.
This business, actually, throughout the year, we've made some operational impacts in a positive way that have continued to drive execution in that business. And also, our order book has been continued strong. So our U.S. PSS business was good. We did have some challenges outside the U.S. and in Western Europe and in China. And so that's, and then obviously in Frontline Care, our Frontline Care business, I'd say, continues to be challenged by some of the primary care markets impacts in that, and did come in below expectations. So that's a little bit of the puts and takes, I'd say, from a quarter basis. And the only other thing I would say, our HST margins were actually good. And I think that was something that came in on a positive for the quarter as well.
Fantastic. Off the last point on margins, I know the year-on-year comparison, it's tricky given with and without renal and stranded costs, but relative to your internal expectations, Did third quarter operating margins come in line or better? How would you characterize that?
Yeah, I would say it was a little off expectations, but primarily driven by mix. I think when you look at the business itself, again, just talking about the fact that HST was softer than expected is actually a mixed impact for us overall. We talked about, in the pharma business, our compounding grew at a much faster rate than our injectables did. And so that certainly had an overall margin impact, both obviously in the segment, but of course overall. And then obviously the continued softness in Frontline Care, those are really the, I'd say the primary impacts and as well as some, I'd say some additional investments we've made for growth that factored into the margin profile of the quarter. But overall, that was really the primary driver.
Great and obviously with the elections, some questions around macro, a lot of changes here. When you look at CMS, HHS, et cetera, some of these heads changing, does it have any relevance to Baxter and sort of relate to elections on tariffs? How do you foresee the impact from tariffs?
Yeah, I think that's a bit of a TBD yet in a lot of ways. And maybe I'll just give you a couple of reminders of our business. And from a China perspective, which has certainly been one of the obviously high-profile commentaries, we have less than post-separation. We'll have less than 2% of our business that's in China from a revenue perspective. And so obviously, I think that's just a little bit of a frame up from a context perspective in terms of our exposure there. We also, the way we think about our manufacturing businesses, we have had. We try to do as much as possible to manufacture where we sell in the sense that even, for example, we have a manufacturing plant in China that is primarily China for China from a solutions perspective.
And I think, and that doesn't solve all our issues, obviously, but I think that's just a general philosophy that does help mitigate some of that. I think as far as Mexico, Canada, there's to be a little bit TBD on that. And so I think, I guess I'll call it a bit of an early shot on that one.
Do you have manufacturing sites in Mexico?
We do.
Have you quantified what you manufacture out there?
So our largest manufacturing facility in China is actually going to be with Vantive. So we do. That's our largest. We do have some other ones and I'd probably say they're more HST related.
But yeah, Cuernavaca is the one that's the main one and that obviously.
That goes with Vantive.
Vantive business.
Gotcha. And what products do you manufacture there? Have you disclosed that? And sorry, down in Mexico?
I'd say Frontline Care products are the ones we do down in Mexico, primarily some surgical solutions and then Frontline Care. It's primarily just HST.
Great, and then moving next to, I think Q4 had some moving parts because of the hurricane. You guys did a great job quantifying what the impact was. I think you gave some details on where you are in the progress and where you expect to be end of this year. Maybe some comments on where we are right now from a capacity standpoint, are we running in line, maybe slightly better than planned?
From a capacity standpoint?
Yes.
I mean, it varies somewhat across the business. I mean, I think in general, we're in a solid place from a capacity standpoint. I think we, again, there's different puts and takes in different areas of our business, but in general, capacity is okay.
Yeah, so what I would say is we are continuing to make significant progress and we are probably slightly ahead of where we thought we would be. We continue to update, obviously use our website to update our customers as well on where we're at. And so we're making steady progress and on track to be at 100% allocation on select product lines by the end of the year. So I'd say everything, we obviously have some lines already up and running and commercial product being given to customers now. So that's actually started.
I apologize. I misunderstood your question as a general capacity with North Cove. Yep, thank you.
Understood. Now, thanks for clarifying that. I guess related to that, Joel, when you quantify the headwinds for Q4, right, 150 to 160, the guidance I think is low singles on a reported basis. With ex the headwinds, I think it's up low singles. Your prior expectations was 4%-5% exit rate, right? So maybe just walk us through on what changed.
Yeah, so we had talked about that being an exit rate that is primarily impacted though by some of the softness that we've seen in HST and in particular in Frontline Care. So I think where you saw that as the 4%-5% , that's primarily been the impact there. And I think that's, obviously we're continuing to be positive about our view from 2025, just to reiterate that point, but that's the primary impact in 2024.
Understood. And that sort of segues nicely into the 2025. I think you're one of the few companies who've given a fiscal 2025 view. So thank you for that. That's helpful. But when you think about the low singles exit to a 4%-5% for fiscal 2025, what do you expect to get better? Maybe help us bridge the mid-singles organic for next year.
Yeah, I would say a few things there. Number one, we have continued strong expectations of our growth in MPT despite some of the softness that obviously is resulting from the North Cove. Now, to be clear, we do expect some of that from an MPT standpoint to continue into Q1. But overall, again, back to the pump sales, the pump sales remain really strong and we expect that to continue into the year. We also, from a solutions perspective in MPT, expect that business to continue to recover. And I'd say by the fourth quarter, I actually have a favorable comparison on a year-over-year basis. So I think number one, we've talked about the fact that our MPT business had a strong year. The underlying demand is good and we expect that to continue.
From a pharma perspective, one of the things we continue to expect to do is to actually continue new product launches that we've historically had a handful of those a year. This year we've had seven of them already and we're expecting 10 or so next year. I think that is something that will continue to contribute to the growth expectation. Pharma's had about a 7% growth this year. So again, we expect strong continued growth there. Then I think from an HST perspective, the big thing there is, again, some level of recovery from what were some really tough comparisons and some challenges that we experienced in 2024 that I'd say we're not expected to experience in that same way as we had in 2025.
I think in 2024, we had some tough comparisons in 2023 due to some of the backlog that was absorbed in the prior year. We had very government orders were off, new construction starts were off. There was, I think, a lot of, I would say some forward spending when there was government money that was coming in that really ended in the middle part of the year that, again, we were up against that comparison as well. And so I think as much as anything, some of the headwinds we had this year, we don't expect some of those same headwinds to impact us in the same way as we had in the next year. So that improvement itself, I think, is also part of what you see as the driver of the improved results.
Gotcha. And sorry, just to clarify, the IV fluid impact in Q4, do you expect some impact in Q1 or should Q1 be normalized?
We do. I think that, again, as we've talked about, we expect to have all of our lines producing, but that doesn't mean they're all back to 100% production, and so I think there's still going to be some level of anticipated MPT softness in Q1, and so, but again, we do anticipate that to recover, though, and I think that'll lead at some point to some bit of restocking that happens during the course of the year, and as I mentioned earlier, by the end of the fourth quarter, we do expect a favorable comparison with the prior year.
Joel, have you guys quantified on what the impact in early next year could be because of the IV fluid sort of capacity coming back? Is that half the impact what we saw in Q4 or should that be less than half or any qualitative comments?
I don't know that we've said that.
No, we haven't said specific to Q1 what the impact would be. I mean, it's obviously going to be less than what it is in Q4, significantly less. We'll be, like I mentioned earlier, back to the 100% allocation. But the key thing is to achieve that 100% just in context is that we are leveraging our other facilities around the world. So that's kind of where you get to it. There will be some impact in the first quarter. It will be significantly less than what was in the fourth quarter, but we just have not quantified it yet.
Understood. And because of these impacts here, has Baxter lost any accounts?
Yeah, I think our view on that is not permanent. I think that there has certainly been some obvious impact in terms of needing to fill in orders and that we do expect will continue for a part of the year. But I would say in general, we don't expect that to be a long-term impact. And I'd say even one of the things I'm actually really proud of as a company in terms of the way we've responded to this and the speed at which we've gotten back up to speed, really focused on patients and on our customers, there's been a lot of favorable reaction from our customer base around that impact. And so for those reasons and others, certainly we're not anticipating a longer-term impact there.
Fantastic. And maybe last one on this topic, the 4%-5%, does it assume any restocking from these customers?
It does. Again, I would say just, again, as I think about how that year just conceptually would play out again with some first quarter softness, some level of restocking that would happen and then again, getting back to a more normalized rate by the fourth quarter. Maybe just one other aside to say on a bit of a different but related topic. From a cash perspective, I guess the other thing I would actually just say to you, I know we're going to probably talk about cash later, but since on this topic, I do think we're going to actually have some level of cash impact continue in the first quarter as it relates to this really for two reasons primarily. One is I'm going to call payables related to expenses that were incurred in Q4 that will end up actually being paid in Q1.
And then secondly, just a bit of a, I'll call it a rebuild on our inventory levels that will likely have some cash impact in Q1.
Gotcha. It more sounds like a temporal timing element. It shouldn't change a free cash conversion much longer term.
Correct. I agree with that. It's just that there is going to be potentially an impact in the first quarter.
Great. And then one of the positives for you guys is, like you said, infusion therapy, it's done really well. Third quarter was outstanding at 7%. When you look at those numbers, right, what came in better? Was all of this known? I know like Sigma Spectrum has also done really well. Maybe characterize what drove that 7% MPT growth?
Yeah, I mean, pump sales in general have been really robust. I think we find ourselves in a replacement cycle as well that I think is, we always say it's certainly we'd love to have gotten our pump out earlier, but the fact that it timed it really in the middle of what was a replacement cycle has actually been beneficial, and so I think we've had strong demand certainly from Novum, both on the LVP pump as well as our syringe pump. We've had continued strong demand for Spectrum, and I think so in general, the market, we're certainly anticipating continued positive momentum in that over the next number of next few quarters for sure, and I think that's certainly something we're excited about.
I think just from a share perspective, I guess the other thing I would call out, we've had both wins in existing customers from a replacement perspective. We've also had wins in new customers, and I think from a Spectrum perspective, I think we talked about the fact that we're talking about a percentage share per year on Spectrum, and I think we see that as probably two points of share a year on Novum. And so I think that's been a, and particularly on the LVP, syringe pump probably higher than that, although obviously that's a new product and so that's on a very small base, but long and short of it is, again, good strong demand in the pump market in general, and we've had really nice wins both on the existing and competitive side.
Great. And off of those comments, interesting you mentioned visibility to the next few quarters. Do you have orders that gives you that visibility?
Yeah, from a pump perspective, yeah. I mean, we have a funnel out there to Joel's point of both new and existing customers that we are targeting. And so we have a very healthy funnel that we will be going out and executing against this quarter and into 2025 as well. And the one comment I would also add to Joel's comments about just overall MPT growth is we've been seeing really nice growth outside the U.S. based on volume and demand that we're seeing for our solutions outside the U.S. that has contributed along with some momentum within our nutrition, our clinical nutrition business as well.
Gotcha. And sorry, just on that share again comment here, was it you were gaining 100 basis points with Sigma and now that's accelerated 200 basis points with Novum?
Exactly. Yeah.
Fantastic. And the other related, when you do place these pumps, there is a certain attach rate for associated consumables. How should we think about the consumable contribution?
Yeah, from a consumables, what we've said is for each pump, it's going to vary obviously by the hospital setting, but we would expect probably somewhere between $500-$750 in annual set sales for each channel with a pump.
That's fantastic. And then when you look at the comps here, MPT comps have felt low singles. Why is mid-singles the right growth rate for the segment, right? Obviously, you have order momentum, you're gaining shares. Shouldn't this be doing much better than mid-singles?
I would say a couple of things on that. Obviously, our third quarter was elevated from that perspective. Look, I do think, again, back to a little bit of my commentary on the softness in Q1 that we're anticipating, but from an underlying perspective, we certainly are anticipating strong results out of that. I think, and again, I do think as we head into the latter parts of the year and we really do hit that comparison that I think will be favorable in Q4. Certainly I think between, as Clare just talked about, all aspects of that business are performing well. There's again, still a little bit of uncertainty, I'll call it around the North Cove.
Gotcha. And there was some news recently of one of your competitors making investments in IV fluid capacity. I'm just curious from a competitor standpoint, do you see any changes at all?
So I mean, one of the other manufacturers did announce that they were entering into a joint venture. I don't know if that's what you're referencing. What I would say about that is it does, I think, highlight just this is a highly regulatory environment. It's very costly to manufacture IV solutions with quality and regulatory requirements. So I think that one shows, and I think that even what's happened with North Cove, I think has really sensitized customers to, well, there's been a view that this is a commodity. This is actually a drug. This is something that goes into a patient's bloodstream. So I think that there's more, it's created more of an awareness just about the criticality of these solutions. But I do think that this was something from a peer perspective, that's something that they've decided to do.
We know with North Cove, we have a great manufacturing facility. We've invested in the facility from a quality standpoint, but also automation so that we can be able to reliably produce IV solutions at a fast manner to address the needs that are out there, and I think, and do it in a cost-effective manner. We've gotten the question, would you diversify your supply? I mean, I think the reality is this highlights it's not really profitable to do that. The economics don't warrant that, so I think that we will continue to focus on that. We've prioritized our customers and we're going to continue to drive that going forward, so I don't really want to get into the dynamics except to say I think it highlights that this is, to be able to produce IV solutions in a reliable manner does take investment.
And.
Yeah.
Sorry, go ahead.
Sorry, I'll just add one thing to that if I could, and I think the other thing though it's demonstrated is our actual global redundancy in this organization in the sense that we actually have nine plants around the world that manufacture these products. Part of the focus we've had, again, on patients and on our customers has been the production of these products in China and in Spain, and we've air freighted these products over, and so again, when we sort of say we haven't necessarily, we haven't spared cost in the world to ensure that we're taking care of our patients and our customers, but that's the other part of it that I'm again really proud of as a company and I think it does demonstrate some of our global redundancy that exists.
Gotcha. And Clare, on your comments about this is not a commodity, it's an interesting commentary. Certainly you're injecting these things into the bloodstream. Why shouldn't pricing be better? I think that comes up a lot. And I know you've been through negotiations. Maybe talk about pricing.
Yeah, I mean, well, number one, I guess I want to reiterate. I think we are continuing to take pricing. And again, we have in our broad MPT business both OUS and, as we've talked about with our GPO renegotiations, as we head into 2025, there is again we expect a substantial pricing impact. We've said about 100 basis points as an enterprise in 2024. We expected that same impact in 2025. And so that's, I guess, a little bit back to the point. There is some recognition and some impact of that. But the other thing I would say though is I think obviously being in that business and the market share that we have in solutions is it's a foot in the door in a lot of different customer bases that allows us to then sell both the sets as we talked about.
But as we sort of sell as one Baxter, other parts are very broad portfolio. And so I think there is an element of that that I think is balanced between appropriately taking pricing, but also putting ourselves in a position where we have the ability to actually sell that broad portfolio products that we offer.
Got it. And maybe switching gears next to Advanced Surgery, that segment has done really well last few years. Done about corporate. Maybe talk about sustainability. I think you guys do really well in sealants, hemostats.
Yeah. So certainly it has been a really good business and continues to be. I think, again, our demand both for our hemostats and our sealant products globally has been really good. I think we continue to look for opportunities for new market expansion and other areas there and anticipate continued progress in that space. The other thing we've done as well is that we have, obviously we've primarily been in the, call it active space, but we've started into the passive space as well with some relatively recent product launches. And so we continue to see opportunities in that area both inside, outside the U.S. And so certainly encouraged, continually encouraged by that.
Would you say you're gaining share in that part of the market, Joel?
We have. And I think is certainly in a market that we're continuing to outpace the growth of the market in that business.
Gotcha. And then switching next to HST, I think Frontline Care is one where it's hard for us to get any comps. I know you've spoken about challenging physician spending environment. Maybe just talk about what's happening in that space. Have you seen any change in sentiment or when could things change?
Yeah, I guess maybe where I would start with on a macro level is that the primary care space itself certainly continues to be robust, if you call it that. The volumes are strong. People are continuing, populations aging, people continue to need primary care. So I think just on a 30,000 foot macro, maybe that starting with that commentary. I think what we're, again, as I mentioned earlier, we're coming off of a cycle where there's a lot of government funding for spending. Again, we've had slowness in government orders. And so I think we find ourselves in a place where we're, I wouldn't say yet we're saying, hey, there's a recovery and a growth, but really and truly some of the impacts that we had in the past year, we don't anticipate repeating in that same manner this year.
I think we continue to, one of the areas that we're continuing to focus on is new product launches in this area so that it's not a, hey, we're just subject to market conditions. There's things that we're continuing to do that are actually expanding our product offering, but it's a relatively slow recovery. We certainly do anticipate though as interest rates continue to go the right direction, that some of these new construction starts will continue to increase. The one thing that'll also be interesting is some of the big box retailers that had originally had plans to enter into that space, because there is some bit of a primary care physician shortage that exists, and so it'll be interesting to see how that continues to recover, but all in all, obviously over the longer term, we certainly anticipate this returning to a more normalized level.
Is there anything you'd add to that?
Gotcha, and so Frontline Care for fiscal 2025, should that be below the corporate given your gradual recovery comments?
I would say the answer is yes to that.
Yes.
Gotcha. Then the other part of HST is critical care. I think that's one of the bright spots. You called it order trends. Maybe talk about the order strength. What's driven that order strength? I think you said 18% growth. In what parts of the business are you seeing these order strength?
I would start with our U.S. PSS business. This is an area where in the beginning of the year, we had some challenges with orders coming through, you recall, in the first quarter. We talked about some things that we're continuing to work on operationally. I'd say a couple of things have happened since then. Number one, focusing on aligning compensation in different ways with a focus on growth and new customer wins. The utilization of our sales tools that as part of Baxter, we've continued to get better and better at that really gives us better visibility and focus on the size of the order book. I think, and just in general, good solid demand for our products. We find ourselves in a place today where the order book in our U.S. PSS business has been really strong.
Our revenue that's been translating into revenues. Keep in mind, there's a bit of a, one of the questions I asked when I first got to this company is, hey, okay, we have good orders. How does that translate into actual revenues? And the answer to that is it's extremely high, if you want to call it batting average, meaning if there's an order, it translates almost with certainty into an actual shipment. The timing's a bit variable. And so one of the things you've heard us talk about from time to time, particularly in our capital businesses in general, has been a bit of a, at times, a lag from installations perspective. But we continue to see a strong order book in that business. We anticipate continued momentum there. And I think that definitely has been a bright spot of us that feeling much more strongly about.
Any change in customer behavior post-elections? Are they taking a pause on capital side?
Yeah, I would say in general, I mean, the capital environment remains pretty strong. And again, as we certainly, capital orders, again, both as we talked about from the pump perspective, from the, obviously in the small capital, and then in this area, the sort of larger capital orders remains in a strong place. And so we're certainly anticipating that being a continued positive area of our HST business.
Gotcha. And when you roll all of these pieces together, right, orders are strong, but perhaps the timing, there's been some push out. How should we think about fiscal 2025? Should that be in line with the corporate for this segment in CCS or below or about corporate?
Yeah.
So I'd say in general, HST next year will be slightly below it. Okay? So we've kind of said like a low to mid single. Obviously, we'll finalize our guidance when we provide it in February next year when we give our 2025 full outlook. But given a lot of the things that we've talked about, in general, I'd say HST in total. We don't give specific guidance between the divisions there. So in general, though, low to mid single digit is kind of what we're preliminary looking for for HST.
Gotcha. And one of the questions we get is on share shift in the market. At Baxter, it's been very clear, look, we haven't lost share. Maybe share some thoughts on what drives that statement.
Yeah, we have our installed base continues to be strong. And so we, again, there's been puts and takes from time to time, but overall, again, we certainly do not believe we've been in a position where we've lost share. And in fact, again, we have had some really nice competitive wins in that area as well. And so I would say just generally speaking, again, that we like the place we're in there. Again, some of our new products in terms of with our Progressa+, we've had good success in some of that new product rollouts. And then again, that's been a positive impact. So we certainly don't see a share loss overall. And again, we look at that on an annual basis too, just to be clear.
I mean, there's fluctuations that happen from time to time on a month-to-month or quarter-to-quarter basis, but in general, we feel good about that. And then again, we feel good about some of the competitive wins we've had as well.
Gotcha. Then maybe switching to pharma, it's been really strong this year, but 3Q, you noted some timing element. What are the new products that when you look at fiscal 2025 that you're expecting to launch? Is there any timing, regulatory sort of risk from an approval standpoint? How should we think of pharma?
Yeah, again, we haven't necessarily gone out into specifics on the products themselves, but I guess what I'd start by saying is I'm very confident in our ability to actually roll out our products. We've got a very nice, the leadership in that segment of our business has been very proactive in terms of kind of a robust pipeline, both organically and some inorganically in terms of providing a pipeline of products to roll out, and I think our mechanism for doing so has been very consistent, and I actually don't see a lot of risk in that as we head into next year, and that'll be a continued focus of ours in terms of some of the, again, particularly in the injectable part of our business.
Gotcha. And I know pricing in that market has been challenged for a few years. But when you adjust for mix, right, as you launch new products, is that on a net-net basis for pharma? Is pricing stable or how would you characterize mix-adjusted pricing in pharma?
I mean, I'll start and clarify and chime in here. I think the thing that I would say there is that obviously the way pricing behaves in that space is doubly important in terms of why we continue to have a robust pipeline of rollouts. And so I think it's certainly the case that over time, the pricing element of that space is negatively impacted, but our ability to actually continue to roll new products out is really a key part of that. Anything you'd add to that?
So the only thing I would add is that we do expect continued erosion to Joel's point in this business. The magnitude though, from what we had seen previously, has lessened. So we aren't seeing the type of pricing declines that we saw kind of in the 2020, 2021 timeframe. So that has lessened, but we still continue to expect annual erosion for this business.
Gotcha. And then one last one on pharma, compounding is really strong. Fiscal 2024, what drove the strength or talk about sustainability of compounding?
Yeah, so number one, there's a really strong market demand for that product in general or for those compounding services, I'll call it. And so that is, obviously, it's primarily focused in a few countries. It's primarily in Australia, New Zealand, U.K., Ireland, and Canada is the primary markets for that. But I would tell you our anticipation next year is actually some level of slowing in that, but I'd call it almost purposefully in the sense that we've had, again, from a mixed perspective, we talked about it earlier, our compounding growth in some cases exceeded our injectables, which is actually a margin challenge for us.
While we certainly continue to drive margin expansion in the compounding business, and we expect it to continue to grow probably in line with the remainder of our pharma business, we do anticipate some slowing of growth in that area as we head into next year.
Gotcha. Then maybe switching to margins here. I mean, it was really helpful you laid out the 16.5% margins for next year. And obviously, with some of these changes here, FX comes to my mind. Obviously, Q1, you have some impact here from Hurricane Helene. Talk about your confidence in achieving 16.5%?
Yeah, so the way I would think about that is, as we kind of talked about and normalizing, if you will, our 2024 margins that basically took us, when you add back the impact of the stranded cost, you add back the impact on our remaining core continuing operations, and then you add back the 50 basis points of North Cove, that kind of gets you to a 16.5 by the end of 2024 margin. So we head into 2025, we've talked about the positive impacts of both from a volume growt h perspective, from a pricing perspective in MPT. We continue to have benefits from our ISC and margin improvement programs there as well. And so I think those are all translating into about 100 basis points of growth over that takes the 16.5 to call it 17.5 next year.
What we have called out then is a couple impacts going the other direction, meaning that from a TSA, the sort of the net impact of TSAs and stranded costs that are not yet absorbed. Obviously, we have a lot of cost containment programs at work, but we're not going to get all of it next year. So that's about a 40 basis point impact. And then there's about a 60 basis point impact of what I'm going to call the dilutive margin impact of our MSAs. There's a sizable amount of MSA revenue, I think around $350 million we've talked about, which is really a low double digit margin. That dilution from an operating income percentage perspective is about 60 basis points. And so all that kind of backs you to the 16.5%. And confidence level, again, I feel good about what we've talked about there.
I think the impacts that I started with, I do feel good about in terms of the, from a volume perspective, from a pricing perspective, from a continued margin enhancement perspective, MIPs.
The $350 million of MSAs, is that going to sustain or should that drop off over time?
Yeah, it will phase, although it's, again, the timing of that is somewhat variable in the sense that, again, there'll be some phasing out in 2026 and 2027, but there'll be others that actually go on for longer than that. But overall, you should expect that to continue to phase down as the years go by.
Gotcha. And since you brought up phasing, any phasing for fiscal 2025, first half versus second half that we need to be aware of? Either from margins, revenues, I think you've done a good job laying out the IV fluid, anything from margin standpoint, first half versus second half?
I mean, I think it plays into the same thing. As we ramp production, given Q4 this year having the impact of the hurricane and they're not in Q4, your second half is going to accelerate versus your first half.
Which actually is really typical.
And our sales, exactly.
Really typical in our business anyway.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
We get more leverage over the course of the year.
Yeah. Gotcha. And maybe in the last minute here, one on FX, it's been volatile. What's the latest on FX? I know it changes day by day, but what's the latest on FX?
Yeah, I'll start. I mean, again, I think it's something that we'll continue to watch as we go, similar to kind of your comment on tariffs. Those are two things. The one thing that I will say is as we exit and separate from Vantive, our geographic presence does change a little bit and we're less exposed to some of the more volatile currencies. And so we are able to, in the currencies that we're at, we do have local manufacturing still, and we're also able to execute hedging programs as well within those currencies.
In some cases, actually, in some of the really volatile markets like Turkey, our post-separation business, actually, we transact primarily in USD. So there's actually some element of that to Clare's point, our FX exposure actually lessens post-separation.
That's fantastic. With that, we're out of time. Joel Grade, thank you for the time this morning.
Thanks, Vijay.
Thanks. Appreciate you having us.