Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Chris Schott at JP Morgan, it's my pleasure to be introducing Zoetis today. From the company, we have Kristin Peck, the CEO, as well as Wetteny Joseph , who's gonna join us for some of the Q&A after the presentation.
As a reminder, we've moved away from the formal breakout sessions at the conference this year. Post the presentation, we're gonna do some Q&A from the stage. With that, I'm gonna turn it over to Kristin. Happy New Year, and thanks for joining us.
All right. Well, it is great to be back. Thank you very much, Chris, especially to be back in person and to see so many familiar faces. Before we get into the real fun of the day, we got some legal housekeeping, why don't I kick into that for a second?
As you can probably imagine, we're gonna have some forward-looking statements today, as well as some financials that are non-GAAP, the reconciliations of which you can find in our presentation today, as well as on our website under the SEC Filings section.
With that, let's have some fun. If there's anybody in the room who doesn't know Zoetis, I thought it might be a good place to start. At Zoetis, we're incredibly purpose-driven. We see our purpose to nurture the world and humankind by advancing care for animals.
We do this by providing a wide range of products from vaccines and medicines, to diagnostics and devices, to customers that range from veterinarians, livestock producers, as well as pet owners around the world. As you look at this year, our guidance that we gave out in November is to generate revenue of $8 billion-$8.75 billion and operational growth of 7%-8%.
As we think about today's presentation, there are five takeaways I want to leave you with. The first is that animal health, the fundamental drivers of which remain incredibly strong. As I'll talk about today, they've been strong over time, even in uncertain times. The second is around Zoetis, that our market leadership is built on a diverse, durable, and innovation-driven portfolio that has a very long life with some compelling franchises that I'll speak about.
This portfolio has given us financial strength to continue to invest in our business and to grow our business. I'll outline some of those key areas there that will not just allow growth, but profitability over time. That we're strategically positioned to expand in some of the largest and fastest-growing markets across animal health. What has this done for you, our shareholders?
Our proven track record of performance has allowed us to deliver significant total shareholder returns since we IPO'd, I'll talk about a little bit this later, about 10 years ago. All right. Let's jump into the industry. Zoetis operates in the animal health industry, which is around $45 billion. It's in all the sections I spoke about before: medicines, vaccines, diagnostics, bio devices, genetics, et cetera.
As you look at this graph over time, over the last 10 years, you can see that the growth in the industry overall is averaging about 5.8%. Those are through different economic times, through different disease outbreaks, different challenges with weather in our industry. If you look in the bottom, even as you look at the last recession, the industry still grew at 2.6%.
We're an industry that's incredibly resilient. We're not, you know, we're not, like, impervious to economic challenges, but we weather them much better given the fundamental drivers of our business. Let's start on the first driver, which has to do with the fact that animal health is quite different than human health.
As you look here, the first thing you'll notice about the animal health business is that we have direct access to the decision-makers. We sell to the livestock producer or to the veterinarian, and they actually purchase our product.
We have a much more consultative approach. Many times in human health, you can measure your visit in maybe, you know, one hand, you know, three to five minutes. We spend extended periods of time, and we're truly a trusted partner to our customers. The second major difference is that it's a self-pay model. We don't really sell through governments. There's no third-party providers. When we sell our products, we sell them based on outcomes and value.
We have a much better sense of what a market's gonna be for our product based on the outcomes we can deliver for either the pet or the animal when it comes to livestock. The next thing that's different is we have incredibly cost-effective R&D.
The reason for that starts with the fact that we begin research in the species that we're gonna create the product for. It's faster, on average, two to three years faster than you'll see in human health. It's also much more cost-effective.
It's a real compelling difference between animal health and human health. The last thing that's really different in animal health than human health is the diversity of the business. There's certainly the diversity of species. Zoetis, for example, operates across eight different species. It's also the diversity of the markets.
Even when one market is up or down or there's a weather event in one market or another, it has allowed the industry and Zoetis through different challenges to weather them much more effectively than many other industries. As you look at that, we can start on the animal health side in livestock. What is the primary driver for livestock? It's protein consumption.
Today, across the globe, there's about 8 billion people on this planet. It's expected to grow to about 10 billion by 2050. What does that mean? That means the world's gonna have to produce protein that should increase between 50% and 70% to meet that need. It also means in an environment where we need to be producing more, we need to do it in more sustainable ways. We need to find ways to keep animals healthier and more productive.
That really comes into the unique position we have at Zoetis to create those solutions, whether that be in poultry or aquaculture. The need for sustainable agriculture production of protein is one that's gonna continue to grow. We often get questions around, "Well, you know, can't you get that with alternative proteins?"
They're growing, but they remain incredibly small, and many people try them. It's still the significant primary protein source for people around the world today, and I believe in 2050 will be animal-based proteins. That may shift, and we often see this across the livestock industry. In difficult economic times, people may trade proteins. They may trade between beef to pork or pork to chicken or chicken to eggs or dairy, but they're still consuming protein, and that is a sustainable macro driver that will continue to drive animal health.
Let's focus on the pet care side. I'm sure anyone who's in this room has seen the big pet care boom over the last few years. There's a number of trends I wanna talk about that have been driving the industry, not just since COVID, but long before it. The first is that pet owners are prioritizing the health of their animals even more. Some of this is driven by who is generating that demand.
That 50% of pet owners today are Millennials and Gen Z. The fact is they see their pets differently. They're much more important parts of their family. They do lots more research. They're much more willing to spend on their pets. We're also seeing a lot of the pets that are being adopted, being adopted by high-income families that often have more than one pet.
The big question we're getting in the one-on-ones this morning and that we've been getting over the last few months is, well, what happens if there is an economic recession? Are people gonna stop spending on their pets? We did a study at Zoetis, and the reality was, in a hypothetical situation where a family was facing a 20% reduction in their annual income, they wouldn't change the investment in their animal's healthcare costs at all.
Part of the reason why is that animal healthcare costs are only 0.87% of a household spend. It's very small. Even if it went up a little bit, it doesn't have a significant impact. The loss of that pet on the family dynamics has immeasurable.
This has been supported by other organizations such as the Human Animal Bond Research Institute, as you see on the left-hand side of this slide, where 86% of pet owners said they would spend whatever it takes to take care of their pet. The other dynamic we get a lot of questions on from investors is around vet clinic dynamics. What's happening there?
We've seen a lot of different trends between 2020, 2021, and 2022. What I wanted to share today is some longer-term trends, so you can put some of this into context. If you look at vet clinics, there's three things we really take a look at: overall revenue, spend per visits, and overall visits. As you can see here, beginning in 2018, quarter by quarter through today, all three lines have an upward trajectory.
There are, you know, anything that happens in any given quarter that makes one significantly more than another. There's no question in 2021 that you saw significant increases given a lot more pets were adopted, a lot of those pets were puppies, there was a lot more visits, et cetera.
What we're seeing, even if you look at the 3Q data, is, you know, revenue per visit is still up 9%. You know, overall revenue's up 5%. What we've seen is some slight declines overall in vet clinic visits, and there's a few causes of this. The first and foremost is some of those puppies are now dogs. They need to go less frequently.
If you do have a dog that's no longer a puppy and you try to get an appointment with your vet, I guarantee you'll find out that it's going to take you a few weeks or a month to get that visit. There's been some challenges in the capacity of vet clinics. Some of this is, you know, they got burnt out, honestly, doing what they did in 2021.
They just didn't wanna do it anymore. Some of it is they had great turnover in their practices. We've seen this, you know, overall in many sectors of the economy, whereas everybody said, "I wanna make more money. I don't wanna have to go to a physical presence required job." They lost a lot of techs, and they lost a lot of their front office staff.
We couldn't just produce more vets overnight to meet this need that we saw. I think the really important thing for you to focus on is the pet owner demand is there. The decline in vet visits isn't that the pet owners don't wanna see a vet.
They absolutely wanna see a vet. It's there's a limited capacity. What we're starting to see, I was out with vet clinics in the last few months in the US and in Brazil and in Chile, and this is a global trend, by the way, is that vet clinics are starting to figure out how to address it. Part of this is have a more leveraged model, right? Maybe instead of one vet, one vet tech, maybe it's one vet, three vet techs, and I can make use of my time much more efficiently.
I think this is what you're gonna continue to see. The really important thing is, as you look at revenue overall and spend per visit, it's up 25% since 2018. The industry remains strong. Pet owner demand remains incredibly strong. Let's talk about what this means overall for Zoetis. The first is that we have a diverse, durable, and innovation-driven portfolio, and we've had this over many, many years. It allows us to have steady performance across a myriad of different economic and macro environments. We do this across seven therapeutic areas, as I said before, eight species. We have 15 blockbuster products, which in animal health are defined as products over $100 million. The average market life of our product is 30 years. We have 300 product lines.
Really, this is driven by an R&D engine that is incredibly productive. We invested in 2021 around $500 million. In 2022, our guidance is around $530 million-$540 million for our R&D spend. We've been one of the most productive R&D engines in the industry, bringing disruptive innovations such as the first, the second, and the third monoclonal antibody in the industry. From Cytopoint for atopic dermatitis to Librela for osteoarthritis pain in dogs to Solensia in cats. We are the world leader. As you look at Simparica Trio, the first company in the U.S. to bring a triple combination product. We also do this with lifecycle enhancements, whether that's in companion animal or livestock.
Apoquel Chewable, for example, formulation as we've launched in Europe, or Draxxin KP, or in singles, which are, you know, additions to vaccines and livestock with our Procerta family of vector vaccines or new products for cattle. The R&D engine of Zoetis is incredibly strong, and this innovation that we've led helps us drive growth above and beyond the market.
The clearest way to see this is in the world-leading franchises that we have built in some of the biggest sectors in animal health. As you start on the left-hand side of this page, for those of you who've been with us for a while, we created the dermatology space in animal health. Back in 2012, the animal health dermatology market was around $70 million. Today, it's $1.25 billion, of which we're $1.2 billion of it.
That was even in 2021. We did this by creating a market, by better understanding what the customer needed, and then helping build that market through vets as well as in direct-to-consumer advertising. We believe we can continue to grow the dermatology market. We can grow it by expanding geographies outside of the United States, where the usage is still significantly less than it is in the U.S. Even in the U.S., there's still 6 million untreated dogs. We believe we can continue to expand that market. We invest in this heavily through direct-to-consumer advertising. The second is the biggest market in animal health, is our franchise across parasiticides. Paras in the world is around a $6 billion market. Over the last 3 years, it's growing around 13%.
As you look at what Zoetis has done with Simparica Trio, ProHeart, Revolution, Rev Plus, no matter where you are in the world, no matter how you practice as a vet, we have the product that your customer needs. It's a franchise. We look at it holistically. As you see here, we have a $1.3 billion business growing at 45%. It's an incredibly exciting space, and we're very excited about the potential growth of parasiticides. Last is sort of the place we're disrupting most right at the moment, which is the pain category. Historically, the pain category in dogs and cats combined has been somewhere around a $500 million market. We believe with the addition of Librela for dogs and Solensia for cats, we can grow that market to over $1 billion with our innovation.
It's really historically been NSAIDs. We were the leader in that with our product Rimadyl, which is part of our franchise. We really think this is disruptive innovation that we're gonna bring to pretty much double a market. This is what Zoetis has continued to do over time. We are the world leader, not just as you see by species, where across our largest four species, that was at 90% of our revenue, we are number one. We're number one in the dermatology space with our franchise there, number one in pet pain, and number two in parasiticides. Our leadership is across geographies, it's across species, and it's across product categories. What this has helped us to do is to invest in the growth for our future. Obviously, our primary investment is always inside of our company. It's gonna be in R&D.
I've spoken about our significant investment in 2021 and 2022. What should you expect for 2023? Even faster growth in our R&D spend, given the strength of our pipeline. We're also investing internally in other spaces, in direct-to-consumer advertising, supporting some of our biggest franchises, whether that be in dermatology with Apoquel and Cytopoint, certainly our Paras across our whole broad franchise. We're also looking at that now with pain, with Librela and Solensia outside the U.S. in unbranded. As we grow in the U.S., we'll be building direct-to-consumer campaigns there as well, so the pet owners are aware of our products, and they go to their veterinarians asking for it. We're also investing in supply.
Given the strong growth that Zoetis has had over time, we need to continue to expand our capabilities there, as well as in really important spaces such as monoclonal antibodies. Again, we've had the first, second, and third there, and we have a strong pipeline of monoclonal antibodies behind that. We are the world's leader, not just in research and development, but the ability to scale monoclonal antibodies for a market that's self-pay. To be able to reliably do that, we're investing heavily there, as well as in many other important platforms for our parasiticides, for derm, you name it. We've got expansion of facilities in the U.S., in Ireland. We've expanded with new acquisitions, in Australia, as well as expansions in China. We're also investing in sustainability, which we think is critical to our success as a company in the future.
We've made commitments to be carbon neutral by 2030, as well as 100% renewable energy. We have very specific plans in place to meet these targets, and importantly, to support our customers for which sustainability remains a really critical imperative. Given our financial strength, we still have the ability to continue to invest in business development, whether that's external alliances, partnerships, or acquisitions. We were excited last year to close two. The first one was Basepaws in the pet care genetic space. If you've got a cat, I hopefully you're a customer of Basepaws. We'll be expanding into dog there as well, as well as the acquisition of Jurox, an animal health company based out of Australia, but that sells around the world that's both in livestock and companion animal.
We've done all this while still returning our excess capital to our shareholders. We've done this in the first three quarters of 2022 with $1.2 billion in share buybacks, and have committed quarterly in 2023 to increase our dividend about 15%. As we look into 2023 and really the foreseeable future, we see 5 major growth drivers that will help us continue to drive above market growth. We've talked about companion animal parasiticides. As we're back and in full supply in this quarter, we expect to continue to grow that market significantly. In our key dermatology portfolio, which remains a significant franchise for us, that we're gonna continue to grow. In osteoarthritis pain, where we are basically establishing the new standard of care. In global diagnostics, which is a fast-growing space that we're in, it grows at double digits.
It's a $4 billion market. As we complete and lap our go-to-market new model in the U.S., we're really excited to see the growth there, but importantly outside of the U.S., which is growing even faster. Lastly is emerging markets. If you go back to those trends I talked about in the beginning, whether that was livestock or companion animal, both are critical in emerging markets. That's where that new population growth of 2 billion is gonna primarily be coming from, so protein and livestock, but pets are becoming much more important. A great demonstration of that is China, which our business today is 50% livestock, 50% companion animal. Both of those pet and livestock trends are critical to growing in emerging markets. As I reflect, in three weeks, Zoetis is gonna celebrate our 10-year anniversary as a public company.
I know some of you in the room I can see were with us way back when in 10 years ago when we IPO'd. We were really the first large animal health company. I remember talking back then, nobody really knew this animal health space. We were about $16 billion on our market cap when we IPO'd. Today, we're somewhere around $70 billion. We had $4.6 billion in revenue. We're now over $8 billion. Importantly, as you think about where we are today and where we're going, is when we IPO'd, companion animal was only about 36% of our business. Last year in 2021, a little over a year ago, it was over 60% and growing quickly.
These are fundamentally important as we think about our growth going forward because companion animal tends to be more resilient in challenging times than livestock is. We've improved our operating margins from 24 to 38%, our revenue per colleague. I wanna pause there on the revenue per colleague number because so much of our success has been because of our colleagues, because of the culture. All of our colleagues who work at Zoetis are incredibly purpose-driven.
They love what they do. They believe what they do really matters. We invest aggressively in our culture. It has led to not just much better retention than almost any other company, but our engagement globally is 88% with our colleagues. That was last year in one of the most challenging years, and we think this is absolutely critical to our success. What does that mean to you as shareholders?
I think over 500% total shareholder return since we IPO'd is not a bad place to be if you're one of our shareholders. We've done this by growing our revenue faster than the market every year. As you look at this thing, it can maybe anywhere from 2% or more in any given year, and that is even more impressive given we are the market leader in the space. We've continued to do that. We've done that again by growing adjusted net income and our margin over time, continued to do that to deliver profitable growth for our investors. As you take this and you say, "What is our long-term value proposition?" It's exactly what we've always committed. We're gonna grow our revenue faster than the market. We're gonna grow our bottom line faster than our top line.
We're gonna drive growth through investments first and foremost internally. We're gonna leverage BD, but we'll always commit to returning excess capital to our shareholders. I hope I leave you with the five takeaways I promised at the beginning of this, that the fundamentals of animal health remain incredibly strong, and they're not just over the next few years. These are enduring market trends. Zoetis has a solid, diverse, durable, innovation-driven portfolio that will drive great growth across dermas, pain, you know, multiple categories and multiple geographies. It gives us the financial strength to continue to invest in the future and deliver those returns. We're strategically positioned in the most important and fastest-growing areas in animal health.
That all this will provide you, our shareholders, with a proven track record to deliver shareholder returns that will be valued for many, many years to come. Thank you very much for listening. Now I think Chris and Wetteny, hopefully join me on the stage. We'll go to the really fun part where we get to take your questions.
Great. Thank you for that. Great. Maybe just to kick off the Q&A, I think you touched on this in the presentation. It seems like one of the key debates around this space has been just the health of this companion market. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what gives you such confidence that the, that the pet owner is gonna kinda hold up here and be willing to keep spending through maybe a more challenging economic environment going forward?
Sure. I'll let Wetteny take this 'cause he just finished a big market study to actually answer this question.
Yeah. Look, certainly we've seen the resiliency in the market. As Kristin shared in the prepared commentary here, we've seen a real increase in the proportion of our revenues that are coming from companion animal, which has proven to be even more resilient. We commissioned a study recently that just completed in December across our key markets, certainly the U.S. and our top 10 markets overall, and what we've seen in other studies previously is more than underscored, which is pet owners are facing a 20% decrease in their overall budget would not change the amount they spend on their pets. That underscores that.
As we exit 2022, and we're operating across the world, we continue to see strength across our business, whether you look at Europe as we exit 2022 and enter into 2023, whether you look at the U.S., where we continue to see strong demand, though some of the pet, sort of the clinic dynamics around labor constraints is something we're continuing to monitor, et cetera. We continue to see that strength across our markets and where we operate, which is underscoring that resiliency that we see, that we've seen over decades if you look at the animal health market overall, but also our innovation driving through whatever the market is.
On that topic of clinic kind of visit growth, how sensitive is Zoetis' business? I know different players in the space have different sensitivity. I guess as you think about an environment where maybe we do have capacity constraints, can you manage through that, given that I know some of your products are more recurring in nature and maybe don't require a
Yeah, I mean, I'd say, well, the proof is that we have been more. If you look at our guidance for last year at 7%-8%, you know, on average of 8%, I mean, we have been more resilient. Part of that is we have a lot of chronic products. We have a lot of preventative products that don't require a vet visit to, you know, to go on. I think once you're on our product, you tend to be on it for a longer period of time. I think we are more resilient. I think the other thing to focus on is the fact that a lot of our products are moving to the e-commerce on autoship.
Once you get a prescription, you're just gonna continue to get that, and even if you didn't remember to bring your pet in or you were delayed 'cause your vet practice didn't have an appointment, Chewy's more than happy to call your vet and just make sure that we should continue that Simparica Trio prescription, and they do. I would say the other thing we're more resilient on is we have really strong relationships with corporates that let us, you know, make sure that we are the primary product that we're being given throughout these times. I do think, you know, we have lots of products that don't require a veterinary visit and can be given through other channels as well.
On some of those efficiency metrics of the clinics kind of changing their way of doing business, do you think we'll see that in 2023, that we'll start to see a, you know, a pivot that you can still get back to at least, like, flat visit growth, or is this going to be a multi-year process to address this?
Yeah. If you look at vet clinic, I mean, historically, as you looked at those trends and even more, we looked at the chart I showed, if you wanna download on the website, you know, it was 2018, it generally grows about 1%.
I mean, that's generally the way the vet clinic visits. We absolutely think you'll get back to that in 2023. I think, you know, what you're really starting to see is vet clinics coming up with better models. You can train vet techs a lot faster than you can get new vets out there. What they're starting to say is, well, a better leveraged model, and that's being led by corporates who clearly see the data, clearly see the benefits, and can quickly train people and bring them on board. I do think you're gonna start to see that. You know, maybe it'll be, you know, quarter by quarter a constant improvement. Yes, I think you're gonna get back to, at least as you look at we'll lap some of the bad comps by the second half of the year.
I think you'll be back on that trend. I don't know, Wetteny, if you see differently.
Look, I think if you look at the numbers, right, the visit numbers are still above where they were before the pandemic, right? What's driven 5%-6% growth across a 20-year period across the market isn't just the visit numbers. It's actually what people are willing to spend, and that number has accelerated through the pandemic. It was already growing and supporting that 5%-6% because as Kristin said, it's a 1% increase in visit numbers historically per year. You're driving a 5%-6% growth rate, which companion animal is a bigger growth rate versus livestock in that picture. It really is the amount they're spending per visit and the overall revenue at the clinic that's the key driver, although visits are important as well.
It sounds like your confidence in the health of the end markets is not changed.
There's no problem with pet owner demand, and the vet clinics will figure this other, the short-term challenges they have out because it's in their best interest to do so. All I know is when there's a demand, someone will find a way to meet it.
Absolutely. On supply chain, it seems like it's an issue we're highlighting throughout the year, and it felt like it kinda came to a head in 3Q. Can you just remind us where you are in terms of addressing some of the supply chain dynamics, and should we think about that being pretty much fully resolved heading into 2023, or are there some issues to work through still?
Yeah. When you look at the most important categories where we operate in, whether you look at parasiticides, you look at our monoclonal antibodies in our derm franchise, we feel very confident entering into 2023 versus where we were in 2022, where arguably that was the element that kept us from being able to deliver what we committed to from the beginning of the year. We started out the year talking about capacity constraints in 2022, for those who recall.
As we got through Q2 and Q3, the impact on parasiticides is a little bit more pronounced. It had an impact on us on the year. We're entering 2023 in much better shape. Essentially, parasiticides don't see unless there's some unforeseen event out there in the world. We're entering the year with strength in terms of our ability to deliver on demand for parasiticides. Certainly, our monoclonal antibodies, which are very important for us, whether you look at Librela, Solensia, Cytopoint on the derm side, where we are actually launching Librela in markets outside of Europe, where we delayed those launches last year. We're doing that in 2023. We're very confident in terms of where we're entering into with 2023 from a supply perspective.
Great. Good, good to hear. On Trio, it's obviously been a phenomenal launch. About three years in now, just any kind of surprises in terms of either where you're taking share from or how the, I guess, the market for triples has evolved?
Yeah. I'll start and let Wetteny build on this. We were really pleased. For those of us who were with us back in 2020, we launched into the pandemic, I think it was April of 2020 was the launch date for this one. We've been learning a lot as we went, to be honest with you. I think the first thing is that, you know, the convenience and the efficacy of the product is incredible, and it, you know, has great value. I think a lot of what you've seen is a faster uptake to the product than I think most people would have expected.
Customers wanna pay for innovation. They wanna pay for convenience. Instead of having to take 2 products every month and remembering, one is much simpler. It's an oral. I think what many people were surprised by is how fast we've moved customers from topicals and collars into the oral category and how much customers wanna pay for innovation. We've just seen incredible strength in Trio. You know, I think the other thing is we were expecting competition. I mean, we talk about this every time we meet.
Yes.
I mean, I'll answer before you ask. We were expecting competition.
This is my question. Yeah
a lot. Exactly. for the last... We still don't have it. We are expecting competition in the first half.
W e previously thought it would be very early in the year. Clearly, we haven't seen it yet.
Sure
... for those in our industry, if not by next week, which is VMX, which is really important for us.
Mm-hmm.
We're going to make sure we seize the opportunity when that's the case. Any other insights you'd say to.
Look, if you look at small animal parasiticides, so that's companion animal excluding horses, right? That's a $6 billion market that's growing mid- to high-single digit %, and we have the broadest portfolio in that segment today. If you look at this shift from topicals and collars into orals, that's been going on for a while, and that's been expanding the market. While triple combination is still a relatively new standard of care. That will continue for some time and provide some tailwind to the overall market. We're the first mover there, which is significantly advantageous for us.
What should we expect when competition arrives? I mean, it seems like you've had a pretty long runway here to really establish yourself, so how do you think about competitive dynamics as whenever we finally see that competition come into play?
Well, the first is, you know, based on who we believe our first competitor is, we don't think the competition will be on price.
Yep.
The reason is our competitor currently is, you know, one of the leaders in, you know, the single FRABLE or the duo and the single product, and therefore, if they price underneath us, they would be undermining their own profitability and revenue. We don't see that as the primary. You know, we don't know exactly what label, but we don't expect that the label will be significantly different, and we therefore think it's gonna be the strength of our broad portfolio, the strength and the experience that vets have with our product, the strength of our business with our corporates, in the U.S. where we, you know, have significant relationships, and we are the first line product for most of those. We look.
We think it'll be aggressive competition, but nothing we haven't really experienced, I would say. You know, this is a DTC market where DTC spend will remain really important, staying front and center, with the pet owners, so they go in asking for our product. You know, I don't know if there's any other trends you'd say in the competitive space.
Yeah. Look, I think this move towards the triple combination is gonna continue to drive growth here. As a first mover with our penetration across large corporate accounts, et cetera, we believe we'll continue to grow even after competition, we're going to continue to innovate in this space.
Yeah. Great. talk a little bit about the antibodies as we think about 2023. You touched on this earlier, but capacity-wise, you know, where are we this year in terms of your ability to kinda really roll out the products?
Yeah. Look, we were on allocation with Librela for most of 2022. We exited the year not in allocation across at all.
We are launching across different markets, and we feel very confident about our ability to continue to do that in 2023.
The other thing I'll add there as you look at, I know the U.S. is the big question.
Yeah, yeah.
A lso on Librela, probably your next question. As you look at Librela in the U.S., we continue to expect approval of Librela in the first half of this year with a full launch and early experience followed by a full launch, late in the year. you know, I think as you look at our mAbs portfolio, Solensia remains on track both in outside of the U.S., and we did go to full launch, as you know, in Q4 in the United States, which is our monoclonal antibody for osteoarthritis in cats. We remain very optimistic, about both.
It's early, but if you compare, I guess, the initial uptake of Solensia in Europe versus US, has there been any notable differences or surprises with how the markets have been receiving them or too early to tell?
No. I mean, we're only a few months in, so I would say so far it's completely as we expected.
Yeah
Y ou know, consistent with. You know, for those who don't know the space, cats are quite different than dogs with pain because there really has been no product in the U.S. for it and cats are less medicalized. Cats is a slower ramp to get to peak sales than it will be in dog, and it's tracking exactly as we expected. You know, the efficacy and the safety of the product is so exciting that we're getting those cats, but it's gonna be slower. You know, you gotta get the vet comfortable with it, and then you gotta convince the cat owner that there is a product and they should bring it in, and cats hide their pain. For all those reasons, it's going exactly as expected. No, no worse, no better.
Okay. Great. Maybe shifting to your other big category in derm. It seems like growth maybe slowed a bit last year. You've obviously done a tremendous job building that business out. How do we think about growth going forward? Like, how much more an opportunity is there to keep driving that category?
I think there's significant growth still left in it. I mean, look, we grew into the first three quarters about 18% last year.
I mean, that's not too bad. I always like...
You're playing it safe.
Every time you say that's slow, I'm like, "I don't know if I call it slow.
Define slow. Yeah.
It's slower.
Yeah
... than previous years. I'll give that to you. you know, part of it was, as we said, we were supply constrained on Cytopoint, and more and more vets are choosing Cytopoint for its efficacy, for its compliance benefits, for the fact that it stays in the clinic and doesn't go to e-commerce.
Mm-hmm.
They get an injection. You know, as we look at, you know, derm, we have been expecting competition. The latest intelligence that we have is not just not in the first half of the year, we don't think, or at least would be end of the year if we got competition there. Again, choose whether you listen to me because we've been expecting it for a while and it's still not here. We certainly don't expect in the first half of the year, and I think our latest intelligence would say maybe the end of the year. We're gonna continue to grow it. We still have 6 million untreated dogs in the US. The you know, usage is still significantly less outside of the US. There's still markets where we're still launching, you know, Cytopoint. So we think there's still growth in this.
You know, will it moderate versus, you know, what you've seen previous years? Yeah. I still think there's significant growth in this.
Okay. Great. Just one question on the, on the farm animal side. Just talk a little bit about some of the moving pieces. We think about the, you know, whether it's geographies or animals as we go through next years. I think it's a market you've said is maybe a little more sensitive to the economic environment. Help us kind of think about the dynamics there.
Yeah. Look, I think about some of the big markets. You've cattle in the U.S., you've got herd size reductions, you've got input, cost increases for producers. That creates a dynamic where I think there'll be some headwinds coming into 2023 from a U.S. cattle perspective.
Mm-hmm.
If you look at Brazil, same species, you've probably got some good strength. The export market's continuing to stay strong for Brazil. China continues to import beef, in addition to swine from elsewhere, but beef into from Brazil. That market looks to be strong. If I look at swine overall, where China goes, so does swine in terms of the impact it has across the globe. Not only is it the biggest producer in the world, but it also imports quite a bit, biggest importer as well. We'll continue to monitor what that looks like. With the openings and so on, prices in China are remaining relatively high versus where they were most of last year, that's a positive. We think certainly for producers, it should bode well for the business as well.
We'll watch what the consumption numbers look like and what that means for not only for swine but for other species in terms of importing to China, et cetera. Those are the big ones I would say in terms of that. You know, as you know, we've had some generic competition impact us with Draxxin and so on, but we're getting to a level now well into our second year, about to approach the full, and at the end of Q1 will be the full anniversary of the second year for Draxxin. We'll get to a low enough level where while there'll still be some headwind, it won't be as meaningful in terms of impact for us or the big sort of elements that I would look at.
Great. Maybe one last question, as we're running out of time here. Just on operating costs and margins, can you just like directionally help us a bit of how... Should we still think about kind of leverage opportunity in the P&L? 'Cause I know you're making some big pushes on the R&D side.
Yeah.
You're supporting these brands. How do we think about balancing that?
Look, when I look at, you know, entering into 2023, certainly we've talked about the resiliency in the overall market.
Mm-hmm.
We are looking at the macro to really make sure that we apply the right level of what I'll say appropriate level of prudence in terms of what we think about for the year. What we can count on is the mix will be favorable for us with companion animal continuing to grow faster with our innovative products driving that. We can still see price as a lever that we'll move on in 2023.
Mm-hmm.
Particularly in companion animal, but also of course our inline products and some of the products in livestock as well. Price will be a positive going into the year. We commit to growing the bottom line faster than top line. Even if the delta between those two isn't significant, we are committing to that, and if we don't do it every quarter, it will be for the year. That's sort of our product proposition that we continue to focus on.
Great.
The last thing I would say is FX is gonna have an impact as we enter into 2023. Certainly if you look at where the US dollar is versus where it was in the first start of last year, the dollar is still much higher than it was at the beginning of last year. I'm not. We don't forecast what it's gonna be throughout the year.
Sure.
If we take a snapshot of where rates are today, and we apply that to 2023 versus 2022, it would be about 2 points of headwind for the year and about 4 points of headwind for the first quarter. That tends to have an impact not only top line, but also all the way down to operating margins. All of that, you know, included, we're still committed to growing the bottom line faster than the top line, even as we make those investments in key areas like R&D and our supply chain.
Great. We've run out of time here. Really appreciate the comments.
Absolutely.
Thanks for joining us.
Thanks.
Thanks.