NVSEF - Novartis AG (NVS) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-04-23 11:55:26 ET
Novartis AG (NVS)
Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call
April 23, 2024, 08:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Sloan Simpson - Head of Investor Relations
Vas Narasimhan - Chief Executive Officer
Harry Kirsch - Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Matthew Weston - UBS
Steve Scala - TD Cowen
Graham Parry - Bank of America
Emily Field - Barclays
Simon Baker - Redburn Atlantic
Emmanuel Papadakis - Deutsche Bank
Richard Vosser - JPMorgan
Tim Anderson - Wolfe Research
Richard Parkes - BNP Paribas
Mark Purcell - Morgan Stanley
Peter Welford - Jefferies
Andrew Baum - Citi
Seamus Fernandez - Guggenheim Securities
Eric Le Berrigaud - Stifel
Presentation
Operator
Good morning and good afternoon, and welcome to the Novartis Q1 2024 Results Release Conference Call and Live Webcast. Please note that during the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] A recording of the conference call, including the Q&A session, will be available on our website shortly after the call ends.
With that, I would like to hand over to Ms. Sloan Simpson, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, madam.
Sloan Simpson
Thank you so much, operator. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our first quarter 2024 earnings call.
The information presented today contains forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. These may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. For a description of some of these factors, please refer to the company's Form 20-F and its most recent quarterly results on Form 6-K that respectively were filed with and furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
And with that, I will hand across to Vas.
Vas Narasimhan
Thank you, Sloan.
I'd like to open today's call by first thanking Samir Shah for his incredible tenure as our Head of Investor Relations for over a decade. We're grateful for all of his contributions. We look forward to his continued contributions in a new role at Novartis. And I want to welcome Sloan Simpson. I think Sloan will do an absolutely outstanding job serving all of you as our Head of Investor Relations. I've worked with her for many, many years. I think we're really pleased and grateful to have her on board.
So, let's turn to the quarter. Novartis delivered a really strong start to the year with double-digit sales growth, core margin expansion, which enabled us to upgrade our guidance, and Harry will go through the guidance in more detail. Sales were up 11% in constant currencies, core operating income was up 22%, our core margin reached 38.4% as we steadily march to our goal of 40%-plus by 2027.
In addition, we had a number of important innovation milestones in the quarter, which I'll go through over the course of the call. But a few I'd want to particularly highlight the Fabhalta positive opinion enabled us to launch Fabhalta in Europe. Scemblix first line readout, we think will be very important for a major medicine for the company. And we also had the updated PSMAfore OS results, which will enable us now to move forward with the filing of Pluvicto in the United States....
Novartis AG (NVS) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript