Viatris Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Viatris raised its 2026 outlook after Q2 revenue reached $3.8 billion, up 3.5% operationally, while adjusted EBITDA was $1.2 billion and adjusted EPS was $0.69. Management attributed the beat to strong execution and improving operating leverage.
  • Positive Sentiment: Greater China remained a key growth engine, with revenue increasing 16% and e-commerce sales rising 36%; management expects continued growth beyond 2026, although at a more moderate pace as a new hospital procurement policy is implemented.
  • Negative Sentiment: Intermittent supply disruptions tied to the Nashik facility fire and FDA inspection are expected to reduce second-half 2026 revenue by approximately $100 million to $150 million, with the largest impact anticipated in Q3. Viatris has begun a remediation program and expects the issue to be largely resolved by year-end or early 2027.
  • Positive Sentiment: The pipeline produced several potential catalysts, including FDA approval of the once-weekly contraceptive patch Gwyn Lo, an expected late-2026 decision for fast-acting meloxicam, and Japanese regulatory decisions for pitolisant. Phase III readouts for Selatogrel and cenerimod remain targeted for the first half of 2027.
  • Positive Sentiment: Viatris deployed approximately $1.4 billion through early August, including $550 million returned to shareholders and $900 million of debt repayment, while retaining roughly $1.6 billion of deployable capital for further buybacks, dividends, and disciplined business development.
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Earnings Conference Call
Viatris Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Viatris Q2 2026 earnings call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your touch-tone phones. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Please also note today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Bill Szablewski, Head of Capital Markets. Sir, please go ahead.

Bill Szablewski
Bill Szablewski
Head of Capital Markets at Viatris

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Q2 2026 earnings call. With us today is CEO Scott Smith, Interim CFO Paul Campbell, Chief R&D Officer Philippe Martin, and Chief Commercial Officer Corinne Le Goff. During today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements on a number of matters, including our financial guidance for 2026 and various strategic initiatives. These statements are subject to risk and uncertainties.

Bill Szablewski
Bill Szablewski
Head of Capital Markets at Viatris

We will also be referring to certain actual and projected non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to today's slide presentation and our SEC filings for more information, including reconciliations of those non-GAAP measures to most directly comparable GAAP measures. When discussing 2026 actual or reported results, we will be making certain comparisons to 2025 actual or reported results on an operational basis, which excludes the impact of foreign currency rates. When comparing our 2026 actual or reported results to our expectations, we are making comparisons to our 2026 financial guidance. With that, I'll hand the call over to our CEO, Scott Smith.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Good morning, everyone. We're off to an exceptional start in 2026. We delivered another strong quarter that reinforces our confidence in the strategy we outlined earlier this year. In the second quarter, we delivered $3.8 billion in total revenues, representing 3.5% operational revenue growth year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA of $1.2 billion and adjusted EPS of $0.69 per share. These results exceeded our expectations and reflect the strong momentum across our businesses and continued improvement in operating leverage.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Just as importantly, these results give us confidence to raise our outlook for the remainder of the year. Let me briefly highlight some of the progress we made across our businesses. Commercial execution was excellent across our global portfolio during the quarter, led once again by Greater China, where the commercial investments in our portfolio of established brands are generating meaningful growth. In North America, execution across our complex generics and transdermal products also drove solid growth. Our pipeline is progressing as expected. As we announced last week, we received U.S. regulatory approval for Gwyn Lo and expect to launch the product later this year.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

At the same time, launch preparations continue for fast-acting meloxicam as it progresses through FDA review. We're confident in the differentiated clinical profiles of both medicines and also in our commercial readiness. In Japan, we recently reported phase III results for Nefecon, while pitolisant continues to progress through the final stages of regulatory review, underscoring the momentum we're building across our pipeline in this strategically important market. Beyond these opportunities, our phase III programs for Selatogrel and Cenerimod remain on track with important readouts expected in 2027, which, if successful, we believe will represent meaningful long-term blockbuster growth opportunities.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Taken together, these milestones provide a robust set of near-term catalysts with the potential to accelerate our long-term growth profile. As we prepare for our next phase of growth, we're prioritizing our capital, talent, and resources toward the opportunities we believe offer the greatest long-term growth potential. As part of that effort, we agreed to sell the global rights to Tyrvaya, reflecting a strategic shift away from eye care as a therapeutic area of focus.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Turning to our enterprise-wide strategic review, we're delivering the savings we committed to earlier this year while reinvesting a portion of those savings to support future growth. We're beginning to see those actions translate into the real operating leverage we expected. That's creating a stronger Viatris with greater flexibility to invest in growth and create long-term value. Turning to capital allocation, we continue to take a balanced and opportunistic approach.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Supported by strong cash generation and the additional financial flexibility created through the monetization of our Biocon equity stake, we're executing across all our capital allocation priorities. We continue to return significant capital to shareholders through our dividend and more recently through our continued share repurchases, together totaling approximately $550 million to date. At the same time, we're maintaining flexibility to pursue disciplined business development opportunities that we believe can play a significant role in accelerating our long-term growth.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

As we think about our performance so far this year and the outlook for the rest of the year, we're raising the midpoint of our 2026 financial guidance ranges across all key financial metrics. Our updated outlook incorporates all the business dynamics we expect in the second half, including certain intermittent manufacturing disruptions at our Nashik facility following the Q1 fire and the FDA's May 2026 inspection.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

We are communicating with the FDA, working closely with external experts, and have initiated a comprehensive remediation plan to address the inspection observations. In summary, I'm very pleased with our execution through the first half of the year and the momentum we're carrying into the second half. We're entering a catalyst-rich period with multiple upcoming launches, important phase III milestones, and the financial flexibility to pursue disciplined, accretive business development. Together, we believe these opportunities position Viatris to accelerate long-term growth and create meaningful value for shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Philippe.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

Thank you, Scott. We have delivered a strong first half of the year in R&D as we continue to execute with discipline against our strategy. Starting with our value-added medicines, we were pleased to receive FDA approval for Gwyn Lo last week ahead of its PDUFA date. Gwyn Lo is a new, discrete, once-weekly transdermal hormonal contraceptive patch that offers women a non-invasive, reversible option with a low dose of estrogen.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

Importantly, the approved label reflects the strength of our clinical program, including demonstrated efficacy in women with a BMI of 25 to less than 30 kg/sq m, with no BMI-based limitation of use for this population. We are also working on addressing the unmet need for women with a BMI at or above 30 through our next contraceptive transdermal system, a progestin-only patch currently in development.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

This program has completed phase III enrollment, and we expect top-line results in the first half of 2027. As patients continue to seek convenient and non-invasive treatment options, we believe our deep expertise in developing and manufacturing transdermal drug delivery systems position us well to advance additional opportunities across this platform. Regarding fast-acting meloxicam, we continue to have positive engagement with FDA as the NDA review progresses and as we approach the mid-cycle point of the review.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

We continue to believe that the investigational profile of fast-acting meloxicam, including its rapid absorption, clinically meaningful pain relief, and reductions in opioid use, positions the product as a meaningful addition to the evolving acute pain treatment landscape. Pending final labeling negotiations ahead of an anticipated FDA approval. Regarding our pipeline in Japan, we recently announced positive top-line phase III results evaluating the efficacy and safety of Nefecon in Japanese adults with primary IgA nephropathy, a designated intractable disease in Japan. If approved, Nefecon has the potential to provide a meaningful disease-modifying treatment option for these patients.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

We are targeting submission of a new drug application in Japan by the end of 2026. Our applications for pitolisant for the treatment of excessive daytime sleepiness associated with obstructive sleep apnea and narcolepsy remain on track and have reached the final stages of review. We anticipate regulatory decisions for both indications in the second half of this year. Turning to our innovative global phase III programs. For Cenerimod, we continue to expect results from both phase III SLE studies, OPUS-1 and OPUS-2, in the first half of 2027.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

Most patients have elected to continue treatment in the open-label extension study with a study treatment duration extending up to five years. For Selatogrel, we remain on track to reach full enrollment in our SOS-AMI phase III study around year-end and are maintaining an enrollment rate of approximately 1,200 patients per month. We continue to expect a data readout in the first half of 2027. Finally, turning to our generic pipeline. We continue to execute well across our pipeline and remain on track to achieve more than 100 new product approvals this year, with 70 approvals already secured in the first half.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

The key area of focus remains our complex generics, including complex injectables, where we have established a meaningful expertise. Over the past two years, we have secured approval in the U.S. for 11 complex injectables, including octreotide, and recently we are the first approved for all three strengths for both iron sucrose and ferric carboxymaltose injection.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

Overall, the substantial progress we've made in the first half of the year reflects both the disciplined execution of our teams and the breadth of capabilities we've built. With multiple regulatory, clinical, and scientific milestones ahead, we remain confident in our ability to execute our R&D strategy, advance meaningful medicines for patients, and continue strengthening our scientific leadership. With that, I'll turn it over to Paul.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

Thank you, Philippe, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to report that we delivered another strong quarter, reflecting the durability of our global portfolio and disciplined execution of our strategy. This morning, I'll highlight the drivers of this strong second quarter performance, the progress we've made delivering on our capital allocation priorities, and details supporting our financial guidance raise for the year. Beginning with our second quarter results.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

Total revenues were $3.8 billion, representing operational growth of approximately 3.5% year-over-year. This performance was driven primarily by continued growth in our cardiovascular portfolio in Greater China and strong performance across our generics product category in developed markets, led primarily by our complex generics and transdermal products in North America. The commercial highlights for the quarter across each of our segments is as follows. In developed markets, net sales increased by 2% versus the prior year, exceeding our expectations.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

For North America, net sales grew 1%, driven by increased demand across our diverse generics portfolio, including estradiol patches, as well as continued strength from Breyna. New product revenues also benefited from continued momentum across our more durable, higher margin complex injectable portfolio, including octreotide and iron sucrose. Within our branded product category, solid growth from YUPELRI was more than offset by anticipated competitive pressure within our established brands portfolio.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

In Europe, net sales increased 2% versus the prior year, primarily driven by strength in the generics portfolio across key countries including France and Italy, as well as contributions from new product revenues. The brands portfolio declined slightly year-over-year as continued solid growth from CREON and Brufen was offset by anticipated competitive pressure on Dymista. Turning to emerging markets. Net sales declined 2% versus the prior year, coming in below our expectations.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

The decline was primarily driven by continued supply constraints affecting our lower margin ARV generics portfolio. Net sales in our brand product category increased 6% year-over-year, supported by stable growth across established brands. Within JANZ, net sales were essentially flat versus the prior year, exceeding our expectations. This result reflects uptake from the launch of EFFEXOR for generalized anxiety disorder and broad volume growth in generics, offset by the anticipated impact from government-driven price regulations in Japan and increased competition for certain brands in Australia.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

We deliver another exceptional quarter in Greater China with net sales increasing 16% year-over-year, once again ahead of our expectations. We continue to benefit from favorable market fundamentals in China, including an aging population and demand for our cardiovascular products. Our strategic investments in selling and marketing capabilities, including our e-commerce and retail platforms, have positioned us to capitalize on the strength of our well-recognized brands. We saw growth across all channels during the quarter, including e-commerce, where sales increased 36% versus the prior year. Now turning to the remainder of the P&L.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

Adjusted gross margin was 57.5% for the quarter, representing nearly 1% improvement versus the prior year. The increase was driven primarily by the strong performance in Greater China and the favorable product mix in our North American generics portfolio, as mentioned earlier. Operating expenses declined as a percentage of total revenues compared with the prior year, partially reflecting continued SG&A discipline and realization of the expected savings from our enterprise-wide strategic review. R&D investment progressed in line with our expectations, driven primarily by the ongoing phase III programs for Selatogrel and Cenerimod.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

For free cash flow, we generated $329 million of cash during the quarter, inclusive of transaction and restructuring-related costs and taxes. Excluding these items, free cash flow would have been $449 million. The year-over-year improvement was primarily driven by stronger operating performance and favorable working capital dynamics. Turning to capital allocation. Through early August, we have deployed approximately $1.4 billion of capital consistent with our balanced capital allocation strategy, including the return of approximately $280 million of capital to shareholders through dividends and approximately $270 million of share purchases.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

We continued to strengthen our balance sheet by repaying approximately $900 million of debt that matured in June while refinancing the remaining balance. We ended the quarter with a gross leverage ratio of approximately 2.9x, below the midpoint of our long-term target range of 2.8x-3.2x. For the remainder of the year, we expect to have approximately $1.6 billion in deployable capital. This includes approximately $380 million of pre-tax proceeds from the sale of our equity stake in Biocon. Now a few comments on our updated financial guidance and phasing for the remainder of the year.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

Based primarily on our strong first half performance and our continued confidence in the momentum of our businesses, we are raising our 2026 financial guidance for all key metrics. The midpoint of each of our revised guidance ranges represents expected operational growth- Further visibility into the segments, our updated full year guidance for total revenues reflects the following expectations compared to the prior year. Low double-digit growth in Greater China. Developed markets roughly flat, with North America declining slightly. Low single-digit growth in emerging markets, and low single-digit decline in JANZ.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

In addition, this takes into account the following expected second half dynamics. Moderation in Greater China growth due to the implementation of a procurement policy change expected to negatively impact volumes in our hospital chain. Additional competitive pressure in developed markets, including for Breyna and estradiol in North America, and additional expected supply disruptions primarily resulting from our Nashik facility and primarily impacting our low-margin oral solid dose generics in emerging markets and certain generic products in Europe. We currently anticipate the impact of supply disruptions to be between $100 million and $150 million to total revenues in the second half of 2026.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

Lastly, as Scott mentioned, we reached an agreement to divest our global product rights for Tyrvaya. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions. The anticipated impact of this transaction has been fully considered in our updated 2026 financial guidance. Turning to phasing for the remainder of the year. Total revenues are expected to be weighted to the second half at approximately 51% of our full-year output.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS are now expected to be slightly lower in the second half, and free cash flow is still expected to be more heavily weighted to the second half. In closing, we are pleased with our performance through the first half of the year, reflecting strong execution against our strategy. As we look ahead, we believe our diversified portfolio, strong commercial execution, and financial flexibility positions us well to deliver sustainable revenue and earnings growth. With that, I'll hand it back to the operator to begin the Q&A.

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your touch-tone phones. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Again, that is star and then one to join the question queue. We'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster. Our first question today comes from Ash Verma from UBS. Please go ahead with your question.

Ash Verma
Ash Verma
Analyst at UBS

Okay. Yeah, thanks for taking our questions. Congrats on the progress. Maybe just on China. Great to see solid operational growth here that you've seen in the first two quarters. I know you've noted e-commerce has been a big source of growth. Just help us understand what percentage of your revenue right now is coming from e-commerce, retail, or the government channel.

Ash Verma
Ash Verma
Analyst at UBS

[Scott], I know you mentioned some headwinds on the procurement in the hospital channel, so if you can just give us a little bit of a breakdown, that would be helpful. Secondly, just to help us understand the guidance. At the midpoint of 2026 guide, you're raising revenue by $50 million, but EBITDA by $100 million. Is this because you're expecting some very high-margin products to launch, or is there a chance that your reiterated OpEx guides come towards the lower end? Thanks.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Good. Thank you. Good morning, Ash, and thank you for the questions. Let me make some comments. I'll kick it over to Paul for some more detail. Relative to China, a really strong quarter for China. Our commercial team, I believe, is doing an outstanding job. I think we've got great leadership there. We've made the right investments in China and are participating very well in healthcare in China. There's a real focus right now in China on healthcare quality of life. There's a sizable aging middle class, etc, which really allows us to participate strongly in China.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

We're very, very pleased with the progress there. We continue to see what I believe is real and strong demand for the iconic brands that we have in China, which is really nice to see. Relative to the guidance, very pleased, based on the strength of the first half and the strength that we see throughout the rest of the year, being able to raise guidance on all our key financial metrics. I think we're in really good shape as we sit here in August in 2026 and are moving towards the second half 2026 and 2027 and feel very, very good about the strength of the business. I'll kick it over to Paul to comment specifically on China and also the guidance.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

Thanks. Thanks, Ash. As far as China goes, I think it's important to note that we have seen growth across all channels in the market, not just the retail platform or e-commerce. However, e-commerce is about between 10% and 15% of the overall business, which is specifically why I know you didn't ask, in the second half of the year, we expect some decline in the hospital channel growth as a result of the implementation of the policy. We do expect, I think in the first quarter, we said it was too early. We do expect the growth overall to continue similar to the trajectory we saw in the first half. It's just going to be muted because of the policy issue.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

As far as the guidance goes, we ran ahead of expectations for the first half, both revenue and EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA was approximately twice the growth or the increase in expectation over revenue, right? A lot of that is because of the cost containment measures are on track and even ahead of schedule in certain instances. However, in the back half of the year, we do see the challenges on the additional competition that we have in the North America products, which are high margin, and the China business, which is high margin, kind of muting that.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

If you also think about the revenue challenges from Nashik that we've talked about the back half of the year, they're lower margin generic products that are impacted. The revenue component of the guidance, we had to mute a little bit because of that, whereas EBITDA ran pretty strong in the first half of the year even with the challenges in second half of the year. We expect that that will, for the full year, exceed the midpoint to where we put it, compared to revenue.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Paul hit on, I think, an issue that I think is good for us to expand on a little bit, and that's the enterprise-wide strategic review, which we've engaged in, taking a look at the company, making sure we got the resources in the right place. We're executing that. We're delivering on that. From that, we're seeing real EBITDA leverage here for the second quarter in a row. We're very pleased with the outcome of that particular enterprise-wide strategic review.

Operator

Our next question comes from Umer Raffat from Evercore. Please go ahead with your question.

Umer Raffat
Umer Raffat
Analyst at Evercore

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask a three-part question on Selatogrel, if I may. First, at what point in the patient's journey post an event are they initiating an oral antiplatelet? I understand in the trial, if you're on an active arm, you'll be on Selatogrel perhaps right away. At what point, once you're in the hospital after the index event, are you initiating an oral antiplatelet, number one?

Umer Raffat
Umer Raffat
Analyst at Evercore

Which sort of leads me to my second part, which is, I know what the half-life is, but what's the off time where no more platelet inhibition's in place? I ask because if I go by your EC50, which is, I think, 14 nanomolars, it looks like the 16 mg dose doesn't get to that EC50 until eight to 10 hours post the dosing. Finally, for patients that do end up needing a more intensive procedure like a CABG, I guess, how is that being handled in the trial in terms of how they're taking all the blood thinner or the timing post initial Selatogrel administration? Thank you.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Hey, Umer. Before we get to answer the technicalities of your question, first of all, good morning, and thank you for the question. We're really excited about Selatogrel. We expect a readout when we get into the first half of 2027 on this. We've enrolled a lot of patients. Philippe can give you some context on that. I think we've been very, very pleased with the execution and enrollment and progress of this particular trial.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

If positive, we see real blockbuster opportunities for Selatogrel here and major expansion. I say the same thing for Cenerimod. There's a lot of attention on Selatogrel, which is great, very unique product, but we're also really excited about the progress execution and the potential of Cenerimod as well. We really appreciate the question. Love talking about new interesting products that can help drive our revenue future. Let me kick it over to Philippe to give you some context.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

Thanks, Scott, and thank you, Umer, for the question. Patients that are on the study, the vast majority are on dual antiplatelet therapy to begin with. They're already on an oral clopidogrel for the most part is what we expect to see. While Selatogrel is added on top of that. Now for those that are not necessarily on it, they could be post-treatment within 24 hours or so, the effect of Selatogrel is no longer present, and therefore, treatment with an oral P2Y12 could be initiated at that point in time should it be required.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

With regards to the offset, as I said, I think we know that within six to seven hours we get to peak platelet inhibition, 80% platelet inhibition after 15 minutes, or more than 80% after 15 minutes is what we've seen in phase II. The offset is, as I said, within 24 hours, Selatogrel is no longer present. In terms of the CABG, I think CABG can be initiated at any point should it be required. Should it be deemed required, it's the current guidelines. There's no need to wait if it is deemed urgent. That being said, again, within post eight hours Selatogrel injection, CABG can be initiated safely. Again, it is not a requirement to wait.

Operator

Our next question comes from Matt Dellatorre from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead with your question.

Matt Dellatorre
Matt Dellatorre
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Great. Good morning and-- With the FDA regarding the label being opioid-sparing. Just remind us how this asset is factored into your longer-term guidance targets and the degree to which success could represent upside to those, either the base or bull case. On Selatogrel, could you just remind us what magnitude of benefit you believe we need to see? I think you've disclosed in the past that the study is powered for a 20% benefit.

Matt Dellatorre
Matt Dellatorre
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

I guess, what's the minimum benefit that could drive meaningful uptake? When we see the data, will there be any subtleties that we need to keep in mind, given it is a composite endpoint? For instance, does it matter which of the components is driving the benefit? It seems like they're all fairly serious, but I just wanted to confirm. Thank you.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Thanks, Matt. First of all, on meloxicam fast-acting, we think it's going to be a significant contributor to our pipeline, to our revenue, to the U.S. business, between now and 2030. I'm not getting into specific numbers at this point in time. We don't have a label yet, and there's some other things that we really need to look at, but we see it being a very significant contributor in the U.S. to high margin, a bit about the potential she sees in Selatogrel.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

Yeah. Thank you. We look out to meloxicam first and the progress of the review currently ongoing with FDA. We are reaching mid-cycle. Things are progressing as planned. FDA is very engaged. We're answering all the queries that they have and expect to get approval towards the end of the year at the time of the PDUFA. In terms of the labeling negotiations, there's interaction on the clinical data with the agency.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

Labeling negotiations won't start until October, November timeframe. This is when really we will start talking about the exact language around opioid sparing. As I previously mentioned, this was heavily discussed with the agency during phase II and during putting the protocol together for phase III. We've followed every recommendation that the agency had for us, in order to be able to get this language included in the label section. Where in the label sections and exactly what language? I can't tell you as of today. We should get a better idea around the October, November timeframe.

Corinne Le Goff
Corinne Le Goff
Chief Commercial Officer at Viatris

We see a lot of excitement about this product. We are getting very positive feedback from KOLs. Definitely, the results of the phase III program, and notably on the opioid sparing effect, is seen as a real positive. In terms of potential that we see for fast-acting meloxicam, FAM, as you call it, the potential is large.

Corinne Le Goff
Corinne Le Goff
Chief Commercial Officer at Viatris

You know that acute pain is a broad market with about 80 million patients suffering from acute pain every year. Unfortunately, half of those patients already are dependent on opioids for pain relief. We see that this product has the right profile. It is generating a lot of interest, and we can imagine that with a market activity that could potentially go beyond three years as we are filing more patents. We could reach up to $500 million in peak sales with this asset. That will contribute meaningfully to our long-term guidance.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

On your question on Selatogrel. The actual benefit that the study is sized for is approximately a 20% risk reduction. I've discussed this obviously heavily with our KOLs and investigators. The minimal bar is much lower than that in the mind of the investigators and KOL. I think if we were to be able to show a risk closer to 10%-15%, that would be very much acceptable and the lowest bar commercially to get this drug to patients. Again, the study is overpowered for that 20% risk reduction, and that's really the minimal bar we're seeking at this point in time.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

In terms of the endpoint itself, as you know, the endpoint is ranked according to the outcome and according to their clinical importance. What we expect to see is that Selatogrel is blunting acute MI from happening if injected at the right time. We also expect to see that Selatogrel will reduce the severity of the MIs that these patients are expecting, making them a lot more manageable for the patient with a lot less sequelae over time, which leads to patients being in the hospital a lot less, for a much shorter amount of time as well. Adds a lot of benefits to the patient and to the payers overall.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

These post-MI patients are very, very expensive for the healthcare system. They're very difficult to manage over time. Being able to improve any particular outcome for a patient has not only tremendous benefits to that patient, but also on the healthcare system overall. That's why part of the excitement that we feel about Selatogrel being a unique drug in this space.

Operator

Our next question comes from Glen Santangelo from Barclays. Please go ahead with your question.

Glen Santangelo
Glen Santangelo
Analyst at Barclays

Yeah. Good morning, thanks for taking my question. Hey, Scott, I just had a couple of follow-up questions. I wanted to talk about this China dynamic. It seems like you're describing a situation that maybe has some durability in those commercial efforts beyond just 2026, because it seems like it's that market that gave you the ability to sort of raise guidance despite the fire-related disruptions you're sort of calling out in the back half of the year.

Glen Santangelo
Glen Santangelo
Analyst at Barclays

I know it's a little bit too early to comment on 2027, but I was kind of curious if you could comment on the durability of the strength there and then should these fire-related disruptions be contained to just 2026? My follow-up was on meloxicam. It seems like meloxicam and the presbyopia solution are the two meaningful approvals you have left this year.

Glen Santangelo
Glen Santangelo
Analyst at Barclays

At your Analyst Day, you sort of highlighted that value-added medicines pipeline would add about 1% to the growth algorithm. In a previous question, you just sort of highlighted that you think it can be a meaningful contributor. I'm just kind of curious when I think about that value-added pipeline, are you still thinking about it as a 1% contributor to the growth algorithm, or do you have maybe greater expectations at this point? Thanks so much.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Thank you very much for the question. Yeah, we're really pleased with the performance in China. There seems to be some good durability. We had good performance last year. We see good performance this year. I think we see some of the investments that we've made in China in terms of the channels that we're going to, reaching to the patients, trying to restructure our business there, trying to make sure that we're over-investing in some of the demand for some of these iconic brands. There seems to be good durability there.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

The only thing you worry about in China is there's policy changes at times, sometimes you see them coming and sometimes not. Sometimes they're inconsistently applied across provinces and things. We try and obviously work with the government in China to deliver the best healthcare we can. China seems to me to be a good engine for us moving forward. I think it's not only China that allowed us to sort of beat and raise, to have a good outlook for this particular year. There was some good strength in a number of other businesses as well.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

We see good strength in the value-added medicines that we're bringing in the United States and other places. We're very pleased with the business overall. You raised Nashik and just to put that in perspective for you, we currently operate 26 manufacturing facilities around the world. We have inspections and observations and things all the time. Specific to Nashik, as I said in my prepared remarks, we're communicating with the FDA, we're working closely with the external experts and initiated comprehensive remediation plan to address all the issues or any issues that we see there.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

We had a fire, as you said, in Q1 and some inspection observations in May. We expect the remediations, as Paul was pointing out, to have some impact on second half revenues, but it's fully baked into our guidance. As a reminder, we raised guidance for the year and for all key financial metrics. We see this being sort of intermittent as we remediate the fire and some of the things from the observations and the inspection, and we don't expect this to be long-term affecting the business, no.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

Maybe if I could just add one thing too, from a expectation perspective. We do see the impact being larger in Q3 and moderating a bit in Q4. I think as Scott had intimated, we expect this supply disruption to be shorter term in nature and hopefully by exiting the end of the year into the beginning of next year, we will have gotten ourselves past it. That's our expectation.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Nashik, just to characterize it, is a lot of smaller products. It's mainly emerging markets, JANZ. There's no one product there that's more than $20 million in revenue. It's a lot of little pieces. Again, as we remediate and get things online, we expect to see relatively short-term intermittent effects of that. The strength of the business allows us to get through that and again, be in a position to raise our guidance across all financial metrics. I think you had a question around meloxicam as well.

Corinne Le Goff
Corinne Le Goff
Chief Commercial Officer at Viatris

Yeah, maybe I can address this again. Glen, hi, good morning. Just to say that again, we remain very optimistic about meloxicam. We're expecting a PDUFA date at the end of the year. Of course, we'll wait for the label to be available to finalize our pricing strategy and value proposition. Everything we are seeing so far and the feedback that we get from the market is very positive.

Corinne Le Goff
Corinne Le Goff
Chief Commercial Officer at Viatris

We believe that there is room for another asset that is fast-acting, that would have a meaningful role in acute pain and really expand the utilization of NSAIDs that are with fast-acting meloxicam having a very well-characterized durability and safety profile. We are looking forward to launching this product. It will be a branded asset. We will deploy a specialty sales force. I'm looking forward to talking about our launch next fall.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

I think one of the reasons we're so excited is not only the strength of the data relative to competitive set out there, but also the real market need. I think Corinne hit on that earlier. The need for non-opioid solutions for patients with acute pain is really large, particularly in the U.S. We're excited about the profile, we're excited about the product, we're also excited that it's going to fill a really significant need in the U.S.

Operator

Our next question comes from Chris Schott from JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Ethan Brown
Ethan Brown
Analyst at JPMorgan

Hi, this is Ethan on for Chris. Thanks for taking our questions. Just starting off, what are your latest thoughts on the M&A environment? Are you still seeing a good amount of assets in the marketplace, or has that changed at all over the past couple of months? Secondly, just thoughts on the latest headlines for potential U.S. generic tariffs and maybe how you're thinking about the potential impact to Viatris specifically. Thank you.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

I think the M&A environment is obviously pretty active right now. It's a good environment. There's a lot of things going on. Certainly, there's a lot of assets still out there. Certainly, I still get a lot of inbound. I talk about getting inbound virtually every day, sometimes multiple times a day. We're looking hard at business development, adding things in-market, accretive things to the portfolio. We're going to be disciplined, though. We're going to try and find the right assets, the ones that we can be good owners of at the right price to bring them in.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

We're looking at a lot of things. We're excited about our ability to use our capital not only to pay back to shareholders, dividends, and share buybacks, but also really build a portfolio of assets. Again, we're sort of focused on in-market accretive assets right now, and there's a lot of things out there that we're looking at for sure. The second part was tariffs. Yes. It's difficult for me to comment. We're still gathering information.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

The administration has not released any official policy details at all here. It's important to note that I think we're in a pretty good position regardless of how this goes, if it goes relative to tariffs. We currently have eight manufacturing R&D distribution sites in the United States. Over half our U.S. revenues are from products that are manifested in the U.S. We're planning, as we move forward, to manufacture higher margin products like complex generics, transdermal products, value-added products, and such in the United States. We'll always work to partner with the administration as we understand the details of what they're trying to do here from a policy perspective and work with them to help better health care for Americans.

Operator

Our next question comes from Dennis Ding from Jefferies. Please go ahead with your question.

Dennis Ding
Dennis Ding
Analyst at Jefferies

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two pipeline questions. One on lupus and one on Selatogrel. First, Cenerimod, I appreciate that the phase III is enriching for high IFN-1. We've seen with other lupus programs like iberdomide and SAPHNELO that SRI-4 is consistently higher in this population versus low IFN-1. When I look at your phase II, this relationship breaks apart. It seems like the 4 mg dose was a clear outlier on both SRI-4 and also SLEDAI.

Dennis Ding
Dennis Ding
Analyst at Jefferies

What is it about the prior data that really gives you confidence going into that readout outside of this high IFN-1 relationship? Question number two on Selatogrel. I believe the CVOT was initially 14,000 patients, but then you upsized the trial by almost 50% to 25,000. I want to understand what went into that decision to add 11,000 patients, and what are you seeing on blinded event rates? Are they tracking with what you initially planned, or are they lower than expected? Thanks so much.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Philippe, please.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

Thank you for the questions. With regard to Cenerimod and the IFN-1 signature. In phase II, we saw that the 4 mg dose, which was the highest dose tested, was the dose that showed clinically meaningful improvement and a nominally statistically significant p-value. That was in the total population. In that 4 mg arm dose, we had approximately 50%, actually 45%, of patients that were IFN-1 high. These IFN-1 high patients responded better than the IFN-1 low, with a delta versus placebo of about 24%, which is one of the highest delta reported for this population.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

We also saw, which is what is so much expected, that the IFN-1 high patients were the patients that were the most active in terms of their disease. This is the kind of patients we are actively enrolling in phase III. We are ensuring that we're getting patients with higher disease activity and higher IFN-1 high expression. Our goal was to get to approximately 70% of patients that were IFN-1 high in phase III, and we have exceeded that goal in both studies.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

That's the data from our phase II. We've also, just to finish on this, implemented a number of things in phase III that were different than phase II, obviously, that we believe will lead to better outcomes. First of all, the primary endpoint is at one year and not at six months, which will lead to, believe, continued and better strength of the data as we've seen continued improvement in patients exposed to one year of Cenerimod.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

Another important part I would mention is the fact that because the endpoint is at one year, we're able to implement steroid-sparing, mandatory steroid-sparing for patients. That will lead to further differentiation versus placebo. That's our strategy. We feel good about the data that we've generated so far, and we're actively cleaning that data so that we can report our top-line results in 2027, early 2027. There's another question on-

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Selatogrel power.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

Patient.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Patient enrollment.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

Enrollment.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

14 was the original.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

Yeah, the protocol always contemplated enrolling up to 21,000 patients. That's where we were. It was anywhere between 14,000-21,000. We are seeing an event rate that is what we accepted. That being said, what we're trying to do is to enroll patients all the way to the end. By that, I mean all the way to the time point where we get all the needed events that we need.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

We're not going to stop and wait for the events to happen. We will continue to enroll through that. We may need a little bit more than 21,000 patients. That remains to be determined. We will continue to enroll through that. What's important is that we believe we'll get the events we need by the end of the year, early next year, so that we can get data in the first half of 2027.

Operator

Our next question comes from Jason Gerberry from Bank of America. Please go ahead with your question.

Jason Gerberry
Jason Gerberry
Analyst at Bank of America

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just two for me. Just wanted to follow up on the China policy question, because I didn't quite understand. It sounds like despite the policy change, you're still bullish on the market overall. Perhaps there might be a little bit of fluidity with the situation, with the comment about the variability at the province levels. I guess I'm just wondering, I look at the back half of the year, sort of an implied low single-digit growth. Is that sort of what we should think about, first half, the carryover into next year?

Jason Gerberry
Jason Gerberry
Analyst at Bank of America

Does that create tough comps for 2027 is ultimately what I'm trying to get at. On Selatogrel, just curious, once you complete enrollment towards the end of the year, for the primary endpoint, I think you only need to assess the patient for two to seven days to determine the impact on mortality or the other measures. Could you just remind me the different lag factors that go into once you complete enrollment to actually the time to which you can generate top-line data? Thanks.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Just on China first. Again, we're very, very pleased with business. It's running very strong. Obviously, we're going to have strong results in 2026, and we believe 2027 and beyond as well. There's good momentum there. It's a very important part of our company going forward. Good growth. In terms of policy, it's not finalized at this point in time. There's discussions with the government around different policy executions.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

We're being a little bit careful to try and understand that policy. We will be in a position, I think, in November to really talk about the policy, what it looks like with any changes, if we think it's going to impact our business or not, what that's going to look like. It's just an active discussion right now with the government, and we're not exactly sure how that policy is going to be executed.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Again, policy in China tends to get executed in this kind of spotty way and different execution in different provinces and things. We're taking a look at it. We're in active discussions. We think it could have some effect in the second half of the year. We'll have a much better view on the policy execution when we get to November.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

Let me just add, we've built all of that into the forecast, right? I would say from my perspective, we are hopeful we'll continue to see momentum and grow beyond 2026. As of right now, we don't see the 16%-17% continued growth, right? We do expect growth, but it'll moderate back down. That's our current expectation based on everything we know.

Corinne Le Goff
Corinne Le Goff
Chief Commercial Officer at Viatris

Right. I have nothing to add to this, just to say that, and you mentioned it, the implementation of this new policy, which is a new program that concerns only public hospitals, will be done at the provincial level, right? There are 31 provinces in China. Some of our products that have high volume utilization might be impacted. We will know more as those 31 provinces adopt this policy. Definitely by the end of the year, we'll have a much better picture of the impact. Again, we are confident, as Paul Campbell said, that we're going to grow through this policy implementation.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

Regarding your question on Selatogrel. Yes, you are correct that the primary endpoint is at seven days for this and within two days of injections for the other types of MI. That being said, the secondary endpoint are at 30 days, so we need to get that data at 30 days. Remember, this is a very sizable study with 45 countries involved and close to 900 sites. We need to make sure that we gather all that data and clean all that data, which is why we're talking about a first-half data release. It takes some time to clean all that and bring that back, right?

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

It's a very large study, right? Large global study. It takes some time to clean and prepare the data properly.

Operator

Our next question comes from David Amsellem from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead with your question.

David Amsellem
David Amsellem
Analyst at Piper Sandler

Two for me. First on Cenerimod. My understanding is that background BENLYSTA is allowed in the trial. Wondering about the thought process there. Is it stratified or the patient stratified for background BENLYSTA? That's number one. Switching gears to complex generics. Wanted to ask about the hormonal patch business with the acceleration following the removal of the box warnings. Wanted to get your thoughts on how long you think that could be a relatively limited competition market for you, and how big of a growth driver for generics in developed markets, namely the U.S., that could be in 2027. Thank you.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

On your question about belimumab. Yes, belimumab is considered a standard of care and therefore is included in the medications that can be given in combination with Cenerimod as part of this trial. That being said, we don't expect a significant number of patients that will be on belimumab as part of the study. We expect it to be closer to 5% of the patients. This will have limited potential impact on the data. Second, the randomization ensures balance and indication bias. The effect that you could see with belimumab, you see in both placebo and the treatment arm.

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

It's important to generate this data just from a pure safety and clinical value to show that the efficacy of Cenerimod is seen on top of belimumab or BENLYSTA, and that it is safe to co-administer these two drugs. That's part of the reason why we also included it in the clinical trial. Should we see an effect? We have sensitivity analysis that we would be looking at. Remember, we have two identical studies. This allows us to pool data across both studies to determine whether an effect that we would see is real or not. That gives us more robustness behind that data. Overall I would say that we do not expect this to affect the study in any way.

Corinne Le Goff
Corinne Le Goff
Chief Commercial Officer at Viatris

Regarding your question on estradiol patch, we have seen over the last year, over the past year, a strong increase in demand for estradiol patch for hormone replacement therapy. You're right, that the first reason for this is the market extension, which is due to the FDA removing a black box warning at the end of last year. We believe that this market expansion is here to stay. There is a secondary factor, a bit less important, but worth mentioning as well, which is the increased use of GLP-1s that has an impact on the utilization of patches because it's been demonstrated that there is a contraindication with the use of not only oral contraceptive but HRT products as well.

Corinne Le Goff
Corinne Le Goff
Chief Commercial Officer at Viatris

We benefit from those two factors. We have a leading position in the manufacturing of patches. We have our facility which is based out of Vermont, that produces high tech, next generation transdermal systems. We continue to increase capacity there. We continue to drive efficiencies. We will continue to be a major leader in this market as we see the extension forward.

Paul Campbell
Paul Campbell
Interim CFO at Viatris

Yeah. Just to finalize the thought around estradiol, we do see it as an opportunity. Again, less about additional competition from my perspective. It is that demand has blown up. We're currently as a data point, being able to fulfill about 70% of orders. Just as the demand is there, we're trying to ramp up production to meet that demand, and I think there's opportunity there. As Corinne said, we are looking at our own plant. We're looking externally to see what's available to meet that demand in the future.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Certainly this is a place that we're willing to invest to go forward to meet what we see as sort of unprecedented increases in demand for the reasons that Corinne was saying. I think a real nice area of opportunity for us and one that we're going to invest in and likely to be a good driver of our revenues at least through now to 2030.

Operator

Our next question is a follow-up question from Umer Raffat from Evercore. Please go ahead with your question.

Umer Raffat
Umer Raffat
Analyst at Evercore

Hi guys. Thanks for taking my follow-up. I wanted to touch up on something I meant to ask early on as well, and I think it kind of came up on a question a few moments ago as well. Philippe, I think you mentioned the original sample size was 14,000-21,000, and I think clinicaltrials.gov has it having gone from 14,000-25,000 even though in practice what's happened is it's gone from 14,000-21,000 to 25,000-35,000. Could you just speak to that if that was informed more by powering or more by sort of you're just letting it continue to enroll, you just keep getting the events faster?

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

That's exactly what the latter, right? We are letting it enroll. This is a sizable study. We spend quite a bit of time and energy and money, quite frankly, in this study. We want to leverage it as best we can. Getting that data will be important for positioning of the drug, and therefore, we believe it is important to let it run as close to the time point where we're going to lock the data. Which will mean that we'll have more events that we need eventually, right?

Philippe Martin
Philippe Martin
Chief R&D Officer at Viatris

For the timing of the primary endpoint, that allows us to get there faster than if we were to stop now and wait for the events to occur. Right? That strategy that you're seeing played. These numbers that we put on clinicaltrials.gov are to give us flexibility in how many patients we want to enroll. I don't want to have to change it 15 times. We change it once, give a window, and then we'll end up somewhere there.

Operator

With that, we'll be concluding today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Scott Smith, CEO, for closing remarks.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

Thank you very much. Let me close with just three thoughts here. First, our second quarter performance, the strong first half results reinforce that the strategy we outlined earlier in the year is working. Second, we're entering an important time period for our company. Over the coming quarters, we expect multiple regulatory milestones, important product launches, and continued progress across our pipeline. Finally, we're building a stronger company.

Scott Smith
Scott Smith
CEO at Viatris

We're improving the quality of our earnings, strengthening our operating model, sharpening our portfolio, and investing behind the opportunities we believe will drive sustainable long-term growth. We're excited about the opportunities ahead, confident in our ability to execute, and believe Viatris is well-positioned to deliver sustainable long-term value to shareholders. Thank you very much for your attention this morning.

Operator

With that, we'll be concluding today's conference call and presentation. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines

Executives
    • Bill Szablewski
      Bill Szablewski
      Head of Capital Markets
    • Philippe Martin
      Philippe Martin
      Chief R&D Officer
    • Paul Campbell
      Paul Campbell
      Interim CFO
    • Corinne Le Goff
      Corinne Le Goff
      Chief Commercial Officer
Analysts