NVSEF - Novartis AG (NVS) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
2024-07-18 12:49:03 ET
Novartis AG (NVS)
Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call
July 18, 2024, 08:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Sloan Simpson - Head of IR
Vas Narasimhan - CEO
Harry Kirsch - CFO
Conference Call Participants
Emily Field - Barclays
Florent Cespedes - Bernstein
Emmanuel Papadakis - Deutsche Bank
Richard Parkes - BNP Paribas
Graham Parry - Bank of America
James Quigley - Goldman Sachs
Mark Purcell - Morgan Stanley
Richard Vosser - JPMorgan
Peter Welford - Jefferies
Peter Verdult - Citi
Kerry Holford - Berenberg
Seamus Fernandez - Guggenheim Securities
Rajesh Kumar - HSBC
Jo Walton - UBS
Tim Anderson - Wolfe Research
Presentation
Operator
Good morning and good afternoon, and welcome to the Novartis Q2 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, operator. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our Q2 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 recently were filed with and furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. [Operator Instructions]
And with that, I will hand across to Vas.
Vas Narasimhan
Thank you, Sloan, and thank you, everyone, for joining today's conference call. With me on the call as always is our CFO, Harry Kirsch.
So starting with Slide 4. As you saw in quarter 2, we continued the strong growth performance at Novartis, which gives us conviction that we are well on track to deliver our 5% plus sales growth out to 2028 and a 40% margin target in 2027. You saw sales in the quarter were up 11% in constant currency, core operating income up 19%.
Our core margin reached 39.6%, reflecting our outstanding productivity programs, but also as a consequence of our strong sales growth. In addition, we had important innovation highlights in the quarter, which we'll review over the course of the call. But some of the really important ones included Scemblix first-line CML FDA submission, updated Kisqali NATALEE data, which we think really supports the outstanding profile of Kisqali in the adjuvant setting, in the early breast cancer setting, and we're looking forward to presenting that outstanding data at an upcoming medical congress.
And continuing to build out our renal portfolio with the atrasentan submission, as well as our broader portfolio of presentations at the recent ERA meetings. Taken together, this allowed us to upgrade our full year 2024 core operating income guidance. Harry will go through that in more detail.
Now moving to Slide 5. Our Q2 growth was broad-based, and we had strong contributions from multiple of our outstanding growth drivers. Importantly, Kesimpta was also a really outstanding start earlier in the year and continued that momentum. Kisqali also continued its strong momentum. Cosentyx with the recent launches, continues to grow in a robust way....
Novartis AG (NVS) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript