BioGaia AB Class B

BioGaia AB Class B

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Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptJuly 17, 2026

Operator

Welcome to BioGaia Q2 report for 2026. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode.

During the questions-and-answers session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key 5 on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to CEO Theresa Agnew and CFO Alexander Kotsinas.

Please go ahead.

Theresa Agnew

Hi, this is Theresa Agnew, CEO of BioGaia, and I am here with Alexander Kotsinas. We are here to present our Q2 results for 2026.

Some of the highlights of the quarter, our growth excluding currency effects was 12% versus year ago, and our EBIT margin is 30% with an adjusted EBIT margin of 33% for the quarter. Overall, our net sales reached 441 million SEK, as I said, with growth excluding currency effects of 12%.

Specifically in the regions, in Europe, Middle East, Africa, our sales increased by 21% excluding currency effects. In the Americas increased by 16% excluding currency effects, while Asia Pacific decreased by 6% excluding currency effects due to order variability.

Our operating profit in the quarter was 132 million SEK, which is an increase of 22%, and our EBIT margin was 30% versus the 27% last year for Q2. Our adjusted EBIT margin was 33% for the quarter.

Overall, our net sales year-to-date reached 813 million SEK, which is growth excluding currency effects of 13%. Our BioGaia company strategy remains the same.

Our first strategic pillar is grow the core, the core being our core health areas of the business, of which gut health, which includes colic, oral health, and immune health are our biggest priorities. Our second strategic pillar is what we call expansion through direct markets, where we look at particular markets to take from a distributor partnership to a subsidiary or a direct market.

We currently have 12 direct markets. Our third strategic pillar is breakthrough innovation.

This is market creation opportunities for probiotics where people don't routinely use probiotics today. The foundations of our company are people and culture, investing for profitable growth, using digital as an enabler, both in how we go to market through our omnichannel approach as well as digitizing our business internally, driven by science, which has been a foundation for over 30 years, and sustainable solutions, highlighting the importance of sustainability to our business.

How are we delivering on our strategy? In terms of grow the core, in the quarter, we drove growth for both the pediatrics and adult segments.

We are investing in our marketing and selling activities to grow strong growth in our direct markets. We are continuing to roll out our new products.

We had originally launched BioGaia Gastrus PureAction in October 2024. We continue to roll that out this year.

We also launched last year BioGaia Prodentis Fresh Breath. We're continuing to roll that out to more markets this year.

We just recently in May launched our next-generation patented probiotic drops called BioGaia Protectis Plus. BioGaia Protectis Plus will be available in addition to our original Protectis drops.

In terms of expansion through direct markets, we continued our launch in Germany and Austria in Q2 that originally launched in January this year. One of our largest direct markets, the US, had record sales in Q2, and we've seen strong performance in France in Q2.

In terms of our breakthrough innovation, skin health is one of our exciting new areas, and we expanded our portfolio in the quarter with two additional new products and updated our design across the full range. Some of the launches that we had in the quarter, as I mentioned, we launched BioGaia Protectis Plus.

We launched that in the UK, Ireland, as well as in Sweden. We launched our Pharyx drops in a number of markets.

As I said, we launched our two new skincare products, a face and body lotion and a balm-to-milk body wash, both microbiome-friendly and organic-containing ingredients. Those launches happened in the US and China.

Some of the key events for the quarter, on April 28th, we published some new scientific findings on one of our patented technologies. It's called Longevity Guard.

It is a desiccant technology that goes into our drops products and our probiotic ointment that improves the stability and shelf life of our probiotics so that they live throughout the shelf life. May 7th, we announced our launch of BioGaia Protectis Plus, which is, as I mentioned, a proprietary patented combination of our strain DSM 17938 as well as BG-R46.

Also on May 7th, at our annual general meeting, we elected a new board member to our board of directors, Amy Byrick. Then on June 18th, we announced the new product launches that I mentioned, the lotion and wash for the BioGaia skincare portfolio.

Our growth, as I said, for Q2 was 12% organic growth. As you look at it from a pediatric and adult segment standpoint, pediatrics grew 9% organic growth, and adult segment grew 23% organic growth.

A little bit more on the segments, if you look at the quarter, as I said, excluding currency effects, pediatrics grew 9%, adult health 23%, but if you look at the total for the year-to-date, pediatrics grew 11% organic growth, and adult grew 21%. In terms of pediatrics for the quarter, sales mainly increased in France, US, and Brazil.

In terms of adult health, sales increased in our Protectis tablets, and sales also increased in Asia Pacific, mainly in Indonesia and Japan. Overall, our pediatric segment for the quarter is 75% of our sales, and year-to-date is 74% of our sales.

Now by region, as I said previously, Europe, Middle East, Africa increased by 21% excluding currency effects, mainly in France and Poland. These were strong markets for us.

In addition, other strong markets in EMEA were Germany as well as UK. In Asia Pacific, our sales decreased by 6% excluding currency effects.

It was lower in our sales in the pediatric segment, while the adult health segment did increase, and as I said previously, the sales were lower mainly in China and South Korea. This was due to quarterly variations for individual orders, order variability.

In the Americas, which includes Latin America as well as North America, our sales increased by 16% excluding currency effects. This is due to higher sales in both the pediatric and the adult health segment, and sales increased mainly in the US, Canada, and Argentina.

I will now turn it over to Alex to go through the financials in more detail.

Alexander Kotsinas

Thank you, Theresa. To summarize, as we heard Theresa mention, we had a sales growth of 9% from 405 million to 441 million SEK in the quarter.

Our gross profit also increased with 9%, and our operating profit increased with 22%. We had a margin of 30% in the quarter compared to 27% one year ago.

If we look at the sales, as we heard, we had a growth of 9%, and we had a negative currency effect of 3%, and thus a growth excluding currency effect of 12% in the quarter. Our gross margin in the quarter was 73%, which was at the same level as last year.

We had 1 percentage point higher margin in the pediatric segment and 1% lower in the adult segment. That variation is mainly due to mix effects.

There are some movements between different products and geographic markets that explains the variation. Then if we look year-to-date, we have a margin of 72% versus 73% one year ago, with a slightly lower margin in the adult health segment.

If we look at our operating expenses, our total operating expenses were 189 million versus 186, 2% higher versus one year ago. Our sales and marketing expenses increased due to higher expenses for sales and marketing activities, mainly in our subsidiaries, for example, in France and Germany, which are new markets where we were spending less one year ago.

The sales and marketing expenses also include a one-time expense of 11.3 million SEK. Our R&D costs decrease, mainly due to lower costs for clinical studies.

It's a normal variation between the quarters. We have a positive effect in the other opex due to some exchange gains on receivables of 7 million SEK.

Therefore, we have an opex of 189 million versus 186, 2% higher, and on an adjusted basis, our opex was 177 million versus 186, which is then 4% lower compared to one year ago. Then if we summarize and look at our profit and loss statement, again, we see an increase in sales of 9%, an increase of opex at a lower extent of 2%, and therefore our EBIT then increases with 22%.

On an adjusted basis, our EBIT increases with 32%. We then have a margin of 30% in the quarter, and on an adjusted basis, our margin is 33%, and earnings per share of 1.02 versus 0.87, an increase of 17% in the quarter.

If we look at our cash flow, cash flow from operating activities amounted to 51 million. The decrease in cash flow from operating activities compared to the same period last year is mainly due to a negative change in working capital.

It is also, I would say, a normal variation between the quarters, whereby we have some higher receivables, a bit higher inventory, and lower payables, and all three giving a negative effect then in the change in working capital. The cash flow from financing activities amounted to -466 million.

That then includes the additional purchase payment that we did for Nutraceutics, our US company, of 59.5 million, which we paid at the 1st of April in this quarter. We also had dividends in the quarter of 405 million.

Then the net effect then is a cash flow for the period of -428 versus -624 in the same quarter last year. We have a cash at the end of the period of 446 million SEK.

With that, I hand over to Theresa for some concluding remarks.

Theresa Agnew

In summary, as we said, our second quarter showed growth excluding currency effects of 12%. Both our segments grew for the quarter, pediatric segment growing 9% excluding currency effects, and adult segment growing 23% excluding currency effects.

The increases were primarily driven by our Protectis drops, our Prodentis, and our Gastrus PureAction products. Europe, Middle East, Africa is regaining momentum, as you saw, in key markets following a period that we had of transition from when we went from partner distribution to direct market operations in France and Germany and Austria.

Our sales overall increased by 21% excluding currency effects. France, as I said, was established as a direct market in April 2025, Germany in January 2026, both contributed to the strong performance in Europe, Middle East, Africa.

For Asia Pacific, our sales decreased by 6% excluding currency effects. This was mainly due to the lower sales in the pediatric segment.

The adult health segment increased, as I mentioned previously, but the sales decreased mainly in China and South Korea in our partners in those markets, and that was due to quarterly variations in the individual orders. The Americas delivered strong performance with a 16% growth excluding currency effects.

Both Canada and the US had robust growth in sales of our adult products, specifically Prodentis and Gastrus PureAction, as well as double-digit growth in sales of our Protectis drops. Our operating margin for the quarter was 30%, our adjusted operating margin was 33%, overall, our year-to-date adjusted operating margin is 30% compared to 27% last year.

We are announcing that we will host a capital markets day in London in December of this year with more information to come on that. We remain, of course, focused on driving our growth by leveraging our strong scientific foundation that we have built over many years.

We are expanding our presence in key markets by continuing to launch new products in these markets, and, of course, investing in increasing our brand visibility and our brand recommendations through healthcare professionals. We will open it up now for any questions that you may have.

Operator

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad.

The next question comes from Kristofer Liljeberg from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Kristofer Liljeberg

Thank you. Good morning.

Four questions, but they are short, I promise. First, the higher investments compared with the first quarter last year or, yeah, the second quarter last year, if you could just comment on that?

I wonder about the gross margin improvement second quarter versus first quarter, if that's just mix effect or if it's something else? Third question is if you could give this figure of direct sales market proportion of total sales in the quarter or year-to-date?

Finally, if you are willing to comment about when you expect the China distributor to start ordering again? Thank you.

Theresa Agnew

What was the fourth question? When we...

Kristofer Liljeberg

When do you expect the distributor in China to start order again?

Theresa Agnew

China. Okay.

The first two questions, I'll have Alex address.

Alexander Kotsinas

The investments in the quarter, yeah, that's mainly BioGaia Production, and we are ramping up our investment levels. We are expanding our manufacturing capacity, we will see a higher capex level for this year and also next year, and that is why you have a higher capex.

We've actually had an abnormally low capex for the last year or two because we have been preparing...

Kristofer Liljeberg

Is this the level we saw in the quarter, is that you think a good representation for the remainder of the year, or...

Alexander Kotsinas

It will vary a bit going a bit up and down, but it's a bit difficult to say. Depends on the speed of that deployment of those investments, but I think for this year, we could have investments around 30 to 40 million SEK in total.

Kristofer Liljeberg

That's helpful. Thank you.

Alexander Kotsinas

Yeah. Then for the gross margin, yes, as you guessed, it's mainly due to variations between geography and products, and not really that we have changed any pricing or anything similar.

Then

Theresa Agnew

in terms of the direct market percentages, for the quarter, our direct markets are 41% of our growth, and then year-to-date is 45%. Then in terms

Kristofer Liljeberg

of... Do you mean of the growth or of the action sales?

Theresa Agnew

Oh, of our sales. So 41% for the quarter is direct markets, 45% of our sales for the year-to-date for direct markets.

Kristofer Liljeberg

I guess if you have a quarter and that leads us into my final question, if APAC is picking up again, I guess that number should go down, or is the trend so strong that direct sales proportion will still continue up this year, would you say?

Theresa Agnew

No, that number will go down because we had lower orders for China and South Korea in the first half of the year. We do expect, and that gets to your fourth question, that our China distributor will increase their orders in Q3 and then larger orders in Q4 as well.

Kristofer Liljeberg

Okay. Do you expect China third quarter sales to be up year-over-year?

Theresa Agnew

Yes, we do.

Kristofer Liljeberg

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Filip Wetterqvist from SB1 Markets. Please go ahead.

Filip Wetterqvist

Good morning, guys. I just have a couple of questions.

The first one on the extraordinary sales costs, can you elaborate a little bit more on what that relates to and did it impact cash flow here in the quarter?

Theresa Agnew

In terms of the overall expense, it's a one-time expense, and this is confidential for competitive reasons, we don't share the specifics on that, but it is a one-time selling expense.

Alexander Kotsinas

It did impact the cash flow in the quarter, that's correct.

Filip Wetterqvist

Okay. Thank you.

Then my second question is still on the selling costs, and excluding the extraordinary expense, selling expenses grew 3% year-over-year below the 12% organic growth. Should we assume selling expenses to grow slower than sales from Q2 onwards, or is this a good run rate for H2 or how should we think about selling expenses going forward?

Alexander Kotsinas

It's a bit tricky to give an exact answer on that. On one hand, yes, we are trying to contain our costs.

Last year, we did have this global marketing campaign, which we did, for example, which we are not doing this year, we will have a lower sales and marketing cost for that. On the other hand, we are ramping up our costs in the sales and marketing area in terms of, for example, direct operations in Germany that we didn't do last year, and also we're ramping up in France and some other direct markets.

We don't really give an exact guidance on the proportion of marketing and sales spending, but as we mentioned before, we're committed to try to keep our total opex basically flat for this year.

Filip Wetterqvist

Okay. That was all for me.

Thank you.

Alexander Kotsinas

Thank you.

Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Mattias Vadsten from SEB.

Please go ahead.

Mattias Vadsten

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions.

I have two. In EMEA now, when you look at the performance, would you say it's anything in that region that is not performing according to plan, or is it really a good performance across the key markets in EMEA?

Theresa Agnew

In terms of Europe, Middle East, Africa, there are a couple countries, I would say, not performing to plan. Turkey is one where we have switched our distributor partner earlier this year, so that business is going to start ramping up in the second half and has been poor in the first half of this year and also the second half of last year.

Turkey. I would also say Italy is slower than expected in terms of orders from our partner.

That has to do with some of the probiotics market in Italy overall declining, but we have high share and we're growing share in that market.

Mattias Vadsten

Okay. Good.

That's a clear answer. Then the next one, the probiotic drops, the Protectis Plus, can you talk about the launch plan in your key regions here going ahead and maybe the development that you see versus the current Protectis drops products that you sell?

Theresa Agnew

We just launched in the UK in May, and we actually launched at a baby show with about 30,000 consumers and received very positive feedback on the new product. The product so far has been launched in the UK, Ireland, and Sweden since our announcement on May 7th.

Then we will be rolling it out over time in other markets. It all depends on the regulatory situations.

Because this is a new strain, it does take an additional registration in a lot of our markets. It will take time, such as in the US, you need to have GRAS certification for a new strain.

There a number of things from regulatory perspective that will cause the launch to be over many years coming.

Mattias Vadsten

Okay. Good.

In terms, is this part of the production investments that you do now, or let's say that if you could launch in the US, would that be doable with the production setup that you have right now?

Theresa Agnew

Yes. Yes, definitely.

We have plenty of capacity. We actually had a new EasyDropper line installed, which is actually the main US SKU is an EasyDropper format, so that was installed about 2 years ago, we have plenty capacity.

Also we have capacity on our glass bottle line as well.

Mattias Vadsten

Very clear. Thank you very much.

Operator

There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Theresa Agnew

Thank you for your questions, and we're happy to present our Q2 results, and we will be back again when we have Q3. Thank you.