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Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Welcome to Embla Medical Conference Call for Q2 2025. Today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to introduce President and CEO, Sveinn Solvason; and CFO, Arna Sveinsdottir. Please begin your presentation.

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Thank you very much, and good morning, and welcome to the Embla Medical conference call where we will review the second quarter of 2025. I'm Sveinn Solvason, President and CEO of Embla Medical. Joining me on today's call is our Chief Financial Officer, Arna Sveinsdottir; and Embla Medicals Head of Investor Relations, Klaus Sindahl. The presentation should take approximately 15 minutes, after which there will be an opportunity to ask questions during a Q&A session.

If we could go to the next slide, please. Sales in the second quarter amounted to $232 million, representing 7% reported growth of which 5% was organic. Growth was strong in the Prosthetics and Neuro Orthotics segment, mainly driven by the continued momentum in EMEA and supported by solid contribution from our recently launched innovation. Growth in Americas and APAC was also good, led by the Prosthetics and Neuro Orthotics segment, while sales in Patient Care remained flat. Sales in Bracing & Supports experienced a slight decline. The EBITDA margin was strong at 21% and 20% for the first half of the year compared to 19% in the first half of 2024. The margin increase for the first half was driven by robust sales in Prosthetics and Neuro Orthotics, solid efficiency in manufacturing and continued cost discipline in SG&A.

In line with sales performance in the first half of the year and with the expectation of stronger growth in the second half, we narrow our guidance to 5% to 6% organic sales growth for the full year. On the EBITDA margin, we reiterate our full year guidance at 20% to 21%. The guidance continues to assume some absorption of tariffs while we continue to deem it too speculative to quantify and provide exact guidance given the frequent tariff rate changes.

After quarter 2, we continue to be pleased with the progress we've made so far on our strategic initiative. Last week, we announced the signing of an agreement to invest in a majority share in privately-owned Streifeneder ortho.production. We are very excited about this investment, which is a strong strategic fit to our Growth'27 strategy and will ultimately enable Embla Medical to reach more patients with a now broader product offering. In Neuro Orthotics we are also pleased to see that Fior & Gentz has been awarded a new reimbursement code in the United States for their microprocessor-controlled knee joint. The NEURO HiTRONIC joint is the smallest and lightest micro hydraulic knee joint on the market today and the L code awarded represents a -- yes, a significant opportunity for our Neuro Orthotics business in the important U.S. market.

I'm also pleased to report that we're now more than halfway through unifying our patient care facilities under the ForMotion brand. And during the second quarter, patient care facilities in Iceland, Sweden and Finland, were rebranded to ForMotion. Lastly, we are pleased to be honored by Forbes Magazine for Championing Accessibility and by Iceland's President for Excellence in Export -- in Global Exports.

If you now turn to the next slide, please. Last week, we announced the signing of an agreement to invest in a majority share in privately owned Streifeneder. Streifeneder is an international developer and supplier of orthopedic mobility solutions. In addition to its prosthetics, the company also sells orthopedic materials and equipment to the O&P clinics, a very important offering within our industry. I also want to note that the agreement captures the product business while the network of O&P clinics Streifeneder currently operates will remain in the Streifeneder Group. In 2024, the business realized sales of EUR 25 million with 70% of sales related to prosthetics and orthopedic materials.

Today, the majority of sales are generated in Germany while the company also sells into other key European markets and distributes into the Americas and the APAC regions. And this investment in Streifeneder product business represents a very strong strategic fit to our Growth'27 strategy, offering an attractive opportunity for Embla Medical to become a, you could say, a more full range provided to a larger part of the global O&P market, including potential to expand our reach in emerging or private pay markets.

We are, yes, very excited to welcome the Streifeneder team to the Embla Medical family. The cooperation between the two businesses will help secure a leading position in the growing O&P market with now also a stronger value line offering. The transaction is largely to be financed through a share issue worth DKK 93 million in addition to some cash components and performance-related payments. The closing of the transaction is still subject to regulatory approval. Pending this, the transaction is not expected to have any material impact on the financial guidance for 2025.

If you now please turn to the next slide for an overview of our regional performance here for the second quarter. We had good growth across all regions with strong sales in EMEA as the region delivered 7% growth driven by continued momentum in Prosthetics and Neuro Orthotics. Growth in Americas and APAC region was also good at 3%, led again by the Prosthetics and Neuro Orthotics segment.

If we turn to the next slide, please. On Prosthetics and Neuro Orthotics, organic sales growth was 9% in the quarter. The strong growth momentum we've seen over the last several quarters and across key European markets continued in quarter 2. Growth was driven by strong volume growth in addition to good uptake from our recently launched innovation. In Americas, the performance was very encouraging as we see signs of improvement in the region, especially in the latter half of quarter 2 following a somewhat soft first quarter. The good growth in the region was supported again by high-end solutions with positive impact from newly launched innovation.

Lastly, our sales performance in APAC was solid, driven mainly by markets such as Australia and New Zealand, while sales were somewhat softer in the rest of Asia. In Neuro Orthotics, the business is moving ahead according to plan. Our focus remains on ramping up in new markets.

If you go to the next slide, please. Sales in Bracing & Supports declined by 2% in the second quarter. In EMEA, sales ended soft for the quarter despite good performance in selected regions. While in Americas, sales were also soft partly ascribed to lower patient volumes for elective procedures and moderate price pressure. APAC remained or experienced some recovery from previous quarters with good growth in markets such as Australia and New Zealand. Our Bracing and Support business experienced some impact during the quarter from the U.S. tariffs on imports from China. And on July 2, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released a proposed rule with a section dedicated to its competitive bidding program. The new rule is designed to reduce Medicare spending in certain off-the-shelf orthosis categories. The proposed rule does in its current form not identify which orthosis and braces will be subject to the next competitive bidding round nor does it specify the time line for implementation. And since several factors related to the proposed change remain uncertain, we believe it's too premature to disclose the potential impact.

If we go to the next slide, please. Sales in Patient Care ended flat for the quarter. We saw very good performance in several European markets, which was partly offset by softer sales in other markets and also partly impacted by Easter holiday shifting between current and comparable quarters. In Americas, our Patient Care business showed increased momentum following a very first -- or very soft first quarter. Lastly, our sales in APAC were impacted by timing as sales in the first half of the year were strong.

Now this concludes our sales performance overview for the quarter. I would now like to hand it over to Arna to go through the financials in more detail. Arna, please.

[Gudny Sveinsdottir, executive]

Thank you, Sveinn. Please turn to the next slide for an overview of our financials. In the second quarter, the gross profit margin was 62% compared to 64% in quarter 2 last year. The positive impact from strong sales in our Prosthetics and Neuro Orthotics segment supported by manufacturing efficiency was offset by softer sales in the rest of the business as we experienced less benefit of scale on our fixed manufacturing cost in addition to some impact from U.S. tariffs.

For the first half, the gross profit margin before special items was on par with the same period last year. OpEx amounted to $111 [ million ] or 48% of sales in quarter 2 compared to $105 million or 49% of sales in the comparable quarter. OpEx growth of 2% organic in the second quarter were below our organic sales growth and in line with the solid cost discipline we have on the SG&A side. Consequently, we delivered an EBITDA margin of 21% for the quarter, which is 1 percentage point below last year's level, impacted by a softer gross profit margin in quarter 2. However, for the first half, the EBITDA margin expanded by 1 percentage point to 20% versus 90% in the same period last year. The margin expansion was driven by higher gross profit margin and cost discipline in SG&A. Net profit grew 5% for the quarter and 17% for the first half. Growth in net profit was positively impacted by strong operating results, was negatively impacted by the increase in net financial expenses in the quarter, largely due to noncash currency fluctuations.

Please turn to the next slide for the status on our cash flow and leverage. During the second quarter, CapEx was $10 million and 4% of sales and within the guidance range of 3% to 4% of sales. CapEx increased in the quarter in comparison to quarter 1, mainly due to timing of investments in manufacturing equipment. All things equal, we expect our CapEx to remain at a normalized level of 3% to 4% of sales for the remainder of the year.

Our free cash flow was $12 million in the quarter compared to $8 million for the same period last year. Our free cash flow benefited from strong operating results that was partly offset by net working capital, mainly a temporary increase in account receivable due to stronger sales in the latter half of the quarter and an elevated CapEx level in quarter 2. Our leverage was 2.6x at the end of the quarter. The net increase in our net interest bearing debt is mainly due to currency effect as part of our loan portfolio is in euros. Lastly, we entered into a new EUR 50 million loan agreement with Nordic Investment Bank with a 7-year term and also brought back more than 600,000 shares for approximately $3 million during the second quarter. And with this overview of our financial, I will hand over to Sveinn for his closing remarks and comments around our guidance.

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Thank you very much, Arna. If you go to the next slide, please. In the second quarter and first half, we demonstrated continuous strong performance in Prosthetics and Neuro Orthotics driven by momentum in EMEA, while see signs of improvement towards the latter half of Q2 in Americas with positive impact from recently launched innovation. In line with performance in the first half and expectations for stronger growth in the second half, our full year guidance for organic sales growth is narrowed and is now expected to be in the range of 5% to 6%, while outlook for EBITDA margin is maintained at 20% to 21%. The guidance assumes some absorption of tariffs in our financial guidance, although uncertainty around exact impact remains.

With this overview, our presentation is now concluded, and we would like to open the call for questions. Operator, please move to the next slide and the Q&A can begin. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Yiwei Zhou from SEB.

[Yiwei Zhou, analyst]

I have two, and I do one at a time. And firstly, regarding the acquisition, and you have not talked about its margin impact. I was wondering if this one would be accretive or dilutive on the margin in the longer term, if you can elaborate a bit.

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Yes, Yiwei, thanks for your questions. In the short term, it will be slightly dilutive, but we expect in the medium term that this acquisition will contribute on par with our -- with the rest of our Prosthetics and Neuro Orthotics business.

[Yiwei Zhou, analyst]

Okay. Could you maybe elaborate a bit on the gross margin and also on the EBITDA margin separately?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Yes. I mean if we look at our margins year-to-date, we are 1 percentage point up on gross and EBITDA margin despite, let's say, slower sales performance than what we had anticipated. There is some impact or kind of some shift between quarter 1 and quarter 2. We do have some impact of Easter moving between quarters, especially on our European Patient Care business. But year-to-date, we are -- yes, we are -- we have an increase in our margins, which is in line with how we have guided.

[Yiwei Zhou, analyst]

Sorry, it must be me who have not been clear. So my question is regarding the margin impact on the gross margin and also on EBITDA margin from the acquisition. And could you comment on...

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Sorry, sorry, sorry. I think comment on the EBITDA margin, I think here in the short term, it will be slightly dilutive to the tune of around 20 basis points, something like that. But as I mentioned earlier, we have a clear plan in the medium term to sort of make certain changes such that the business will contribute on -- and not be dilutive for our overall portfolio.

[Yiwei Zhou, analyst]

Okay. And next question on the guidance. You still keep the 6% organic growth. I was wondering what your assumption is for the growth in the Americas that you can deliver the 6%.

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Yes. Maybe I'll address sort of the bigger picture in guidance in relation to this question. I mean, we went into the year -- when we set guidance in the beginning of the year at 5% to 8%, the main kind of -- and as always, something as we then get into it, some aspects of our business are performing better and in some areas where we're behind plan. I think the main -- what is clear is that the main variance from expectations has been region in the -- the Americas region as a whole across all our business areas, and we did see a very soft quarter 1. However, we see clear signs that volume demand is healthier here in the second quarter. And therefore, we -- our expectations are, all else equal that we will have a higher average organic growth here in the second half of the year indicated by our guidance, the 5% to 6% organic growth guidance.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Martin Brenoe from Nordea.

[Martin Brenoe, analyst]

I have three questions as a starting point. Maybe just starting with the competitive bidding. I understand that you don't want to be too specific with the uncertainty ongoing. But I guess that there was a competitive bidding back in 2020. And do you have any feeling or sense whether it's the same codes and the same sort of magnitude that we are looking into as it was back 5 years ago. That would be sort of the first question to that. And is it correctly understood that this -- from what you know now is only related to bracing and supports and you don't see any impact in your prosthetics business?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Martin, thanks for the question. Yes, I can confirm that what -- that this will only impact our bracing business and this announcement was expected as such. And as you mentioned, there was another round of competitive bidding a couple of years ago. It is still very early for us in terms of estimating the impact firstly, because it's not clear which product categories will be impacted. And I will say that this sort of will -- in the part of the business in certain pockets of bracing and support, meaning that there is -- meaning that we can expect changes in reimbursement to continue to put some moderate pressure on pricing. In the last round of competitive bidding, the impact was less than what we had modeled, and we were able to make certain adjustments such that we did not experience as much impact as what we had anticipated. So we would -- we are -- yes, we will continue to monitor the situation and report when we do have a clear view on what the sort of end result would be. But it's also worth mentioning that sort of this will -- the underlying volume growth drivers for bracing and supports are still intact. But this competitive bidding will though have some impact on sort of how volume shares can shift in the market because you will have providers in certain regions in the U.S. who are able to bid and will capture, and you're likely to see some volume shift. So we could see some shift of volume between our customers. But we will report back on this as we gain more insights into how this will be implemented.

[Martin Brenoe, analyst]

Okay. Just a quick follow-up on this question would be, is there anything that has -- because back 5 years ago, it was estimated to be around USD 22 million that was in scope. Is there any signal that this should be more this time or less this time or more or less similar sort of scope that we're looking at?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Again, it's too early for us to say, but our initial indication is that it's at least not higher than that.

[Martin Brenoe, analyst]

Okay. Okay. That's very clear. And then just on the U.S. you could argue that you are looking at a significant market expansion. You have product launches. You also have a bigger platform to grow on. So you say you have signals that U.S. is picking up [indiscernible] or indications. Can you maybe help us a little bit understand what's going on a little bit more granularly. Also is the market growing? Are you losing market shares to your main competitor there or two competitors? And which sort of product areas are you seeing a potential pickup in the very near term? That would be very helpful to understand.

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Yes. So if we look at quarter 1, we -- our performance in the Americas, in particular, was below our expectation and simply our outlook when going into the year. But we are -- our sense is that volumes were down across the industry here and in the most part of the first half of the year due to several factors. The overall environment in the United States, there were some delays, particularly on approval of reimbursement applications. But at the end of the day, the patient populations that we serve still need to maintain their mobility devices and the demand drivers are intact, and it's not our view that we have lost share in any form. And what we see here in the second quarter of the year is that patient volumes have gradually come back. And we see good demand, especially for our new innovation at NAVii, also the Icon and a very positive signal here on the Neuro Orthotics side as we have been granted a new reimbursement code for our knee joint. So the market remains healthy and the demand for our solutions remains healthy, and our competitive position remains very strong.

[Martin Brenoe, analyst]

Okay. And then just to understand in the very near term here, you've lowered your prices as far as I understand, on certain products. How should -- should we expect to see any impact both on revenue offsetting some of the volume pickup that you might see? And are we also going to see a potential gross margin impact as you are selling at a lower price going forward?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

I'm not sure which price decrease you're referring to, but let's say, if you're referring to our bionics portfolio, we now have a broader portfolio with products positioned at different price points, which, all else being equal, enables us to be in a better position to grow our unit share in the bionics market. And the bionics market is very healthy in the U.S. also following the changes that we announced last year in terms of expansion for lower active entities and we see more lower active patients being fitted with bionics in the market. But again, I'd like to reiterate that this is a long-term or medium long-term topic, this expansion of coverage. Like we've seen in other jurisdictions when it change like this is implemented, it takes years. But the patient population that is now eligible for receiving this type of technology is now vastly bigger and will provide the industry with more work around getting more patients using better mobility devices going forward.

[Martin Brenoe, analyst]

Okay. Makes sense. So are there any costs that we should be aware of in terms of -- now you have products ready, you have the portfolio out there, but you need to do some sort of marketing push? Or is that already in the numbers as you have printed today?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

You shouldn't expect any sort of necessary change in the run rate of our commercial cost such now.

[Martin Brenoe, analyst]

Okay. And then just a final question for Arna would be net financials being a bit higher than expected driven by the FX fluctuations. Can you maybe help us just housekeeping wise, how we should think about net financials over the next quarters and also more structurally how we should see that finance costs?

[Gudny Sveinsdottir, executive]

You see -- first talk about the exchange rate differences we saw in quarter 2, we continue to see some effect from our lease liabilities. We also went into new lease liabilities. Those long-term agreements sitting on our balance sheet. So with noncash currency effect in the quarter. And we -- just based on how the currency fluctuation is, we should continue to see that. But if the currency stay flat, there should not be any effect going forward.

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Yes. So it is sort of, yes, as Arna mentioned, related to kind of translation impact on our balance sheet items that is pumping or impacting the P&L here on the net financial items. So if we assume no exchange rates going forward, this should already be reflected in our finance cost and not be repeated.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Tobias Nissen from Danske Bank.

[Tobias Nissen, analyst]

Just coming back to growth and the growth outlook for Americas versus EMEA. You had 3% organic growth in Americas and 7% in the quarter. What should we expect for the remaining of the year? I know you started out at the beginning of the year saying that the growth rate should be quite similar Arna, for both looking at the full year. But what should we expect for the remaining of the year? And also with EMEA being strong, can you perhaps dive a little bit deeper, what's driving this growth? I suspect some of this is new innovation and new product launches. But is it just your new products cannibalizing existing products or also taking market share? That would be my first question.

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Yes. Tobias, thanks for your questions. We will not provide specific growth guidance for the region as a whole, but it's clear that we expect Americas to show higher growth here in the second half than here the first half. That's clear. And we see clear signs of that Americas is moving in the right direction here in the latter part of quarter 2. Now on -- with regards to our EMEA business, we continue to see the solid performance across all major markets in the European region and definitely helped by the new product launches that we brought to market mid-ish-quarter 1, are again NAVii and yes, [indiscernible] but I think it will be the NAVii.And you are correct, the NAVii will cannibalize part of our real sales. But overall, we -- our combined unit sales in bionics were very strong across the region and globally here in the second quarter.

[Tobias Nissen, analyst]

And just coming back on the gross margin and the tariff impact. Can you try to quantify how much headwind you saw here in the second quarter? And how much you expect for the remaining of the year, at like current rates?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Yes. We -- I mean we have an impact here in quarter 2 of around $0.5 million. We haven't -- nothing specific around what we expect here in the second half of the year, again due to some uncertainty and continued changes in these tariff rates. But we have assumed a somewhat higher amount being realized in terms of pay parity in the second half of the year.

[Tobias Nissen, analyst]

Okay. Perfect. And then just a final one for me, a bit of a housekeeping. I see in the P&L share of net profit of associates around this 3.7 million for the quarter quite higher than previous quarters. Perhaps dive a little bit deeper on this, what's driving this?

[Gudny Sveinsdottir, executive]

Yes. This is -- this is just -- in our associate company, we are seeing extraordinary one-off income of around 2.4 million in the quarter due to a sale of [indiscernible] in this company, but we do not expect that to continue as it is one-off sales.

[Operator]

The next question is from [ Amar Singh ] from Inform Health.

[Unknown Analyst]

Can you talk us through how the K2 expansion in Medicare has progressed so far? Is it tracking with your expectations? And when do you expect it to make a noticeable contribution to revenues?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

I would say -- thanks for your question. I would say that it is largely tracking in line with our expectations. As I mentioned briefly earlier, we expect this to be a gradual medium, long-term topic. And what we see is that our independent clinical customers have gradually been building confidence in terms of testing these new reimbursement protocols. There are some increased requirements compared to the K3 population. And we also -- also registered in our own clinics, an increase in K2 patients being fitted with bionics. So I would say that this is largely developing in line with our expectations. However, it's -- as we've seen lower patient volumes, and overall, you could say, slower development here in the first half of the year than what we anticipated for the industry as a whole. That is largely related to external factors, the impact is maybe less, less clear than it would have been otherwise. So I hope that adds some color.

[Operator]

The next question is a follow-up from Martin Brenoe from Nordea.

[Martin Brenoe, analyst]

Just one brief follow-up. When you are saying you are seeing indications of improvement, it doesn't really show that much in the H1 numbers. Is that something very recent that you have seen? Or is it because of something underlying? Or can you maybe just help us a little bit understand what these indications are, just so -- yes, we get a bit of sense of that.

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Yes. I mean when we say that we see, let's say, a trend line moving in the right direction in both our Prosthetics product business and Patient Care business in the United States. What that means is that throughout the quarter, we see, yes, a positive trend, meaning that our run rates are picking up. And we closed the quarter strong in both business areas. So that's what we mean with let's say that we feel that the underlying trend line is definitely stronger than what it was here in quarter 1.

[Martin Brenoe, analyst]

Okay. So would it be fair to assume that the U.S. exit rate would be more like in the mid-single-digit territory?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

I would say, Martin, and again a little bit what I referred to earlier, I mean, if you look at business area performance and regional performance and for us to meet 5% to 6% guidance, we need a higher growth rate for the Americas region. And that's what we expect here in the second half of the year that we will have more balanced contribution from the two big regions, EMEA and Americas here in the second half of the year.

[Martin Brenoe, analyst]

Okay. And then on Patient Care being flat is, as you've said a couple of times, is that where you want to be? So that's requiring quite an acceleration to be at the level that is sort of satisfactory. So what exactly is going to be the inflection point? Is it just that the market is going to rebound? Or is there anything that you can do to impact it? Is it a ForMotion thing where you can see you get a higher conversion when you have translated to the ForMotion brand? Or what is it exactly that is going to respark growth in Patient Care?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

If you look at the Patient Care business year-to-date, it's -- our European business has been strong, and we also expect strong contribution from our, let's say, our APAC business. But here in quarter 1, the Europe compensated for the U.S. and here in quarter 2, again, because the Easter effect is largely a European topic, let's say, the U.S. is moving in the right direction, but less relative sort of growth contribution in EMEA due to the unfavorable comparison. So going into second half of the year, it's mainly getting back on track with regards to growth in the Americas region. That will be the kind of main determining factor on where we end up on growth for the business area as a whole for the year.

[Martin Brenoe, analyst]

Okay. And is that just that the market in the U.S. is picking up, and that's what you're banking on? Or is there anything that you as a company is actively doing to get growth accelerating?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

It is a market patient volume topic here in the second half of the year and as well as always, always in our Patient care business, it is about being effective in terms of how we work with our referral sources to drive patient volumes into our clinics. And that is always a key topic for our Patient Care franchise. But in addition to, we expect more -- higher patient volumes here in the second half of the year.

[Operator]

We have another follow-up from Yiwei Zhou from SEB.

[Yiwei Zhou, analyst]

On the U.S. -- and I would also like to follow up on the U.S. market. There's a lot of has changed since Trump administration. And we have seen that the budget cuts on Medicare and putting some pressure on some product categories. And now we have talked about this reimbursement expansion even for the prosthetics -- for the bionic products. And I was wondering if the current uncertainty in the U.S. changed your view or if you have heard anything from your industry network sort of giving you some concerns of that if this will be sort of the trend will sort of eventually materialize or if any sort of budget cut or budget pressure, where -- will happen in the U.S.?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

That's a great question, Yiwei. I mean there is the environment in the U.S. as compared to previous years, how should I put it, there's been more news flow with regards to topics that could impact reimbursement. First of all, I would like to say that Medicare has sent us strong signals that they -- or let's say that they're willing to finance good mobility devices that over time will decrease cost for the patient population. And an example of that is the K2 expansion and also now the signs that we have received from Medicare in terms of their willingness to fund the Neuro Orthotics devices. So all of this is positive for patients and positive for the O&P industry.

The so-called Big Beautiful Bill that has been or is in process of being approved in the U.S. will -- this talk about impact on Medicaid, which is the reimbursement party on a state level in the U.S., and we estimate that Medicaid covers up to 10% of the end patient population that we serve in our own patient care clinic. So how this will develop over the next years, we will need to see. This population today, all else equal, receives in most cases, fairly or on average lower cost mobility devices, not necessarily the premium devices. But we will closely monitor this development around what potential impact there will be on Medicaid. But overall, the environment in the U.S. remains healthy. There's no discussion on any changes in general to what products or technology is provided to entities. So I think the best answer I can give at the moment.

[Yiwei Zhou, analyst]

Yes. And can I just follow up, do you see you or the industry have enough data to support the sort of the health care economics of the bionic products for the patients in order to justify its value?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

I think the industry can do more with regards to fighting for increased access. I believe there is a -- that we have very strong health economic data around the efficacy of our solutions. As we've talked about many times before, prescribing high-end, high-quality mobility devices for individuals with chronic mobility challenges is a very effective investment decisions on behalf of public payers. The data is there and the environment that we operate in will just continue to require us to be effective in generating health economic data and working with payers to maintain good access to amputees to good technology.

[Operator]

The next question is from the line of Tobias Nissen from Danske Bank with another follow-up.

[Tobias Nissen, analyst]

Perfect. I just have another one on Patient Care and the ForMotion rebranding. You're now halfway through the rebranding. Has this had some effects? And could this explain some of the weakness we have seen in the patient care for the last few quarters? And just another one on this. When do you expect this rebranding to be completed? And can you tell us a little bit more what are the key learnings have been from the rebranding so far?

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Yes. Thank you, Tobias. I mean -- we will be mostly through this rebranding this year. And it's worth mentioning that we will expand $3 million to $4 million this year on this, which will not be repeated next year. And it's in our guidance and the cost that we absorb. I -- every time we launch in a region, it requires time and effort. This is a positive change for our patient care organization. We are now taking the next step in consolidating and reaping the benefits, you could say, of operating a global patient care franchise. So this has been received very positively from our patient care team. But every time we launch in a region, it requires effort and time spent -- non-spending patients. So there might be a minimal effect, but it's not a reason for why we see slow growth in the first half of the year.

[Operator]

As there are no further questions from the conference call, I will hand it back to the speakers for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

[Sveinn Sölvason, executive]

Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for calling in here during the middle of the summer. If you have any follow-up questions, please reach out to our Investor Relations team. And with that, I wish you all a great summer break, and see you in the fall. Thank you. Bye-bye.