At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the program over to your host, Michael Ryskin.
Great. Thanks for joining us. My name is Mike Ryskin. I'm on the BofA Life Science Tools and Diagnostics team, also covering the animal health space. Joining us for our next and last session is Elanco. We're pleased to host Jeff Simmons, CEO, and Todd Young, CFO. Gentlemen, thanks for being with us.
Hey, great to be here, Michael. Thank you.
Thanks, Michael.
Formally same as prior sessions, fire side chat. Everyone's got the Veracast portal, where you can drop in questions, and we'll incorporate them if you want, or feel free to reach out to me directly. Just to kick things off, maybe, we'll start with, you know, the recent updates. Todd, Jeff, you guys reported your earnings results recently. Can you give us, you know, a quick recap of four Q, maybe 2022, and just maybe touch on high level, you know, thoughts for 2023?
I'll start it off, Michael, then we can get into detail. Thanks again for the opportunity. We reported last week, Q4 was in line with what we guided. For the entire year, we were down 3% in constant currency, driven by a, you know, a series of factors that we highlighted throughout the year, but primarily in the second half, environmental factors from the, you know, China lockdowns, supply, some of the challenges in pet retail and the recessionary impact, things that were maybe a little more over-indexed on our business. Then I think it was offset by, you know, and additionally, some competitive innovation offset by, you know, price, the continued innovation growth, and other areas where we've, you know, held share.
I think the other factor that I would say is as you go down through and look at 2022, continued productivity levers, operating expense down over 10%, 90 basis points of improvement even in the face of inflation. I think this company-wide productivity approach, you know, showed progress. As we step back and as we start to pivot into 2023, 2021, Elanco comes out with, you know, our Investor Day with Bayer. We're up 5% on a constant currency. Go into 2022, impacted by really a series of a lot of environment and some competitive innovation, down 3% in constant currency.
We look as we go into 2023, we're gonna take a lot of these realities, and we see them carrying into the first half of 2023, but we do see our business returning to growth in the second half. I think a few things, Michael, I'll point to, we can come back to is some proof points we see early this year. We see sellout data in the EU improving sequentially. Still early, not making the year, but we see China, we saw a 9% improvement in growth in Q4, and those trends continuing. OTC, some early indicators as well in the OTC market. FX, of course, will be favorable, we think, in the second half.
Then, you know, as you look at our business as we guided for the year, we see innovation adding 2-3 points of growth, price more than two, then supply being better, all factors there. Then we think, hey, outside of about $80 million of competitive innovation, you know, we're holding share in markets, even though some of those markets are gonna go across a notional larger % like pet retail. I think the last thing we'll get into it is the next era of innovation and want to convey for the medium and long-term value of the company is, you know, over the last quarter, Michael, we emphasized, you know, no change in our pipeline, if anything, improvements in that pipeline.
And also not a path to just five blockbusters, but now six with the movement of Bovaer moving up to a path for a first half 2024 approval. We're, we're on the cusp of innovation. We're within two months of our system being stood up and moving off the Bayer system into one system that'll decrease complexity and improve, you know, cash flow conversion as we head into 2024. And looking forward to 2023 as we start to, you know, stabilize, return to growth, and really start to deliver this next era of significant innovation and growth.
It's not on mute. Okay, well, I appreciate that overview. I gotta ask, yesterday, saw the 8-K come out. It had some restatements, some revisions on 2022. Can you give us a quick rundown of exactly what happened and sort of what the impact is?
Sure, Michael. As you would have noted in the release on previous Tuesday with earnings, we had to do a revision, you know, kind of a little R, restatement related to 21 and 20. With that, in that no other errors or adjustments could be made, where often if something gets caught late, you just reflect it in the next quarter. That's standard amongst all public companies. Because of the little R, we could not do that. We had this late item of a sales discount having been missed in a Western European affiliate. Because of the little R, we had to reflect that in the 22 results, and that's what we did with the 8-K.
All the financials got a clean opinion in the 10-K from EY. We'll be looking to improve some local country accounting and controls as we go into 2023.
The revision that did happen, I think you indicated was primarily Western Europe affiliate, and it had to do with sales rebates, discounts. Is that, you know, like a, you know, list price versus net price or how some of the rebates are factored in? Is that what the issue was?
Michael. It was just a, you know, we had a control that was missed from a communication between the sales team and the finance team to reflect a discount that had been given to some customers. The team caught it. They just caught it because of the little R we had to reflect it in the 10-K. That's why you had the 8-K yesterday.
Got it. No impact on 2023 guide outlook, nothing like that?
No. It's all been factored into the business as we move forward.
Okay. Okay. All right. Well, Jeff, I want to go back then to some of your earlier comments on 2023. We'll start with that because I think, you know, the way we see it is there's, you know, two parts to the story. There's 2023, and there's 2024 and the new products and beyond that. I want to handle those two separately. First, on the 2023 guide and the outlook going forward, I think the biggest debate, and area of debate we've had with investors is, you know, yeah, if you do look at innovation contribution, you do look at price contribution, you look at FX and OTC, it seems like, you know, those factors are growing better and better. Then you look at the total company and, you know, it's certainly lagging.
What's, what's the delta there? You know, whether it's the defend assets or it's where you're seeing competitive pressure. Can we dig into that? Is, is it OTC parasiticides? Is it some of the more innovative launches? Is it, you know, more Bayer portfolio or Lonza portfolio? Just what isn't working in 2023?
I think we're, you know, attempting to take a very disciplined approach, looking at the realities of 2022 carrying into 2023. The first thing is, you know, we do see improvement in the pet business, in pet retail specifically. As you know, it's kind of a 70% first half, especially in pet retail with Advantage in Seresto and parasiticides, and a 30% second half. We're going across a notional bigger base. We're taking a very, you know, disciplined approach as we look at the guide, and we believe that that March to June window in parasiticides is pretty important. We see improvements, but we're taking a look to say, "Hey, this may be more of a U-shaped than a V-shaped improvement." I think we got our eyes on that.
I think that's a key assumption that we're taking, that we're gonna take a balanced approach. I think that's one. I think also as you look at just there's, you know, other things that drove volume down last year, supply, CMO, these things are going to improve. I would say that, you know, back to pets, you know, parasiticide in the vet clinic in the U.S., we've take that and some of the other pair of North America at about $80 million. That's the competitive pressure that we see that I mentioned that I think is the big one. As you look at the rest of the business, we believe that our mix on the medicated feed additive side, antibiotics are down, the nutritionals are up and are growing better. We see that being more resilient than before.
You know, that was a factor, especially in our international swine business in some of the pull-down. I would note those as a few of the main key factors for the business. Overall core, though, Michael, as I look at it, I believe that, you know, we've had a mix improvement over time. We did have some, you know, declines last year that were heavily driven by China, driven by the European recessionary impact. You know, I think the overall farm animal business, even though we held and grew share, the market got a little smaller. As we look into this year, we think cattle numbers are gonna continue to be down. You know, those markets are gonna maybe improve a little, but they're gonna still be challenged.
Do I believe the algorithm as a whole that we shared in the Investor Day still has merit? Absolutely. Innovation growth is there. Our focus brands have held up pretty well. We did see some erosion in the core because of these environmental factors. Again, improvement as we move more to the second half. It's more of a disciplined approach as we look at first half, big parasiticide business and, you know, look, making sure we look at that season in a very careful way.
Okay. Got it. The, the $80 million competitive pressure, I want to drill into that a little bit. That's a 2023 expectation?
Yeah, Michael, that's 2023 on the parasiticides. We also expect some more competitive pressure, with the Claro generic that was launched, as well as expectation of a pain product enters the U.S. vet market, as well.
Okay. Any, any chance you can give us sort of an apples to apples number for what that was in 2022 in Paris, just so we can frame, you know, how that's trending?
Yeah. We've categorized that at about $100 million last year, Michael. It was just the impact on, you know, Trifexis, Interceptor Plus, Advocate, and the like.
Okay. That was gonna be exactly my question, is which product specifically? You called out those. Would you include, you know, are you seeing any, an Advantage in Afamy and Seresto? I know there's other factors to consider there, so it's tough to see sort of like attributed to one or the other, but...
Certainly inside the vet clinic, we know we've lost some shares to the new innovation in our sales of Seresto or Advocate inside the vet clinic. Outside the vet clinic, you know, it's primarily for those customers not going to the vet. There may have been a little channel shift, but we think less. We think the recessionary environment and some of the parasiticides that we had in U.S. Seresto a year ago were probably the bigger impacts than the vet clinic competition.
Okay. All right. Sounds good. Again, just trying to think through the dynamics of that, of that going from $100 million last year to $80 million this year, how much of that is, you know, you talked about some innovation in OTC parasiticides. How much of that is any change in your sales force? How much of that is, you know, you're winding down the older products, right? Things like Trifexis, there's less that go away. What are the pros and cons of that?
Yeah. You know, first of all, I would say, you know, we see, to Todd's point, we see that falling across three categories. You know, some more para erosion, but also we've seen a generic come in on the otitis side as well as the pain. Again, that 80 covers those three gamuts. When you look at para alone, it's gonna be less than it was in 2022 on a relative basis. I think as we come back and look at the different categories of why we believe that's the case is, I think you see, for us, I mean, on the retail side, we see a recovery with more physical availability. We're just in more places. two, we're in more price points, refreshing, bringing two Advantage brands back that will target a different consumer.
An Advantage XD, three new innovations that helps retailers with more shelf space, more price. You know, as we look at even more geographic penetration, all of these things that we believe continue to drive the retail space into a better place. We see, you know, Seresto as well, I mean, continuing to be in more locations. We've got more end caps at more retailers than we've probably had in a long time. You know, there was an off-season kind of phenomena that where there was less interest and people were trading down maybe to therapy or treatment, not prevention. We see retailer response coming into the season and even e-com response that, hey, this is a high profit, very important area, they're leaning into it.
We're not in the heavy part of the season yet, but we see the indicators, Michael, that are positive. Again, less, I think, overall para erosion on a relative basis, but that $80 million also includes pain and the otitis generic as well.
Okay. $80 million is inclusive of the others. Okay. All right. Okay. Maybe now would be a good time to sort of just talk about OTC versus prescription in general, because the OTC market's been up and down, up and down, and especially when you had COVID lockdowns and things like that, it made for really unusual comps. OTC market historically performed very, very well, probably off a small base. Seems like it's been under pressure more in 2022. Maybe we can take a step back. Longer term, you've got the legacy Elanco portfolio, which tended to be more prescription. You've got the Bayer portfolio, which tended to be more OTC.
Now you've got some of these new products coming out in 2024, so you still kind of balance between the two. You're gonna have both arms, probably more so than most of your competitors. How do we think about those markets longer term? You know, the relative growth rates of each?
Yeah. Maybe I'll start, Todd, if you want to add any. You know, look, remember, when we announced Bayer, we believe strongly in the strategy and the trends continue, that we wanna be an omni-channel leader. We wanna meet, you know, every pet owner where they wanna shop at the price point they wanna shop. I think COVID even probably accelerated that trend, Michael. We believe it is an and, not an or. I'll start with the vet. I mean, we have a strong vet portfolio today. Outside the U.S., we're holding and very competitive in share, especially in parasiticides with Credelio Plus and a retail and a broad spectrum. Again, I contain our issues more to that U.S. vet clinic para.
When I look at our future portfolio coming with derm, two derm products, they're vet, parvo, things like Bexacat that Todd just mentioned, the diabetes, the pain products, where we're very vet-oriented, and here we come with a differentiated broad-spectrum parasiticide. I think, you know, hey, it will start in the vet. That vet scripting will continue to be a little bit more on the e-com side, and we're gonna be as prepared as anybody to capture that trend as well. Now, what we're doing over on the retail side is we're really putting new energy. Ellen has come in and built out a R&D engine for the OTC side, where we're, you know, launching three new Advantage brands with XD, the refreshed Advantage, and K9 Advantix to meet a different consumer, different price point, managed very carefully in the channel so there's not cannibalization.
We're looking at continuing to build that out across the board. To me, I say, yes, we have what's happened here recently. While we've seen an economic slowdown and retail's maybe a little more reactive to that, we see a recovery back to that. We've seen inventory step down by retailers. We've had some supply challenges. Yeah, maybe there's a little bleeding over, and as Todd mentioned, to the new innovation. We don't see that as significant. There weren't a lot of Seresto and Advantage sold inside the vet clinic here over the last couple years. I think the balance is we're set up to be an omni-channel leader. You always have to innovate. We're gonna have record innovation in both of those channels, and I think that will continue to make it bounce back and be more resilient.
We also are seeing good pricing too, Michael, there on both channels. The retailers have taken prices, we continue to hold in that area as well.
Do you think longer term, you know, on a multi-year taker going forward, not in perpetuity, but for the next couple years, do you think OTC grows faster than overall companion animal market?
I don't know if I would say that. I'd definitely say e-com. We've seen e-com continue to grow, you know, high single-digit, double-digit. That's, you know, we were together as a management team with a major e-com player. You know, you're looking at auto-ship compliance trends very high. As that auto-ship goes up, compliance goes up. You know, I think that's even gonna be for scripted products in that space as well. That, that trend accelerated during COVID, and I see it going forward. My, my answer to your question is yes, in e-com, I see it outpacing. I don't know about long term, but I think it is definitely a nice, diverse, strong, resilient category retail over time.
If you're innovating, if you're global, and if you're adding more physical availability, we continue to be in more places on more shelves, and that's gonna be what we're gonna be doing as we go forward.
Okay. All right. Maybe, maybe just to pivot a little bit to the livestock side of things. In a market that's been under a little bit more pressure in recent years. It doesn't seem like it's gonna get dramatically better in 2023. Just what are your thoughts on livestock for the next 12 months? You know, key debate points, key pressure points that, you know, could lead to some downside versus areas where you could see a little bit of upside.
Yeah. I, you know, maybe just the diversity of the species and the geographies and, you know, you follow protein demand. It's not crazy growth, but low single-digit consistent protein demand continues to go up. Profitability seems to be pretty sustainable across the board. We're not seeing, Michael, the swings of oversupply and, you know, losses like we used to. This is much more stable industry globally. Trade continues to be up. All of these are the trends that make this industry be a durable long-term industry if you are in the right geographies and the right species, and we think we are. We're leaders in one or two top category, number one or number two in poultry and aqua, in confined cattle, in Asian swine and U.S. swine. We're positioned well.
No, we're not a big vaccine player, on like-to-like comparisons, we've changed our medicated feed additive mix. Our fastest growing segment is probably the nutritional side, as well as our food safety vaccines. You know, if I look at our portfolio, we're probably better than we've ever been, and now we're adding things like Experior and Bovaer and this whole livestock sustainability area. Look, as I look at 2023, I think it's gonna be one of, you know, there's gonna be ebbs and flows, pushes and pulls. We forecast and we do see continued share growth for our farm animal business and continued, you know, durable growth as we get into the second half over time. And able to continue to take price. Not to the level of the pet side, but we are...
We've got, you know, innovation coming into every portfolio, we're seeing, you know, we're seeing prices well.
Okay. All right. Just given you touched on Bovaer and Experior, maybe we'll use that to transition to the new product launches, the 2024 story, like I said. You know, you laid out the roadmap. You've given us the timelines, first half 2024 approval. What else are the, you know, the markers that we should be looking forward to over the next year? You know, are there incremental updates to come? Is it just in the hands of the FDA and the USDA, and it's a little bit of a black box? One of the things I'm getting to with that question is, you know, we've had a lot of questions from investors of, you know, first half 2024, is that January 1st or June 30th? 'Cause that can lead to a pretty big step.
you know, I don't expect you to be able to narrow it down now, but just how do you think about the risks of that and how we can stay on top of that?
Look, I think that I anchor back to a couple things. The $600 million-$700 million of innovation that we laid out during, we added to after Kindred, but we laid out in Investor Day. You know, we stay with that commitment, and it's definitely probabilized, but you can see the continued growth. We're adding Bexacat. We're gonna add parvo. You know, Experior continues to grow nicely as that becomes part of the practices of cattle operations now. I would start there to say we're gonna get 2 to 3 percentage points of growth. That's gonna continue to be a trajectory. As you look at, yes, the path to these blockbusters, we've announced and shared our submissions.
I think we now are moving more into out of clinical trials and much more into a regulatory submission stage. The risk now becomes more around timing, not around do you have a product. We've passed that. On the parvo, we've passed the heartworm threshold, as we've said. All of these things are factors. I think what you're gonna see from us is quarter to quarter, like we said this quarter, nothing has changed. The pipeline continues to track as planned or a little ahead of plan. Then we added, which I think is pretty material, a product, Bovaer, that was in 2026 with $200 million of potential into now a path to the first half of 2024.
I look at the aggregate, I look at the existing innovation that's growing and believe that, you know, we've got a very, you know, highly probable strong innovation story as we go forward. I mean, six blockbuster potential products with a path to the first half of 2024 stands nicely. I won't highlight necessarily, hey, when exactly they'll come. We will do that as we get closer. The next one is parvo. We're hoping for our monoclonal antibody plan to get, you know, approved and get inspected and approved soon, and then that will target that approval here in 2023.
I think a proof point is the hiring of Tim Bettington, which we can talk about, which is a focus on launch readiness and the preparation of launch and preparing ourselves commercially to ensure that when supply, product approval is there, we're ready to launch as competitively and as well with excellence as we ever have in history.
Got it. Yeah. It's something I was gonna touch on. First maybe we can talk about, you know, the products you're bringing to market. You know, we talked a little bit about differentiation, and what you need to do to commercialize the products. But as you think through the rest of this year, you know, and your OpEx plan and your EBITDA guide, how much of that is already sort of allocated to that? Because-You know, launching five, six products, in-
Right
in a small period, there's a lot you need to commit to that to make sure you have a successful launch and, you know, you're fast out of the gate, especially given we're probably gonna be seeing other derm products soon. We're gonna be seeing other para products soon, you can't really afford a slow launch. What are you doing this year to set the table to be ready so that when you do have that approval, you know, you can snap your fingers and go?
Yeah. Do you wanna start with the cost and-
I would say it's more on the CapEx and the supply readiness, Michael, for launches to make sure we've got the right capacity, we've got the right CapEx to have the products available. As we think about, you know, the marketing spend, we typically want the products to be inside the vet clinic so that as you're ramping it up, they have something ready to prescribe versus being in advance of that before. Of course, we'll do educational awareness. If we decide we need incremental sales force from just a share of voice standpoint, that's something that would also come, you know, later in 2023 as we get ready. You know, overall we just, you know, OpEx, we expect to be modestly up this year.
Some of that'll come from, you know, investing behind our brands here in the first half of the Northern Hemisphere parasiticide season. You know, Bobby Modi joined us, you know, not even a year ago yet, so, you know, his discipline on his marketing execution and making sure we're preparing those brands, you know, is making OpEx a little higher here in the first half. You know, we'll start to capture some incremental savings from synergies in the back half. You know, we're gonna be ready for launch. As Jeff said, we're bringing in Tim with his focus to be ready. We're making sure we have the CapEx and supply ready so that, you know, when those approvals come, you know, we'll be ready to launch as efficiently as we can be.
For those products that you discussed, I mean, whether it's there or not, most of the attention falls on the derm products and the combination parasiticides, just given that's where we've seen Zoetis have a lot of success. Meaning, you know, not to ignore the other products, but that's where most are coming in. Is there any difference to your approach there, given you are gonna be, you know, second in class, potentially third in class for these products? You know, vis-a-vis Zoetis or how you would approach the market if you were first in class, meaning you might not need to do as much market building, right? The derm market already exists. What's the, you know, what's the strategy there, and how do you think about price in that environment? How do you think about bundling in that environment?
Look, I think you're exactly right. These are some existing markets. It always starts to me with differentiation. It's, you know, what portfolio is it coming into? We've got existing relationships. We've got more of an omni-channel capability. Then we'll begin to look at all the different nodes of ways to, you know, crack penetration. I think that any time innovation comes into a major market, para, pain, derm, there's an expansion of the market. I see this being much more of a value play than a price play. This will be much more of a segmentation. There's dissatisfaction in this market. Derm, by the time we get to it's gonna be close to $1.5 billion.
When you look at how we globally launch this product, there'll be a targeting, Michael, and a segmentation to the dissatisfied, to the loyal users maybe in our area. Then, you know, how do we use the full channel and the full share of voice? To Todd's point, we, you know, with a system standup completing, us shifting now to commercial excellence, we'll have the ability to shift and move resources to be able to have, you know, the resources, the headcount, and the OpEx that we need in the right places to get that share. Tim's gonna help us with being able to look at all of those aspects in a dedicated way over the next year, as Bobby Modi's running the business and launching products now and growing share to focus on these launch decisions and preparedness.
We're not a new player. The other thing I just would highlight, Bexacat, Aparvo, Zorbium, has put us in clinics too that maybe we weren't in at the level we were in before. We're using some of those capabilities and muscle like digital, like targeting segmentation, like Salesforce, new tools of excellence, being able to know what clinics want to, you know, giving the leads to the, to the sales reps to be able to move more quickly and more efficiently to the right clinics at the right time. We're testing a lot of those capabilities now with these unique products that we have to the same customers we're gonna be offering these bigger products to.
Okay. Okay. You know, you touched on Tim a number of times. That was gonna be something I wanted to get to as well.
Yeah.
As you know, Bobby's been with the business, in this role for about a year. Recently hired Tim, you know, Ellen running R&D. You've had a lot of turnover on the C-suite side of things. Can you talk about, you know, how the team is fitting together, and particularly for Tim and Bobby, sort of how are they partnering to launch these products? 'Cause they're both gonna be very closely involved, obviously. And you've got a lot going on in the next year, so we just wanna talk about the relationship there and the breadth of roles there.
You know, I'll just say that, you know, there's been actually quite a bit of stability over the last 12 months until the addition of Tim with, you know, Bobby and Ellen had joined a lit, you know, a little over a year ago, and they've come in. Let me highlight, I think the team is as strong as any team I've worked with in over 30 years in the industry. We've got deep experience commercially. When I look at Ramiro and José, we've got a vet, a nutritionist. Ramiro, probably the most tenured international leader in animal health today.
José, a nutritionist, probably one of the longest tenured farm animal business leaders, and he's taken a lot of share in his time, as a leader of that business and building the livestock sustainability, as I mentioned. I think Ellen brought in and complemented a lot that Aaron was doing and has accelerated it and has doubled down on driving blockbusters while building OTC lifecycle management. I mean, Ellen, to me, what she's done in a short period of time. She's not new to the business or the industry. She's had a lot of history there. That, I think, has been a complement and a real good fit. Then let me just add, you know, Bobby has come in and made a very data-driven approach.
If I look at what he's done, launching OTC products, building out a retail team, using digital to drive Zorbium, over 12,000 clinics, the fastest penetration we've ever had. You know, credit to Bobby and his team in doing that. His pricing approach, I mean, we got 3% a little bit more on the pet side in Q4. We built a pricing strategy. His look at physical availability, getting us on more shelves in more places. The engagement in pet health is growing faster than even net Elanco. I mean, it's in a really good place given the competitiveness that we have, I'm feeling very good. What's Tim gonna do? Tim's gonna come in.
Known Tim, you know, directly and indirectly for a lot of years, 25 years experience, one of the most seasoned leading some of the largest PNLs, as you know, and his time, both from Novartis into Merial, BI, and Zoetis, across a lot of big launches and brands. He brings in know-how, and he can lean in. He's gonna be dedicated. We don't have a central marketing function. This is gonna be all around next commercial excellence, more share of voice, more efficiently and more effectively, and launch with excellence because of the capacity we need to actually launch these products globally. That's what Tim's gonna be doing, while our other three very experienced commercial team leaders can lean in.
I think as you look at C-suites, when you look at commercial experience across the major companies, we've got the most experienced commercial team, I believe, in the industry.
Okay. Okay. We got a little over 5 minutes left, so I wanna make sure I hit on a couple more topics, just 'cause there's a lot to fit in. Todd, maybe I'll pivot to you. You know, balance sheet leverage, debt paydown, a lot of questions on that after 4Q as well. I think, you know, you had previously pointed to interest expense up year-over-year, obviously, given the way rates are. Can you walk us through, you know, the $100 million of debt paydown this year? Is there any wiggle room for there to be a little bit more there?
Is there any other wiggle room on the balance sheet that we could be looking at, just given, you know, what you had talked about for leverage at end of the year?
Certainly, Michael. I mean, you know, it starts with the base business. As we perform and deliver and to the extent, you know, things go better than what we've guided to, that'll convert into cash because, you know, we're very efficient on our productivity agendas and understanding the value of cash to our business. All of the, you know, the bonus programs are based on an EVA-like metric we call Elanco Cash Earnings. Improving EBITDA while using less assets is how our teams get their whole bonus. That's a big driver of our ownership culture as well as to the extent that there's upside, we'll take that cash to pay down more debt. The other aspect is working capital. That's a place that we did not perform well on in 2022.
Some of that was driven by intentionality with respect to inventory builds for our transition of the Bayer business in, as well as a relabeling in China. Net net, we've got to improve on our working capital, especially with inventory management as we align, you know, production plans better with volume needs on a global basis. Doing better there is another opportunity to get additional debt paydown. I think we factored in the interest rates and the expectations of the forward curves to have, you know, higher interest rates in the back half of the year as we also get more debt floating, as we laid out on our call in November.
Again, you know, we wanna, you know, take more cash, deliver it to the debt paydown while, you know, ramping EBITDA to improve leverage through the EBITDA growth. Going into 2024, that continues. The good news, we'll be behind the system integration and stand up. You know, the $1 billion we've spent over the last four years, you know, those have been one-off, one-time items to integrate, stand up, and build. That drops to less than $20 million in 2024, which is, you know, significantly more incremental cash to pay down debt in addition to, you know, driving EBITDA higher to create more free cash flow. We know our leverage is higher than we would like. You know, we wanna drive EBITDA and cash both together to get that down over the next 18 months.
Okay. You touched on 2024. That was something we've had some questions on as well. Just given the rate environment, we're talking about 2024 already, but given the rate environment, do you see a risk that interest expense could be creeping higher again that year? Just given your the tranches of debt you have and some of that ability to pay off a little bit more, you think you'll be able to reverse that flow?
I mean, that's our expectation. You know, the Fed is certainly something that affects us because we will have, you know, a significant amount of floating rate debt.
Okay. All right. That's it then. We've got just a couple minutes left. Maybe Jeff, I'll turn it back to you for any closing remarks, any last comments. Thanks for the insight, Sean. You know, what's coming up most frequently in your conversations with investors, and what do you think is something worth calling out?
Well, I think it's, you know, 2023, how we see 2023, we believe that it was critical to put a guide together that was based on the realities of 2022 in a balanced way as we come into 2023. The assumptions relative to the competition in the marketplace and even the livestock and the pet market trends that we've talked about, I just would emphasize, we've got confidence in the guide that we have. We've got proof points of some sequential improvements leaving 2022 into 2023. What's most important here is delivering on, you know, our expectations this year as we prepare. The preparing comes from in the next 60 days, we stand up our system, the complexity of Elanco goes down, the standup costs throughout this year go down.
That allows, as Todd said, the free cash flow conversion goes up as we head into 2024. Most importantly is drive this pipeline to completion and prepare for the launches that really open the next era of growth and innovation. That really starts in the second half of this year going forward. Again, excited about what lies ahead. Disciplined execution and we're a show-me story on being accountable to deliver the results, and that's what's lying in front of us with the guide that we laid out this week.
Got it. Yep. No, that sounds good, Jeff. All right. On that note, thanks so much for joining us. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks everyone for listening in. We'll always be around for questions. Keep rockin'.
Thank you.
Very good. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael.
Thanks, guys. Cheers.