Good morning. My name is Maria, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to a Viatris 2021 Financial Guidance Call and Webcast. All participant lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your touch-tone phone. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question. If you need to ask further questions, you may re-enter the queue. Lastly, if you should need operator assistance, please press star zero. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Melissa Trombetta, Head of Global Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Maria. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Viatris's 2021 Guidance C onference Call. As we begin our call today, I would like to note that we are mindful of social distancing guidelines, and as such, I am dialed into today's call remotely. Joining me on this call from a separate location are Viatris' Chief Executive Officer, Michael Goettler, President Rajiv Malik, Chief Financial Officer, Sanjeev Narula, and Chief Accounting Officer, and Controller, Paul Campbell. Also joining us from a remote location is Head of Capital Markets, Bill Szablewski. I would ask for your patience should we encounter any technical difficulties. During today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements on a number of matters, including our financial guidance for 2021. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause future results or events to differ materially from today's projections.
Please refer to the guidance release and slides that we furnished to the SEC on Form 8-K earlier today for a fuller explanation of those risks and uncertainties and the limits applicable to forward-looking statements. The guidance slides also are posted on our website at investor.viatris.com. Viatris routinely posts information that may be important to investors on this website, and we use this website address as a means of disclosing material information to the public in a broad, non-exclusionary manner for purposes of the SEC's Regulation Fair Disclosure, Reg FD. We will be referring to certain financial metrics of Viatris on an adjusted basis, which are non-GAAP financial measures. We'll refer to these measures as an adjusted and present them in order to supplement your understanding and assessment of our financial guidance for 2021.
Non-GAAP measures should not be considered a substitute for or superior to financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. The most directly comparable GAAP measures, as well as reconciliations of the non-GAAP measures to those GAAP measures, are available in our 2021 guidance release and supplemental earnings slides, as well as in the investor section of our website. In addition, solely to supplement your understanding and assessment of our financial guidance for 2021, we have provided in the guidance slides and will discuss during today's call certain preliminary estimated financial measures relating to 2020, which do not reflect final actual results or pro forma results. Such measures also do not reflect the effect of any purchase accounting adjustments. Viatris has not yet finalized or published its financial results for the year ended December 31st, 2020.
Estimated results are subject to change, and actual results may differ materially from the preliminary estimates provided in this presentation. Also, any segment-related information discussed today during today's call is based upon the company's preliminary expected determinations, which will be finalized upon the filing of the company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020. Let me also remind you that the information discussed during this call, except for the participant questions, is the property of Viatris and cannot be recorded or rebroadcast without Viatris's express written permission. An archived copy of today's call will be available on our website and will remain available for a limited time. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Michael.
All right. Thank you, Melissa. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first-ever conference call as Viatris and the first time we're delivering financial guidance for a new company. Now, while I know it may seem longer, Viatris only came into being approximately 90 days ago, and since then, we have accomplished a lot due to the leadership, collaboration, and hard work of our 45,000 employees who I would like to thank for their tireless work to integrate our two companies with no business disruption to ensure patients around the world continue to get the high-quality medicines they need even in the midst of a global pandemic. Now, today, we're excited to provide Viatris inaugural guidance in keeping with our commitment to share our starting guidance as soon as available with the investment community.
While today's call is focused on 2021 guidance, we do look forward to sharing more about our unmatched platform, our regional operations, our pipeline focus, and exciting opportunities we see ahead for Viatris during our March 1st Investor Day. For today, we want to share with you an update on our activity since launch, review some updates to our previously shared roadmap to optimize total shareholder return, provide a preliminary estimate for 2020 full-year results, and review 2021 guidance, including our capital allocation priorities. Now, starting with slide number six, let me start by summarizing where we started and where we are today.
In July 2019, we laid out a compelling rationale for combining Mylan and Upjohn to create a new kind of healthcare company with a TSR-focused business model that positions us to deliver stable revenue, maintain a strong balance sheet, and execute a disciplined capital deployment strategy to drive future growth. We're now here, 19 months later, and that combination is a reality. While it seems like everything has changed around the world during this global pandemic, as it rages on, the compelling investment thesis that brought us together remains strong. We said this transaction would have transformative global scale. Ninety days into our journey, we're already starting to see the power of our global footprint. We're operating in 165 countries and territories, including a strong presence in China and emerging markets.
That means we not only have significant scale, but also we have the diversity to create more stability and resilience against volatility in any one single market. The same holds true for our differentiated portfolio, which consists of more than 1,400 approved molecules, with only one product representing more than 5% of our revenue. Again, that diversity brings stability and opportunity. We also have a clear path to delivering strong and sustainable cash flows, and we're well on our way to achieving and even accelerating our $1 billion synergies that we committed to. Our cash flow generation potential reinforces our confidence in our ability to execute on our capital allocation priorities. This includes paying a dividend of at least 25% of free cash flow, the first payment of which we expect the board to declare in May.
In addition to the other commitments we will be discussing here today, we are obviously committed to maintaining our investment-grade rating. The Viatris board and the management team view maintaining a strong balance sheet as critical to sustainably delivering value to our shareholders for two reasons. First, a strong balance sheet will provide us with long-term flexibility to invest in our pipeline and growth opportunities through our unique global healthcare gateway. Second, a strong balance sheet will give us sustainability to continue to perform and return capital to shareholders through market cycles. Since we closed the transaction in November, we have taken swift action to ensure that we can capitalize on the significant potential of our unique business model and better position Viatris to succeed in the current environment. We made significant progress seamlessly integrating our two global organizations with no business disruption despite operating within a pandemic.
As we announced in December, we've implemented a multi-year global restructuring initiative intended to ensure that our new company is optimally structured to sustainably achieve our broad mission. Rajiv will provide you with more details on our progress on this program later in today's discussion. Now, as you can see, the compelling strategic rationale for the formation of Viatris remains unchanged. What has changed is our starting point. The COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted our revenue by about $800 million and EBITDA by approximately $510 million in 2020. The delay in closing significantly reduced our initial cash position by approximately $1 billion. We're well aware that the right starting guidance is paramount to setting Viatris on the right path to success and to maintain our commitment to transparent communication with you.
Additionally, our commitment from the beginning is that we would take into account all the risks and all the opportunities that we can see, including any one-time events and any country-specific headwinds. With that in mind, we expect our revenue to be between $17.2 billion and $17.8 billion with a midpoint of $17.5 billion, adjusted EBITDA to be $6 billion-$6.4 billion with a midpoint of $6.2 billion, and free cash flow to be $2 billion-$2.3 billion with a midpoint of $2.15 billion in 2021. That 2021 free cash flow guidance includes a $1.5 billion cash cost to achieve synergies and other one-time cash cost, which we expect to phase out in the future.
While Sanjeev will go into the dynamics in more detail later, at a higher level, we are confident that 2021 will be our trophy year because we have a number of one-time costs related to the restructuring program that we expect to phase out in future years. We expect that our rapid deleveraging in 2021 will significantly reduce our interest expenses in 2022 and beyond. We expect script volumes to normalize as COVID recovery begins in 2021 second half and extends into 2022. We expect our synergies of $1 billion to be achieved over the next three years instead of four. Regarding the top line, we have no major upcoming losses of exclusivity of any product in excess of $100 million after Lyrica in Japan.
We fully expect, as we continue to work together, we'll be able to get more out of our platform, including maximizing future launches and achieving revenue synergies. We're confident that our guidance accurately reflects the changes in the operating environment and is the right starting point for Viatris. With our diverse portfolio and pipeline, our global network, and significant scientific, manufacturing, commercial capabilities, we're highly confident in our ability to capture the opportunity ahead through the global healthcare gateway to drive significant long-term shareholder value. My management is with me here today, and I know the power of what we're building at Viatris. We're committed to executing on our TSR-focused operating model and to capitalize opportunities and deliver value to set Viatris up for long-term success.
I also want to provide you a brief overview on slide seven of the way we're providing metrics today on the call and our expected structure for transparent disclosures and financial reporting going forward. Going forward, we'll be providing results in four expected new reporting segments that include our key regions: developed markets, emerging markets, the JENZ region that stands for Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, and Greater China. As we start reporting actual performance, we'll report our financial results in each of these segments broken down in three product categories: brands, complex generics and biosimilars, and generics, as well as top products for each of the geographic segments. Of course, we'll also provide segment profitability for each of the geographic segments. We believe that this will provide the details necessary to follow our business, and we look forward to continuing this dialogue with you going forward.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Rajiv to go into our 2021 expectations by market segment in more detail.
Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. At the onset, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to our employees for their hard work and dedication, which enabled us to set up this new company for success. I would also like to echo Michael's confidence in the strength of our platform and our long-term prospects. Let me start with slide number eight and provide color around each of our expected segments, especially about expected headwinds and tailwinds, and share with you why we are confident that 2021 will be a trophy year in terms of the financial guidance measures. As we look forward into 2021, we are forecasting an approximately 4% overall decline in the year-over-year revenue from our 2020 combined preliminary estimate. This overall performance is expected to be primarily due to two factors.
First, one-time special events, including the loss of exclusivity of Lyrica in Japan, the performance loss of exclusivity in the U.S., a one-time rebate accrual adjustment in the U.S., and remdesivir in emerging markets are expected to drive approximately a 5% decline. It's important to note that these items are not expected to drive further decline after 2021. Second, the normal base business erosion of 4% is more than offset by an anticipated $690 million in new product revenue, along with FX tailwinds. I will now walk you through each of the segments in detail to put this in perspective. Beginning with our developed markets, which includes our North America and Europe businesses, we expect revenue to remain flat on a year-over-year basis.
Europe is anticipated to show a strong performance and is expected to achieve high single-digit growth in 2021, driven by biosimilars business, the expected contribution of recent acquisition of Aspen's portfolio, and new launches. North America's performance is expected to offset European growth to keep developed markets flat. North America decline is expected to be primarily due to the special events such as performance loss of exclusivity and the positive impact of a U.S. rebate adjustment in 2020 related to the Upjohn business, which is not expected to reoccur in 2021. On a normalized basis, developed market is expected to be stable, supported by key drivers like Jubelry growth, biosimilar product uptake, and new product launches, which are anticipated to offset expected 3%-4% normalized base business erosion.
In emerging markets, we expect a 3% year-over-year decline primarily due to a special item regarding the World Health Organization's withdrawal of its recommendation for the use of remdesivir as a COVID-19 treatment. On a normalized basis, we see the business as stable with anticipated biosimilar growth and the new product launches offsetting the expected 3% base business erosion. The Greater China business, on a year-over-year basis, is projected to decline by approximately 10%, primarily due to expansion of China VBP to Lyrica, CELEBREX, and ZOLOFT products, and also assuming the implementation of URP in 11 cities to begin in the third quarter of 2021. Our China business has been restructured, and we believe that it has adopted well to absorb the impact of VBP while achieving strong growth in its retail channel business. As a result, our current estimated split between the hospital and retail business is almost 50/50.
Beyond URP, we believe that our business in China is set up for modest growth, primarily driven by our fast-growing retail channel, and is expected to achieve more as we also leverage Legacy Mylan's retail-oriented portfolio. We see China as a strategically very important market, and we are excited to invest in our pipeline in the region. To that end, we have recently identified more than 25 products for regulatory submission. The JENS business, on a year-over-year basis, is projected to decline by approximately 20%. The region is experiencing the special event of Lyrica LOE, where we have assumed an accelerated generalization of the brand in line with the current industry trends.
On a normalized basis, we expect the base business to erode 3-4%, which we expect to be offset by new launches, like our recent launch of the first biosimilar to Humira in Japan and the launch of authorized generics. To sum it up, with the significant special events like this LOEs behind us, we are confident about 2021 being the trophy year, and we expect to be able to offset normalized base business erosion of 3%-4% by maximizing our anticipated new product launches, including biosimilars and complex generics, through our enhanced combined global manufacturing and commercial platforms. Before I hand it over to Sanjeev, I would like to update you on where we stand with our previously announced restructuring program and cost synergy activities. As you can see on slide number nine, we have a number of important initiatives in progress.
The execution of our global restructuring program is well underway. In addition to the five sites we have already announced in December, we have identified and finalized plans to close, downsize, or divest an additional eight manufacturing facilities across various technology verticals and geographies. As always, throughout this process, we are committed to ensuring supply continuity so that patient needs for critical medicines are met. We have also made significant progress and have identified commercial overlaps as well as opportunities to efficiently organize our support functions. As previously stated, up to 20% of our global workforce may be impacted upon completion of the restructuring initiative, which includes site rationalizations. As Michael shared earlier, we have accelerated our efforts and anticipate achieving our $1 billion in cost synergies in three years instead of four years.
The in-depth rigor and discipline we are applying against these activities give us the confidence that we will not only meet but have the potential to exceed our synergy targets. We expect approximately $500 million potentially being achieved in 2021. These restructuring decisions are the most difficult in business, and we are extraordinarily grateful for the dedication of our employees and the important role they have played in our journey to become Viatris. Any restructuring actions we take are expected to be done in a way that is consistent with our long-standing commitment to treating employees fairly and with respect. We are confident that these actions will enable us to create a more flexible organizational structure and put our resources in the right places to succeed and deliver on the potential of our platform. I will now turn the call over to Sanjeev.
Thank you, Rajiv, and good morning, everyone. As Michael and Rajiv mentioned, we are committed to providing you with the visibility and key elements that influence our guidance for 2021. We're providing this level of detail to enable you to see how we have arrived at what we believe is the right starting point for Viatris. All our financial commitments remain intact, starting with our firm commitment to delivering, which includes paying down approximately $6.5 billion in debt over the next three years and achieving our long-term leverage targets of two and a half times. Second is returning value to shareholders through the dividends, which we expect to be initiated in the second quarter and to be based on 25% of free cash flow mid-point. Since we closed the transactions, we have been focused on bottoms-up exercise to construct our 2021 guidance.
Given all the dynamics that Michael and Rajiv mentioned, it's important to ground you on the starting point by reviewing the full year 2020 combined preliminary estimate. On slide 11, as previously reported, the historical results for nine months ending September third year consisted of combined revenue of $13.8 billion and $5.6 billion of adjusted EBITDA. They are derived from nine months' results included in Mylan's 10Q and Upjohn's Cardboard Financials. While we're not reporting fourth quarter and full-year results at this time, I'd like to briefly highlight some preliminary drivers that impacted the fourth quarter. The first item is continued COVID headwinds primarily associated with lower prescriptions. Secondly, lower volumes of certain product sales to align customer inventories at the year-end for anticipated competition coming in 2021.
Third, the termination of generic collaboration with Pfizer in Japan and related reduction in revenue as a result of repurchase of collaboration inventory. Lastly, we were negatively impacted by foreign exchange headwinds. This brings us to 2020 combined preliminary estimates of $18.4 billion for revenue and $7 billion for adjusted EBITDA. Just please note this combined preliminary estimates include the estimates of fourth quarter for Mylan and Upjohn. It's important to recall there are some transaction-related adjustments which include required divestitures for certain products. This brings us to a total 2020 combined preliminary adjusted estimates of $18.15 billion for revenue and $6.8 billion for adjusted EBITDA. The next three slides are intended to provide key takeaways for future reference. On slide 12, we have summarized some of the key assumptions for the guidance.
On slide 13, we're summarizing financial guidance on revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow along key metrics. Slide 14 provides additional transparency with respect to revenue composition of our expected reportable segments as estimated for 2020 and expected for 2021. Moving to slide 15 and diving deeper into 2021 revenue guidance, we've organized this slide to show you on the left-hand side all the event-based one-time pushes and pulls to give you a cleaner picture of the underlying base business. To start, we have generic entry in Japan. In fact, the generic erosion is higher than what we had initially anticipated. Second is the anticipated performance LOE in US. Next is the rebate adjustment for Lyrica that favorably impacted 2020 Upjohn results and is not expected to repeat in 2021. For China, 2021 reflects the impact of full-turnover volume-based procurements, or VBP, bidding, which was completed earlier this month.
VBP should essentially be behind us after this year as most of hospital-based revenue will have been subject to VBP. We've also factored in initial implementation of China's universal reimbursement pricing beginning of third quarter. While we're assuming a gradual recovery from COVID beginning in the second half and expect less of an impact on revenues relative to 2020, the full-year negative impact is expected to be approximately 3% of revenue. These specific items are high margin, above the company average, thus having a disproportionate negative impact versus a preliminary adjusted estimate for 2020 gross margin. After considering the impact of all event-based special items, we arrived at a normal 2021 normalized base for the business. Now, we look at the puts and takes from here.
We estimate base business erosion driven by competitive market dynamics and product space, which is entirely offset by new product revenues, including the full-year benefit of the Aspen transactions. Additionally, we expect some product pruning as a result of continued transformation initiative. This is defined as discontinuation of product in our portfolio that generates very low or, in some cases, negative profit margins. We expect minimal impact of pruning on adjusted EBITDA. Finally, we're expecting a meaningful tailwind from foreign exchange. All these dynamics give us the confidence that 2021 will be trophy year for revenue. Moving to slide 16, you will find 2021 adjusted EBITDA guidance walk from 2020, combined preliminary adjusted estimate. Three additional items I will call out on this slide that are not specifically driven by revenue impact discussed in the previous chart.
First is the depreciation and amortization adjustment, which is reflected in the operating costs related to TSA with Pfizer. Secondly, we expect to realize approximately $500 million of synergies in 2021. Finally, we're also expecting an increase in certain expenses primarily related to an increase in R&D and normal inflationary charges like employee merit and other benefit increases. Taking into account all these factors, we believe the guidance range of $6 billion-$6.4 billion for adjusted EBITDA represents a trophy year for the company. Turning to slide 17 and our free cash flow guidance range of $2 billion-$2.3 billion. Using adjusted EBITDA as the starting base, we're expecting cash outflows related to interest, tax, capital expenditure, and further investment in the working capital.
In addition, we expect cash costs to achieve synergies and other one-time cash costs for approximately $1.5 billion, which primarily made up of cash costs to achieve synergies, litigations and settlements, integration-related costs, and other restructuring-related costs. Going back to our financial policy commitment, as we have consistently said, we expect to return capital to shareholders in the form of dividend beginning with the first full quarter post-close. The expected dividend payout will be based on 25% of 2021 free cash flow guidance, mid-point of $2.15 billion, or an annualized dividend of approximately $540 million or $0.44 per share. Due to the timing of the initiation of dividend, with the first full payment to be made in June, we expect to make three payments of 2021 for a total 2021 dividend of approximately $400 million.
Before I hand it back to Michael, I want to make a quick comment on the calendarization as you begin to update your financial models. While we're not providing quarterly guidance, we expect both revenue and adjusted EBITDA to be more second-half-weighted as a percentage of total years due to normal seasonality of certain products, timing of tenders, and expected synergy realization. In addition, we expect quarter one to be the lowest contributing quarter for total revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow. With that, let me turn it back to Michael.
Thank you, Sanjeev. Now, before we open it up to question on slide 20, I just want to wrap up by saying that now that we're able to operate as one company, we're accelerating measures to ensure that we maximize the value from our unique Viatris platform and will be laser-focused on fully integrating the business, investing in our pipeline, realizing the full potential of our pipeline launches, leveraging our now enhanced commercial footprint, and leveraging our global healthcare gateway to the fullest extent possible to fuel future growth without impacting our debt reduction plans. We're confident that we have a clear roadmap for delivering shareholder value, and execution, transparency, and accountability will really be the key operative word as we continue down this path, and we hope we demonstrated that today. With that, let me turn it over to the operator and open it up for Q&A.
Thank you. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your touch-tone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, you may do so by pressing the pound key. We remind you to please pick up your handset and please limit yourself to one question. Our first question is coming from the line of Umer Raffat of Evercore.
Hi guys. Thanks so much for taking my question. I feel like there's a few moving parts here, so we'd appreciate any color you can provide. Maybe starting with the free cash flow guidance, I understand initially the expectation was for around $4 billion. I also understand there was an expectation that synergies would be captured faster. Therefore, there might be a bit more of a one-timer spend. If you could just walk us through sort of part by part how much of the free cash flow, how much of the one-timer charges are baked in, how much of legacy Mylan restructuring charges are baked in, and how much of additional Upjohn specific charges are baked in. I'm trying to go from $4 billion is kind of where we started and sort of get down to $2-$2.3 billion. That's one.
I feel like I'm very confused by the preliminary adjusted estimate for 2020 and that revenue walk. It reads like it's through November 15th. If that's the case, then all the bars we're seeing on that slide, are they for about 10 and a half months equivalent, or are they for the full-year equivalent? I do understand the 21 mid-point on the far right is obviously for the full year. Thank you very much. Hello?
Hey, Umer. We're having just a sound issue. Give us one moment. Yeah. Go on.
Okay. Can you hear me now?
All right. Sorry for the technical issues. We'll obviously make up the lost time at the end. Umer, thank you very much for the question. I'll address the last question first. It's absolutely these are full-year numbers that you see, and Sanjeev can explain the technical reasons for why the footnote was formulated this way, but clearly it's the full-year numbers. On free cash flow, Sanjeev, if you could provide that color that you're also looking for.
Yeah. Umer, just to kind of add to that, the simple way to think about it is the nine-month results that you see on slide 11 are the actual results that have been published for Mylan's 10-Q and Upjohn's carve-out statement. Then you see the full year that includes the estimate for fourth quarter for both Upjohn and Mylan. We have not finalized the results. 10-K will go out on March 1st, but that is the best estimate we have and represents the 12 months and almost mirrored like a pro forma numbers. Going back to the comment about the cash flow, slide 17 actually provides you all the elements, but let me just begin to kind of give you the transparency that you are asking for on the $1.5 billion cash cost.
First of all, it includes both Mylan and Upjohn, and also includes the historical restructuring program that Mylan has indicated. There are four large elements that you need to keep in mind for that. First is the cash cost to achieve synergies. As Rajiv pointed out, we're accelerating that. There's obviously severance-related costs and some site-related restructuring costs that's part of the $1.5 billion. The second element is the litigation and settlement. We got all that lined up, and there are cash costs associated that we anticipated to pay this year. The third element of that is the integration-related cost. As you know, we are setting up TSAs with Pfizer and working on the integration of all the platforms. There is a cost associated with that, which is one-time. The fourth item is the other restructuring-related costs, which are primarily site restructuring.
All these four items roughly account for 90% of $1.5 billion we talked about. The other important factor to note, this $1.5 billion will rapidly reduce over next two years and will significantly improve our free cash flow.
Thank you. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Chris Schott of JPMorgan.
Great. Thanks so much for the questions. I'm still just trying to bridge between the $18 billion top line and particularly the $7 billion of EBITDA that the company pointed to for much of 2020 relative to today's results. I know it wasn't necessarily coming from this team specifically, but it does seem like EBITDA margins are coming in about 500 basis points below those kind of soft guidance targets that have been out there. I know part of this is COVID, but I'm just trying to get a sense. Is this just an issue of not having enough line of sight into margin performance versus last year? Is this the company thinking about maybe its investment levels different as you're looking at the pro forma business? I'm just trying to get a little bit more color on that front.
Just following up on Umer's question, what is a more normalized free cash flow conversion ratio for this business that gets in the low 30s based on that slide 17? Just roughly, what is that number over time as you get past these one-time charges? Thanks so much.
Okay. Thank you, Chris. Look, Chris, what I would say is if you go back, we announced this deal in July 2019. We originally planned to close it in maybe April. It got delayed because of COVID. We finally closed it in November 2020. We are now here in February 2021. Obviously, that is almost two years, and a lot has changed. We pointed out, I think, two of the main big drivers, which was COVID that impacts our EBITDA margin, our starting point. We pointed out the delay in closing which impacts our starting cash position. That is history. We are now here. That is our starting point. We really want to give you guidance for what to expect in 2021.
I believe that we found, and I'm convinced that we found the right starting point in giving you the right number that we can meet and exceed, and there's the basis for this business going forward. We fundamentally rebased the business. All the one-time items are kind of flushed out after Lyrica LOE. We've taken into account all the puts and takes as we give guidance going forward. We've been, I think, very transparent about what these puts and takes are in the slides, so you can follow and track that and model us all eyes forward as we deliver, as we delever, as we rebalance. I think we also got not only the right number, but also the right priorities: debt pay down, strengthening our balance sheet, initiating a dividend, rebalancing the business, and then leveraging the platform that we have going forward.
That is what I'd comment on that. Specifically on the free cash flow, Sanjeev, maybe you can comment on that.
Sure. Sure. Chris, the cash flow conversion, obviously, as we pointed out, 2021 is going to be a trough year for free cash flow as well because of the one-time cost that I mentioned, about $1.5 billion. As that cost declines over the next three years and as we improve the EBITDA because of synergies, and as we look at pay down debt and reduced interest costs, we believe our cash conversion will go up. We're not providing the guidance this time for the next couple of years, but we should expect rapid improvement in free cash flow because of the factor that I mentioned.
Okay. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Gregg Gilbert of Truist Securities.
Hi. I just wanted to follow up on that last part of your answer. I was hoping you could walk us through that $1.5 billion synergy/one-time cost. Simplistically, if we were to take free cash flow guidance for 2021, add back $1.5 billion, which you are calling one-time, can we take 25% of that number plus the growth you would expect in free cash flow to come up with a dividend in 2022, obviously suggesting a very sharp increase in dividend? I want to make sure we have the appropriate thought around that. As it relates to the longer-term outlook that you say you plan to provide, whenever that is, can you walk us through the process that you're going through now that would enable you to be confident in expressing a longer-term view? Thank you.
Yeah. I'll take both of these questions. On the dividend, Greg, clearly we expect to roll the dividend. We're starting with a 25% free cash flow dividend in 2021 that the board will declare in May. Obviously, that's a decision. Future dividend increase is a decision the board will make at the time, taking into account the situation of the business at the time. That would be the answer on the dividend. On the long-term outlook, today we're giving you 2021 guidance. We've not done the work bottom-up to do, because we're only at 90 days, to do a long-term quantitative detailed planning so that we can give you numeric guidance going forward. What we have done, and I'm confident, I've seen enough of this business.
I've seen enough of the leverage that we have to confidently say that 2021 is our trough year, and we provide you more quantitative guidance in a few months as we go through this process. Okay. Next question.
Our next question comes from Elliot Wilbur of Raymond James.
Thanks. Good morning. Can I just ask Sanjeev to just quickly clarify his comments around free cash flow conversion? I think the questions were measuring that relative to EBITDA levels. I just want to make sure that's what you're thinking about when you talk about the acceleration going forward, because if you back out the $1.5 billion in cost, you're at almost 60%, which is a pretty high level. I want to make sure that I clarified what you were referring to when referencing free cash flow conversion. Help us think about the $1.5 billion in cash costs this year. I guess my prior expectation was that that was going to be spent over a couple of years to realize these synergies. What happens in 2022 and 2023?
What are we looking at in incremental cash spend relative to some of these restructuring programs that's going to offset some of the synergy realization? Thanks.
It sounds like we're having technical difficulties again. We apologize.
Okay. Are we back on? All right. We went to backup old-fashioned speakerphone now. We hope this won't give us any more trouble. Sanjeev, why don't you continue?
Elliot, you had three questions on this part, and let me take you one by one. First of all, I want to start with that. The 2021 free cash flow is the trough year based on all that what we explained, and then I expect the free cash flow to improve. There are three things going on, essentially, which is important to keep in mind. One is the $1.5 billion cash cost that I mentioned about. There are four elements of that. That item is not going to become zero next year. That item is going to be substantially reduced in next year and year after that. That obviously will improve the free cash flow. We obviously have an EBITDA improvement that will go year on year. The third element is the interest cost reduction as we pay down our debt.
Free cash flow will improve over a period of time. Conversion ratios will improve over a period of time, and I'm very confident about the rapid improvement. The second part of your question was on terms of the I think you were referring to the comment that we made that at the JPMorgan about $1 billion-$1.3 billion of cost to achieve synergies. The context of that is that's still valid, that $1 billion-$1.3 billion of cost to achieve synergies will happen over the next three years. What I mentioned about $1.5 billion is both includes cost to achieve synergies and other one-time costs. Both are combined in that amount, and we expect the amount to go down and cash flow to improve as we go forward.
Okay. Next question.
Our next question comes from Randall Stanicky of RBC Capital Markets.
Great. Thanks, guys. I want to ask about your ability to grow from the pipeline. If we look at the EBITDA bridge on page 16, it shows base business erosion of $480 million, which is higher than new product contribution of $325 million. The eroding revenue is also at a higher margin. Can you address that and get us comfortable around Viatris's ability to drive growth from the pipeline with new launches against that erosion going forward? The additional question would be, what's your ability to pursue business development to help supplement that growth through 2023 as you guys focus on debt pay down? I guess, is there an annual amount that you can deploy, or how are you thinking about BD? Thanks.
Thank you, Randall. As you correctly pointed out, if you look at 2021 and the numbers you quoted, 2021 has a bunch of unique drivers on the left. These drivers will go away. What we are left with is a fundamentally rebalanced business. All the LOEs are washed out, the major LOEs. The cost structure is adjusted. We are paying down debt. One-time costs are phasing out. Synergies will come in. All of that benefits our business. Regarding the top line, again, no major LOEs coming up, and we will be able to get more out of the platform we have. Based on all the push and takes that we see, we are highly confident that 2021 will be a trough year for revenue.
It will be a trough year for EBITDA, and certainly will be a trough year for cash flow, which we expect to strongly accelerate. On your BD question, look, BD, we are a hybrid business model, and we are unashamed about it. We will grow in the future, a combination of internal and external R&D, if you will, internal R&D and BD. The key is to be very focused with that, with disciplines, capital allocation, and make sure that everything we do, whether it's R&D or whether it's BD, is value-creating. Now, at the same time, our short-term priorities are very, very clear, and we will, in the near term, focus on delivering and will not do any BD that will impact our ability to pay back debt. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Jason Gerberry of Bank of America.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Mine relates to your outlook for the 2021 business. It seems like from the time the deal was struck, the main difference is COVID primarily, which seems transient in nature. What I wonder about is how your expectations for the outlook now stand versus when the deal was consummated. The reason I ask is investors will look ahead to a 2Q goodwill impairment test. The legacy of large generic pharma mergers hasn't been particularly favorable on that front. Wondering qualitatively if you can get a sense or give us a sense, has the business fundamentals altered in a meaningful way relative to when the deal was consummated? Thanks.
Okay. I'll ask Rajiv to answer the first part of the question and Sanjeev on the technical question that was asked.
Yes, and as Michael said very early on in his remarks, nothing about the business fundamentals. The foundations of all the ethos which we have, the principles, why we did this deal, they stand intact. The diversity of the scale, the transformative scale, the diversity of the portfolio, the pipeline, the platform which we have, and our ability to get more out of this, that has not changed. What has changed, of course, as you say, that COVID last year, COVID has been one big driver. As I look forward with every bigger cliff, which you call an LOE or any such event behind us, and we had assumed, even if it comes to, let's say, URP, we had made an assumption that, okay, Q3 sets in.
From here onward, we look into it as a normalized business, which we have a base where our job will be how best to manage the erosion of this base, that there are opportunities over there, how get to maximum out of these launches which we have in our pipeline, and execute on the synergies. We believe there's a potential for us to not only exceed, which we have already accelerated in terms of the timing, but exceed this $1 billion. I do not think the fundamentals about this combination have changed to any extent. Michael, back to you.
Yeah. Sorry, keep on.
Jason, on the second question about the Goodwill Impairments. As I mentioned, we are in the process of doing our purchase accounting and fair valuing the asset and finalizing our balance sheet. Based on the latest forecast that we talked about today, I don't expect any material Goodwill Impairment or anything like that. We are very comfortable with the underlying value of the business.
We just did the transaction in November. It would be right?
Yeah.
We traded. All right. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Balaji Prasad of Barclays.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for the question. I found slide eight very useful and the way you presented it over there. Can you comment on the longevity and the quantum of growth of the tailwinds that you have mentioned in each of the geographies? Also, looking beyond 2021 and one-off challenges, could we be sitting here next year thinking that China VBP impact was worse than what you factored now, or Japanese generics got hit by stronger mandated price cuts? What could go wrong, and what could be newer one-offs that we are not seeing now? Thank you.
Rajiv?
Yeah. Rajiv, great question. Let me start with China, for example. I think that China, with the full impact of VBP, while we are now extending this to Lyrica, ZOLOFT, and CELEBREX, business has absorbed that impact or is set up to absorb. Actually, we are very happy with how the business is responding to and shift from the hospital to retail, which is the fastest growing channel. In fact, we are excited to invest and drop in more pipeline, drop in more products. I believe that our modern legacy retail-oriented portfolio like Dona or Legalon or Dymista, these products will do better at the hands of this new combination. Let's put China over there. Japan, we had assumed we have taken the worst-case scenario.
In fact, we have taken the recent trends, which because of the COVID had got accelerated, not generalization, but our opportunity in Japan is we have a portfolio, established brand portfolio, which is growing at about 9%-10%, the launch of authorized generics, and the new launches like we just launched the first biosimilar to the Humira over there. There are other pipeline products which will help us offset that. I do not see a lot of big moving pieces, as we have mentioned again and again as we look forward. Emerging market, to me, I think once we have this one-off issues over there, it is a stable business as we look forward. Now we are going to work on how we can get that business back to the globe. Europe is at a great place.
The normalized European erosion is not more than 1%, 2%, 3%. That is what we have seen over the last few years. Our portfolio is well set over there. It is more towards the brand, 60% towards the brand and 40% towards generics. Growing biosimilars. Biosimilars are growing there almost at about 50%-60% year over year. All this provides more sustainability to our business in Europe. We have been working continuously to minimize the volatility of our U.S. business. That was the most. Now, from the exposure point of view, that core generics is not more than 10% of our combined platform. That should give you a little bit of flavor on a going forward basis.
Thank you.
Okay. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Nathan Rich of Goldman Sachs.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for the questions. Looking at the revenue and EBITDA walks that you gave on slides 15 and 16, and as we think sort of about the growth outlook off the normalized base, I guess looking at the base business erosion and new product contribution in 2021, do you feel like that's what you would typically expect in a normalized year just as we think kind of beyond 2021 and after some of these one-time headwinds go away, what the different kind of moving pieces are to the growth outlook? If I could just ask a follow-up to Sanjeev, your comments earlier, could you maybe just talk about the 4Q EBITDA performance in a little bit more detail?
I think it was a little bit softer than we had expected, so I just want to make sure I understand the moving pieces in the fourth quarter.
Okay. I'll let Rajiv talk about our pipeline and new product revenue, and then Sanjeev can go to the Q4.
Yeah, Nat. I mentioned in my prepared remarks about on a normalized basis, if we take all these one-off items out, we see this base business on a normalized way eroding at about 3%-4%. If you look into our average track record of how we have launched or how much we have launched over the last five, six years, it comes into the line of about $500 million-$600 million every year. We believe that this combined platform, that our ability to get more out of those launches, we have not factored it in. I think that's where we have been a little bit balanced, but we believe we can get more out of that. If I look forward, I think that it's a simple dynamic. We have to manage this base business erosion.
If we can arrest that decline and manage it efficiently, that's one opportunity. Second, we can get more out of the launches in the near term.
Nathan, on the fourth quarter, clearly, we have not kind of finalized that. We are one week away from reporting our 10-K. I kind of give you a little bit more color on what is going on. Clearly, COVID has continued to be a major headwind associated with lower prescriptions. We have seen lower volumes in certain products just to align the customer inventory levels in anticipation of upcoming competition in 2021. The third item, which is one-time in nature, that is how it is, the termination of generic collaboration with Pfizer in Japan. We have taken back the inventory which was sold to Pfizer, and that has got an impact on the fourth quarter results and obviously the foreign exchange headwind.
It obviously was a very unusual quarter.
Right. Right. This is for reasons of coming together, unusual quarter. I think the important thing to note there is we got a starting base that we can now look forward to 2021 with all pushes and pulls that we described to you in these walks.
Okay. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from David Risinger of Morgan Stanley.
Yes. Thank you very much. I have two questions, please. First, with regard to the 3%-4% erosion that is expected annually, could you just discuss that a little bit further in light of the company's very high margins? The company is targeting a 35% margin, and that is set to go higher. I would think that would attract additional competition given low-cost structures of competitors throughout the world. If you could speak to that. Second, with respect to the dividend, it seems like given that the dividend is based upon free cash flow, there should be a tremendous gap up in the dividend in 2022 since the one-time costs will step down tremendously. Could you speak to that opportunity?
Also the annual dividend volatility that you expect relative to other public companies that do not determine their annual dividend using free cash flow. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, David. Look, I'll start with the dividend, and I'd like Rajiv to comment on the erosion and the business going forward. On the dividend, very clearly what we say is our 2021 initial dividend will be determined. We expect it to be set by 25% of free cash flow. Future dividends will be decided by the board of directors at the time, and I don't want to get into speculating on this right now. Rajiv?
David, I think a week from now, Investor Day will be a great opportunity for us to walk you through what this business is made up of and what are the underlying dynamics of this base is made up of the LOEs, a bunch of established brands which are not declining, which are some of those brands that are actually growing, complex and biosimilars, complex generics and biosimilars, and the core generics or generics portfolio. Everything has a different dynamic. The catch is in understanding at a granular level how these businesses are performing and manage them accordingly. Once we walk you through the dynamics and how we are managing that, I think we will be able to give you a much better appreciation about how we are basically managing.
Because your point about the low-cost competitors might be applicable to the generics core generics segment, but there is also this restructuring exercise, and everything we are doing is saying, "How can we continue to be more competitive in that space and not lose that floor?" I think it will be a great opportunity for us to walk you through the walk around the globe and walk through these businesses, the underlying dynamics, and how we intend or propose to manage these.
Just one other point. I think we said in the press release today that clearly the board is going to decide on the dividend, but our expectation is the dividend amount to grow next year and thereafter.
Very clear. Yeah. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Akash Tewari of Wolfe Research.
Hey, guys. Do you see this as kitchen sink guidance? Because I'm a bit concerned about some of the embedded benefits in your bridge. Particularly, what gives you confidence on the $180 million FX benefit? On EBITDA, you bake in a $325 million new product gross margin benefit. Looking at your revenue growth, you have $690 million in new product revenue, but that includes about $250 million in Aspen. How do you get such a big benefit on new product gross margins given your new product revenues that you're guiding? It also looks like China is still a very critical part of your 2021 res assumption. I think you guys are implying about $1.75 billion. That's higher than what you originally guided at the time of the deal close.
What gives you confidence given about 30% of your business is retail that it will stay steady at those levels going forward? Thank you.
Okay. A lot to unpack here. One thing, just to clarify very quickly, the new product revenue number, as you can see in the footnote, includes the Aspen deal. We are very transparent about that. The guidance we give you today is a realistic guidance. It is the right number. It is a number that takes into account all the puts and takes that we see in the business. We try to be as transparent as possible to lay those out for you. We also think we struck the right number in terms of priorities going forward. Thank you for pointing out China. We are very proud of the performance in China. We fundamentally restructured the business there. The performance is ahead of our expectations. We are very bullish on the future of what we can do in China. Rajiv, do you want to add anything to that?
No. China, the retail you called, actually, that's been growing at about 20%-25% year over year, and we feel very bullish about that.
On the FX, it's the normal course of business. The FX tailwind that you see here is in line with how the currencies are behaving, and it's in line with how some of the other guidance have come out from the other peer works. There is nothing extraordinary in that.
Okay. All right. Next question, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have time for one more question. Our last question will come from the line from Ronny Gal of Bernstein.
Good morning, everybody, and thanks for fitting me in. First, since it was not said by my peers, I would just state that I want to thank you for promising us more detailed guidance than we've received before from Viatris. That will obviously be a positive for us. Second, Michael, I mean, the question I always have about the business you're in is that things seem to be going well as countries continue to fund healthcare the way they do. Usually, it takes a step down when countries change their strategy about how they pay for healthcare. We've seen it before with Germany. We've seen it with Australia. We're now seeing it with the BBL in China. The question for me is, why should we not continue to see that?
You got an ongoing running business, which after this one time might look slightly growing on the top line. You always have the risk that once in a while, countries will come in and do something about this. Right now, China has been very successful with the BBL from their perspective. Why should they not expand that to the retail market? You mentioned European market have talked about the need to curtail government costs in the post-COVID period. Why would they not go ahead and curtail some of the spending on the minor drugs, which is the core of your business? How do you think about this longer term in terms of the impact of this new business?
Yeah. Thank you, Ronny. I think the business we're in, we do have, and we acknowledge that we always have natural erosion. The benefit of this strategic combination, the benefit of the Viatris platform, is that we are so diversified now. We're so broad geographically, right? You look at the exposure. If you take our new reporting disclosure in the categories, to take generics, for example, our US generic business is about 10% now. Our exposure to China is 10%. Our product portfolio is very diverse. Over 1,400 molecules, only a single product makes more than 5% of the revenue. For things to go wrong, a lot of things need to go wrong now, right? That's the benefit of the diversification we have. That gives us stability.
Yes, we do expect things to happen in one country and things go up or down, but we now have enough levers to offset that. That is, I think, the key reason and strategic benefit that we have. Was there a second part of the question that I forgot? That was it? Okay. Ronny, thank you for that question. I think thanks, everybody, for joining us today. I apologize for the two technical issues that we had. We will see how we improve our technology going forward. We look forward to providing you more details on our unique platform and some of the initiatives that we have that make us so excited about the potential for Viatris going forward at our upcoming Investor Day on March 1. Thank you very much again.
This does conclude today's Viatris 2021 Financial Guidance Call and Webcast. Please disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.