Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us at Oppenheimer's 24th Annual Consumer Growth and E-Commerce Conference . My name is Rupesh Parikh. I'm the Senior Food, Grocery, and Consumer Products Analyst here at Oppenheimer. I'm pleased to introduce our next presenting company, Perrigo. Joining us today are President and CEO, Patrick Lockwood-Taylor, and EVP and CFO, Eduardo Bezerra. So thank you both for being here today. So just a quick note on the format today's session. To start, I'm gonna turn it over to Patrick for a brief overview of the company, then we'll move to a few questions that I have, and finally, move to audience Q&A. So if you have questions, please enter them in the question panel below the video. So with that, Patrick, I'll turn it over to you. Audience, just give us one minute for some technical issues.
To start, I'm gonna turn it over to Patrick. Move to a few questions that I have.
Hi, can you hear me okay?
Yep, we hear you perfectly. Go, go ahead with the presentation, Patrick.
Apologies for that. Never let me near a computer. All right. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us today. It's a pleasure to be here. I wanted to talk a little bit more about, about Perrigo. Yeah, who we are, what we're doing, what our outlook is, and then hopefully, we'll have some time at the end for some of your, your key questions. So, first and foremost, actually, we're having a technical difficulty again. Just give me one second. Thank you very much. All right, anything we want to say? Very good. On the next chart here, we, we play in the self-care industry, as many of you know, a very sizable category, over $400 billion, growing approximately 4%.
You can see the statistic here that, well over two-thirds of households are now considering wellness as a critical priority in their everyday lives. Self-care category delivers a tremendous amount of value savings to the healthcare infrastructure. U.S. alone, well over $170 billion by reducing doctor's visits, prescription medications, et cetera, and about EUR 33 billion across Europe. Critical point here is that we compete at every price point, including at store brand and value. That allows well over $30 million more U.S. households to actually access self-care products that they otherwise couldn't afford to. And in Europe, again, we see over 1.2 billion treatments per year. Again, this all talks to the critical nature of self-care and the critical role that we play within that. Just to turn a little bit more to scale.
We produce well over 65 billion units a year. That's the equivalent of 8 doses annually for every person on Earth. Just to put that in the context of consumption, about 2,000 Perrigo doses are actually consumed every second of the day. No one else can really talk to that sort of volume impact and usage around the world. It's incredible. I've already talked about some of the savings that we create. We alone, over $30 billion, but we also play, in the context of self-care, genuine improvements to people's everyday lives. About 2 billion fewer cigarettes smoked in 2023 because of our nicotine replacement therapies, actually saving consumers well over $500 million a year. Again, something that's not often understood is just the access that we achieve, in the ...
Over two-thirds of all households purchase a Perrigo product. And in 2023, we provided relief for over 50 million consumers from cough-cold symptoms in Europe alone. We're an extremely diversified company. This allows us to provide scale, reliable, fairly predictable growth. The thing that's not often understood, we're often seen as a store brand business. Actually, over 40% of our sales now are from national brands, particularly in the international business, which is probably about 90% branded. Of course, the balance still coming from our very strong multi-billion store brand business, where we enjoy very strong market leadership positions. Really, with every store in the two countries where we dominate store brands, the U.S. and UK, every store carrying our brand.
As we talk about the company, really, we are laser-focused on what needs to be done in the short and mid-term as we get this company back on track with the sustainable value accretive growth, which is really our, our rallying cry. First and foremost, of course, we have to stabilize the infant formula business, as I'm going to expand upon later on. We're well on track to recapturing $140 million of annual adjusted operating income in 2025. Capturing all of that plus in 2026. We expect to see that business really normalizing in quarter four of this year, and we're well on track for that. Critically as well, we have to deliver Project Energize. This was a significant cost-saving program. It's gone extremely well.
We expect to realize $110 million in cost savings by the end of 2026. We're increasingly focused on restoring growth and margin growth to our US store brand business. As I'll talk about later, we have something like a 50 volume share, but there is still over $3 billion of near-in white space opportunity for us, $6 billion in total. They're big and plenty of opportunity to get bigger and more profitable. We are an amalgamation of several transactions, but it is critical that we streamline this company into one operating model, which we refer to as One Perrigo. This will allow us to optimize and scale the operating structure, and we're making significant progress on that. Key for us, ultimately, is driving free cash flow over our asset base. We're looking at the numerator, denominator constantly.
We will see significant improvement in free cash flow going forward, given the significant investments that we had this year in Project Energize and in formula, but I'll talk about that later, and de-lever the balance sheet. This is critical for us. Fantastic progress. We were 5.5 a couple of years ago. By the end of 2024, we'll be at about 4, and we'll be 3-3.2 or so by the end of 2025. So significant progress in line with our long-term commitments outlined in February 2023. I wanted to just talk a little bit about these creative initiatives. These basically were big investments and focus, significant cost and cash opportunities for us. Either simplifying the businesses or streamlining them, and we've made good progress here.
The HRA acquisition synergies total is $55 million, and that will be realized, fully realized by the end of this year. Supply Chain Reinvention program is really about simplifying operations, rationalizing SKUs, taking out layers. The total NPV from that initiative on 5 years is about $160 million, with a 5-year ROI of over 60%. So a superb program generating significant shareholder return. Project Energize, similarly, there was an investment cost to this, but you can see the $140 to $170 million in savings by the end of 2026. Overall investment, $40 to $60 million. But once again, this is a 5-year ROI of over 80%. So again, very sensible investments delivering very meaningful, cost and cash upside for the company and our shareholders. Infant formula, has been a significant focus for us this year.
We have made outstanding progress in line, if not ahead, really, of our expectations. The large-scale plant reset, three plants that went through significant remediation, that is now behind us. It's been completed some months ago. Very good. We have seen significant improvements in quality control, production, packaging, and release attainment. Just to put some numbers around that, we've seen a tenfold improvement in our environmental stability, which is outstanding. And whilst we're still early in the post-remediation production ramp-up, early results are very encouraging, where we have seen significant improved production versus pre-remediation levels. So we are achieving industry-leading quality control at near historical record production levels. A fantastic effort by the entire Perrigo team, my personal thanks to them. The point one, that as we finish a campaign, everything goes into testing.
All batches are part of one campaign. You have to wait for the last batch to be produced. That means it can take up to three months from production to actually realizing revenue. So differently, what we produce in quarter two is realized in quarter three. We expect sales to continue to ramp up. We're working extremely hard to refill pipelines, and we will see probably 70%-80% of revenue being realized in the second half, with our earnings normalizing in this business in quarter four, and we are well on track to achieve that. As we turn to another critical part of our business, which is, of course, in particular, our U.S. store brand business. Been a lot of focus on this. We've optimized the supply and the manufacturing network.
We've taken a lot of SKU prioritization, exiting businesses through extremely low gross margin, and then using that capacity for more profitable products. We're trying to get much more competitive as we defend critical businesses, but also again, much more focused in where we want to grow. We will see, as our ultimate measure, a greater share of free cash flow from this category as we focus on innovation, which basically allows us to claim superiority versus national brands. Recently focused on white space expansion. As I mentioned earlier, we see $3 billion of very near-term incremental opportunity, $3 billion being total market size, and of course, a total white space opportunity just in U.S. store brand of about $6 billion.
We're also actively exploring new dosage forms, which have higher barriers to entry, greater value add to retail and consumers, and a greater margin opportunity for us. So a lot of focus and a lot of exciting development to come from the store brand business. There has been a lot of focus of late on seasonality effects of cough, cold, and any particular allergy, and I wanna talk to those because we are well insulated against those. There is no change to our guidance as a result of a weak cough, cold season in the U.S. or a weak allergy season. The reason is this, our business is also in part international. That business is predominantly branded. We didn't see any evidence of destocking. Category growth was strong, and we took about 7% pricing, as previously shared.
This, in one part, insulates us from some of the effects that were seen in the U.S. in terms of destocking and quite weak seasons. Next, 75%-80% of our business is non-seasonal. We're very diversified portfolio, infant nutrition, nicotine replacement, oral care. These are fairly steady, reliable consumption patterns and are also disproportionately profitable to us, and that insulates us again from the, these, seasonal effects that we did actually see this year. So for us, really, this is just business as normal. Financially managed to be midpoint in season, that allows us to manage upside, it allows us to absorb downside. So you will see no change in our guidance as a result of these weak seasons in the U.S. We are well insulated against that. Critical aspect for us, again, 40% of our business is, is branded.
These are number one or number two share positions in the categories they compete, and we're seeing very good growth. We have learned a lot from the Opill launch, and we've brought in a lot of brand building and digital capability. Of course, it makes good sense to reapply that against some of our other branded opportunities that we have in the U.S. These are just some of the sort of early results we're seeing from that focus on branded, which will be a disproportionate growth driver for us. But Mederma growing at 25% or so, which is about two and a half times faster than the category. Nasonex is growing three times faster than the allergy category in the U.S. And I'm very pleased to say that already, Opill is a 1.2 share of the U.S. contraceptive category.
In less than nine weeks, the category is over $1 billion. Do the math on the size of that at retail. But these indicate to us that we're starting to get the right people and the right brand -building programs with the right investment that offers sustainable growth and very margin-increasing payouts for the company. Now, it is critical that we continue to improve normal free cash flow generation. We'll do that through a combination of these things: EBITDA growth, which is strong. We have made investments, some of those accretive initiatives, but those costs are winding down now. So this is just us achieving the full upside of the cost and cash of those initiatives. We continue to make working capital improvement in inventory days, receivables, and payables, and we will continue that effort.
So as I mentioned earlier, we're well on track to deliver our midterm leverage ratio commitments we made to you, which by the end of 2025, will be in the low 3s. So fully on track for that and core focus for us. So as I wrap up here, and I hope this was helpful to understand more about Perrigo, how diversified our portfolio is, how we're insulated from seasonality effects, and that really we're growing EBITDA and EPS very strongly with very strong outlooks. We play a vital role in the huge self. We deliver value to consumers and society by truly improving access. We are consumerizing, simplifying, and scaling One Perrigo. We remain on track with these important accretive initiatives. We've made outstanding progress in Infant formula and getting to quality, compliance, and reliable manufacturing.
Very focused now on driving our performance in our U.S. store brand business. We will get back to gaining share and driving free cash from that very sizable portfolio. Mentioned, we're largely insulated from seasonality. These effects that others have seen don't play out for us. There is no change to our guidance at all relating to this. We've invested a lot in brand building capability. It's starting to pay off, not just in Opill, and that's its early success, but in other parts of our U.S. portfolio, which have tremendous growth opportunity. And critically, we remain focused on delivering. That is, say, we're gonna deliver, we deliver, we're reliable, we're predictable, we execute well, and critically delivering in order that we can drive significant additional TSR through that. And with that, I'd very much welcome any questions.
Thank you for that overview, Patrick. To start, since everyone spends a lot of time on your CSCI business, I'd like to touch on your CSCI business. Are there any insights you can provide on the CSCI business that you think some investors might not appreciate?
Thank you. I'm glad you asked that. A lot of the focus is always on our U.S. business and our sort of heritage business. So CSCI, outstanding business, been delivering double-digit growth now, for several years. It's starting to see significant enhancements in its operating structure, and therefore its OI structure going forward with gross margin expansion. Large number of brands, competing across every country in Europe and markets outside of Europe, and enjoys number one and number two share positions in each of those brands. Many of these are big, local, important, profitable, growing brands. As we look at that in terms of opportunities, simplifying the structure and really focusing in on core categories and brands that we think give us more profitable growth and more scalable growth.
What I mean by that is the same chassis, the innovation, the marketing, the go-to-market being applied to more brands more commonly across more markets. So it really is a driving element of our performance, recently and certainly going forward, with a lot of top talent that we're looking to leverage in more parts of our operation as well.
Next, can you walk us through some of the key puts and takes we should be thinking about as we look towards the rest of 2024?
Eduardo, why don't you take this? Yeah, thank you, Patrick.
Hi, Rupesh, good afternoon, everybody that joined the call today. So first of all, as we look into 2024, as part of, you know, result of our Q1 call, we reaffirmed our outlook for this year, right? So some of the key areas of focus that we have for the remaining of the year is, of course, starting with infant formula. So Patrick already mentioned about the importance for us in the second half to really continue to increase volumes and get to Q4 with a normalized run rate that will speak about, you know, the size and the profitability that this business has in our portfolio.
So we're continuing to focus on all the accretive initiatives, so both the Project Energize that we offered, we launched in Q1, and also continue to deliver on the Supply Chain Reinvention programs, you know, both on track, helping to improve our operating margin. Continue to build and expand the Opill awareness. As Patrick mentioned, that's a key focus, where every day we learn a little bit more about, you know, how that complex category is evolving and all the actions we're taking to improve awareness, you know, trial and conversion of different consumers there. We do expect in the second half to have, you know, shipments more aligned to consumption, right? So we talked a lot, we heard a lot in Q1 and continue to hear a little bit about the stocking of retailers in several categories, including OTC and oral care.
So we expect that at these levels, we should see more normalization of that in the remaining of the year. Also, in both categories, usually in U.S., but also in Europe, we see in the third quarter, you know, the start of the selling across that important cough and cold season that starts in Q4. Also, you know, we're finalizing you know, our selling on the the summer season as well for, you know, all the insect repellents, you know, sun care and and also allergies in Europe.
And also get to the U.S. store brand back to winning share and continue to grow margin through the different, you know, actions that we have been taking, both from the Supply Chain Reinvention as well as, you know, as Patrick reinforced, we have a significant opportunity on white spaces that we want to continue to explore there.
Okay, great. That's great color there. And then how should investors think about next year with infant formula normalizing? Can the business deliver more than $3 of earnings per share?
Yeah. So, the first answer is yes, right? So that's really what we're working on. There are three major components that give us the confidence on that. First is the infant formula rebound, so that's why it's so critical that in the fourth quarter, you know, we get back to a normalized state. Remember, when we talked about our earnings guidance, we expected a $0.65 impact related to the infant formula into our results for 2024. We expect to see a significant portion of that rebound next year. The key elements that we are considering is building some inventory stock. You know, that's gonna be important to make sure we can manage any shocks in supply, so that demand is not impacted by that. So we expect a significant portion of that $0.65 to recover.
Of course, we expect, you know, a dilution deceleration. Since we talked about Opill, we expected, you know, it to be diluted for the first, you know, 18-24 months as we continue to invest not only on the brand, but in the architecture of the brand that leads Opill. And also with all the different accretive actions and the base growth also, that's an important component. So to get your answer, we should expect to see that higher than $3... north of $3 next year. We haven't started yet our plans to build for 2025, but also there are some other considerations, right? So we're watching closely, you know, consumption and also consumer spend, right? So that's a critical factor there, and also how pricing is evolving the whole industry.
Also, U.S., U.S. OTC growth will likely be volume driven versus price driven. In the case for the last three years, we saw significant increase in the national brands, the same way we had the benefit on our branded portfolio in Europe. But we've seen U.S., a big portion of that, that took place on the national brand, so we expect to see less of that and more in terms of volume. Given the significant increases that we saw in branded in international over the past three years, we expect that to, you know, reduce and not to see the same pace of price increases in our international portfolio. And we're gonna continue to look into ways on how can we improve our One Perrigo strategy, right?
So Project Energize, a key driver for that, and we still have actions to make sure we're gonna be able to operate in a new model and make sure that we complement the buildup of capabilities that Patrick talked about. And also, to see more normalized inflation across the cost base, right? So in Europe, we still see some things. In the U.S., we saw, you know, deflation taking place that helping the cost side, and that's why seeing more push, you know, from retailers on that side, on the national brands. But those are some of the key elements we're taking into account as we continue to work in the second half on our 2025 plans, to be able to give a more precise range of where we expect over the next year, Rupesh.
Great. So let me wrap up with one final question. So you spoke about your evolution to One Perrigo and your current focus on delever and delever—or sorry, deliver and deleverage. Can you talk about how you see the One Perrigo strategy evolving over the longer term?
Yeah, I'll take that one, Eduardo. Thank you. So yeah, job one through 2025, deliver and deliver, as you said. Really this is about executional excellence in our core business to maximize free cash flow generation and enable us to delever. Second critical element of that is deliver Project Energize commitments, which enabled margin enhancement for us going forward. As we've mentioned several times, continue the work to return infant formula, stable, profitable operations, and has gone extremely well, and we are well on track. In our U.S. store brands business, that's about us focusing on driving growth and margin expansion. Really, through 2025, that's the critical work to deliver and deliver, and if we do that, we set up a very good EPS and debt sort of outcome for ourselves.
Beyond 2026, really, it's about achieving sustainable value, accretive growth, and this really just follows very from what we're already doing, which is accelerate profitable branded growth, to build a more robust consumer-led innovation pipeline, which is well underway. And to ensure that we have a total shareholder return mindset embedded in all levels of the organization and all investment decisions. Finally, as we go to One Perrigo, we spent a lot of time recently looking at our portfolio. We're much clearer on which categories and brands offer the most attractive, scalable growth. We'll share more of that thinking as we have our Investor Day early next year. We can expect a more focused portfolio going forward, centered in categories with favorable growth rates, where we believe we can achieve number one or two position and offer a much more attractive overall ROI.
So that, very simply, is how we see the growth. One leads to the other. There will be significant change in investments, and most of what we have will be run on a very tight criteria basis.
Great. Well, thank you. I'd like to thank the Perrigo team and Patrick and Eduardo for joining us today.
Thank you. I appreciate it. Bye.