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Welcome to the Vimian Group Q1 2024. [Operator Instructions].
Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers. Please go ahead.
We'd like to start our call by going through a couple of highlights. First of all, we operate in a solid market, and the growth continues to be robust. We have made a decision to reduce our AOP program this year, which is in our MedTech business, where we are normalizing and phasing our revenues throughout the year. This is to match the customers' consumption with their deliveries and to streamline our supply chain and to be able to operate our business with lower working capital both in inventory and accounts receivable.
This change and this offer to our customers to move from annualized order programs where they would buy the full year consumption at the beginning of the year to switch over to a quarterly or a monthly order pattern has impacted our first quarter growth in our MedTech segment. This has no impact on our full year revenue, and the gap that was created in Q1 will be fully recovered throughout the remaining quarters of the year.
We have strong momentum in our -- both in our vet services business and in our Specialty Pharma business. Both of these businesses are delivering a robust double-digit growth. If we look at our customers in our MedTech segment that has never been participating in an AOP program ever, that group of customers are also growing by double digits.
In March, we announced new financial targets: our adjusted EBITA above EUR 300 million by 2030 and our net leverage of 3x or below. Those are good targets, and we also look forward to execute and deliver on those.
We also did a rights issue of SEK 1.6 billion so that we have opportunities to go after and finance value-creation acquisitions. We also announced our intention to list on the main market. I'd like to thank our shareholders who participated and for your support in this process.
If we look at the next slide here and maybe talk about a few things more in detail. The first quarter organic growth came in at 1%, driven by the reduction of the annual order program in our MedTech business. We had an additional contribution of 3% from acquisitions. We also did a small bolt-on acquisition in our MedTech segment. There's no impact of this for the rest of the year. So we have a phasing on MedTech.
Our EBITA was down to 26.3%, and this is a direct result of the reduction of our AOP program. Our Specialty Pharma, vet services and Diagnostics business delivered on the plan that we had for those businesses in the first quarter. And as you can see on this slide here, the light blue depicts the change in the AOP program. That was a $10 million -- or EUR 10 million program in the first quarter last year that was reduced to EUR 5.5 million program in 2024.
Moving over to our Specialty Pharma segment. We grew 11% there, and it was driven by our US Specialised Nutrition business and our European Allergy test and treatment business. As we have mentioned before, we're focusing on driving organic growth through cross-selling products into new geographies and new channels, and we had a significant contribution of growth from those initiatives in the first quarter. Our margin has been stable over the years, and we had a solid 17% EBITA growth.
Going to our maybe R&D and innovation track for Specialty Pharma. We launched 13 new products in the quarter. And our new allergy vaccine is progressing well, where we have initiated studies on client dogs during the first quarter, and so far, it's progressing very well.
All in all, we see continued good positive momentum in our Specialty Pharma and foresee this business to continue to have very healthy growth going forward.
Turning to our MedTech segment. The result of the decline in the AOP program is resulting in an organic decline of 12%. And it's solely described by the U.S. and by the AOP program changes there. Again, we are matching the customer demand with our deliveries, and it gives us an opportunity to reduce the volatility and increase the visibility, transparency and predictability of this business. A lot of our customers that were offered the transition here took advantage of it. So they are now on a monthly or a quarterly order plan, and that transition went a lot quicker and faster than we had anticipated.
The AOP program is still available for customers who would like to order a full year volume at once. Look at outside of the U.S., in Europe, in Asia Pacific and in Canada, where we did not have an AOP program, the customers there and the revenues, they have been delivering a high single-digit growth for the first quarter. We have good underlying momentum in this business, and these phasing changes in the first quarter will have no impact on the full year revenue.
And going over to Veterinary Services. Organic growth here is 15%, and it's healthy growth across all of our geographies. It's predominantly driven by new member acquisition. We welcome 350 new clinics during the first quarter. We have a good conversion of membership into a higher-level tier. Our co-owned clinics are also progressing and developing very nicely. They're growing ahead of the market. Our margin development year-over-year was up 170 basis points and a solid growth of EBITA of 28%.
We see a stable and very positive trend in our Veterinary Services, and we foresee that this business will continue to deliver outstanding growth in the future. Ali, who is joining us here today, will spend more time on talking about some of the exciting growth opportunities that we have in this part of our business for the future.
Going into our Diagnostics business. We have a decline of 6% here. And this business is operating in an end market that has been a little bit tougher than all the other markets that we're operating in. The amount of disease outbreaks has been low during this period, and that impacts the need for testing.
We're continuing our efforts to diversify our portfolio in the Diagnostics segment, and we're diversifying into the companion animal space. We are launching our AI-enabled parasitology platform for companion animal here in the second quarter, and we are going to reinvest a larger portion of our earnings generated out of the core of Diagnostics into further diversifying and growing our footprint into the companion animal space. So we foresee that our margins in this business will be lower than it has been traditionally because of this reinvestment into diversification.
We turn to our ESG effort. Our strategy here is centered around our people, animals and our planet. And we continue to focus on ESG, and we're making good progress here. In February this year, we achieved a higher rating by MSCI. We got an A rating there, which we're very proud of. And it was driven by 2 distinct changes and improvements within, one, around people, development; and the other one around our governance.
We also released our sustainability report for 2023 here in April. And this slide, as we're showing here, is pretty busy, but I want to highlight a couple of things of importance here. More than half of our leaders in Vimian are women. We trained 15,000 professionals in the health care space -- animal health care case last year. And we launched 111 new products that improve the health of animals.
We've also established a carbon reduction plan for Scope 1 and 2 emissions. And for the first time, we reported on our Scope 3 emissions as well. And during this period, we've also taken the opportunity to bring ESG criterias into our M&A and due diligence processes so that we have that as a basis also for evaluating new acquisitions.
We're a young company. We're fast growing, and we're very proud of the achievements we have done so far that we recognize we're in the beginning of a journey here, and we will continue this important work and strongly committed to drive really positive change for our people, our animals and our planet.
And with that, I'd like to thank you for your attention and hand it over to Carl-Johan, who will walk through our financials in more detail. Over to you, Carl-Johan.
Thank you, Patrick. And let us dive into the numbers and move to the next slide to give you some further details on the first quarter.
The adjusted EBITA amounted to EUR 24.1 million at a margin of 26.3%. The first quarter margin is, as Patrick said, negatively impacted by the reduced annual order program in MedTech. We report operating profit of EUR 13.4 million, down from EUR 18.5 million last year, mainly a result of the annual order program impact as well as the higher nonrecurring items of EUR 5.1 million relating to acquisitions and the U.S. litigation.
The net financial items of minus EUR 7.9 million consists of 3 parts: the first element being financing costs of EUR 6.5 million, with an average interest rate for the quarter of 6.7%; secondly, contingent considerations where we have a net negative impact of EUR 5.8 million. The quarterly discounting impact amounts to EUR 1.8 million, and the negative impact from probability adjustments amounts to EUR 3.0 million, reflecting the strong performance in Global One Pet Products and VerticalVet; and finally, a positive impact of EUR 3.4 million from exchange rates.
The income tax expense for the quarter amounted to EUR 1.8 million. And all of the above resulted in a net profit for the quarter of EUR 3.7 million.
Turning to the first quarter cash flow, where cash flow from operating activities reached EUR 11.2 million in the first quarter. And it's positive that we continue to see an improvement in cash generation in our businesses.
Net working capital amounted to EUR 75.3 million at the end of the quarter, equal to 22% of revenue, which is an improvement in relation to sales from same period last year. Compared to end of December 2023, inventory declined by EUR 0.6 million, driven by continued inventory reduction in MedTech. Accounts receivables increased by EUR 11 million as AOP revenue is paid in installments during the year and US Specialised Nutrition built up trade receivables after strong growth in March. Accounts payable increased by EUR 6.8 million in the quarter.
Cash flow from investing activities was EUR 6.1 million, primarily reflecting capital expenditure of EUR 3.9 million and acquisitions of EUR 2.6 million, which is an acquisition of Veterinary Transplant Services, VTS, in MedTech.
The capital expenditure is split between EUR 2.5 million investments in intangible assets and EUR 1.4 million investments in property, plant and equipment. The main areas for investments are capitalization of R&D and expansion of laboratory capacity in Specialty Pharmaceuticals, investments in manufacturing capabilities in MedTech and development costs related to the VetFamily platform in Veterinary Services.
Cash flow from financing activities of EUR 4.1 million include a EUR 3 million repayment of debt.
Moving to the next slide. Looking at net debt and leverage for the quarter, where net debt amounted to EUR 287.4 million, with leverage of 3.0x, which is a similar level as the previous quarter. Cash and cash equivalents amounted to EUR 38.1 million at the end of the quarter. External lending of EUR 301 million, broadly in line with EUR 302 million per the end of December as repayment of EUR 3 million was offset by unfavorable currency movements. With the funds from the capital raise of slightly above EUR 140 million received in April, the leverage has come down to 1.5x.
During the first quarter, we also signed an amendment to our bank agreement, adding another EUR 70 million to our existing facilities. The capital raised together with the amended bank agreement have put us in a good position to pursue strategic value-adding acquisitions.
Now handing over the word to Ali for a deep dive into Veterinary Services.
Thank you, Carl-Johan, and good morning, everyone. I'm here today to give you a short overview of the Veterinary Services segment within the Vimian Group.
Vimian Veterinary Services, or VetFamily, as we call it, is a global leading veterinary service platform currently supporting over 7,550 members across 11 markets. Historically, predominantly being a Nordic procurement organization, we have, during the last years, transformed the business with a wider set of key services as well as offer a vibrant community for our members across 4 continents. We also partner with most of the leading animal health companies of the world, allowing them to, in an efficient way, access and engage with our members.
Being an independent clinic is challenging and overwhelming, especially with all the noncare tasks you need to address. Today, vets spend around 50% of their time on noncare-related work. Through the services of VetFamily, we help our members overcome the noncare tasks and allow them to focus on the core of the business: the pets. Our mission is to empower the independent veterinarians of the world to stay competitive and relevant in a fast-moving and changing environment. Therefore, we continuously invest and develop our platform to enhance our support for our members.
Our revenue streams can, on a high level, be divided into 3 main areas, all benefiting from each other. Within partner services, we have commercial agreements on local, regional and/or global level with key industry partners, giving our members the benefit of scale and our partners an efficient way to access and engage with our vibrant member community. Approximately 40% to 50% of our revenues comes from partner services.
Within clinic services, we offer value-add services our members use to evolve their clinics and develop their ways of working. The longer we've operated in the market and the maturer the market is, the more value-add services we tend to offer. 20% to 25% of our revenues come from clinic services.
Within clinic operations, we currently run a co-ownership program with 11 clinics. We see these clinics and entrepreneurs as innovation hubs that gives us the opportunity to develop and test new ideas within important focus areas, benefiting our entire membership ecosystem. Our clinic operations stand for 30% to 40% of our revenues.
Looking at our development and achievements since the IPO, we've more than tripled our revenues with a revenue CAGR of 51%. We have increased our membership base from 2,600 to over 7,550 member clinics. We've gone from 7 European countries to 11 countries across 4 continents through acquisitions in Australia and U.S. as well as organic entries into Brazil and Belgium. Our global reach has increased our relevance with our partners, and with the larger number of clinics now supporting, we've changed our one-size-fits-all approach to a tiered and tailored offering, better meeting the needs of both clinics and partners. We have done focused investments into capabilities within digital, data and insights, evolving our service offering and relevance, and we have invested into our organization, bringing in additional key talent and prepared our team for accelerated growth beyond our current achievements. We are the only company doing what we do at global scale, and I'm very proud of the development we've had as an organization since the IPO.
But we're far from done. There are several avenues of growth we're pursuing, and the need of our services increase for every day that passes. We can continue growing by adding new members -- member clinics within the 11 markets we currently operate in. We can expand our service offering to existing members and partners. We can expand organically into new geographies, which we have a proven track record of, and we can leverage our M&A ability to support and accelerate all avenues of growth as well as utilize Vimian's geographical and industry footprint.
The growth we've enjoyed so far shows the value our services bring to the independent vet community. And I truly believe we will continuously play an important role for our partners and member clinics throughout the world. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Ali. Clearly, a lot of exciting growth opportunities in our Veterinary Services business.
So we're coming to the end to our prepared presentation here. So in the first quarter, we've taken some strategic decisions to continue to build a strong platform for continuous value deliver -- delivery for many years to come. The new financial targets is a part of that, the successful rights issue and the important decision now to phase out the revenues throughout our MedTech business that has a short-term impact on Q1 but no impact on the full year.
I'm excited to be on board in Vimian and lead the company for a long-term journey to allow continued growth and value creation in the animal health space. The market is solid where we operate in. We are great in terms of how we are positioned in that market to take advantage of the market growth and grow above and beyond what the market is doing.
We saw some strong performance in our Specialty Pharma and our vet services business as we've seen here earlier today, with double-digit growth and maintained or improved profitability. And we're building a strong foundation for the future.
And with that said, I'd like to thank you for your attention and open up for Q&A. Thank you very much.
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Adela Dashian from Jefferies.
My first question is on the MedTech division here. I think you said that if you were to exclude the reduction in AOP, which is limited to the U.S. market, then growth would have been high single digits within the segment. Is that true?
Yes. So what we're saying is that the actual growth outside of the U.S. is high single digits.
Okay. Got it. But then, I think, at the end of Q4, when you presented, you said that January was high single digits for the group. So I'm just trying to reconcile how -- I guess was -- did the growth get slower throughout the latter half of the quarter? Or is there anything in the other segments that contributed to the low organic growth in Q1 outside of MedTech?
No, as Patrick said, we had a good performance in the other segments in the quarter, seeing double-digit growth in both Veterinary Services and in Specialty Pharma. As said, in Diagnostics, there's still some headwinds in the sector that we see, and we saw a small decline in Diagnostics in the quarter. For MedTech, I think as you alluded to and Patrick as well, we saw double-digit growth outside of U.S. in the quarter.
And also the annual order program, to some -- we wanted to make a shift from sort of the annual order program, trying to better -- get a better match between sales and deliveries and sort of the underlying consumption. That was more successful than we anticipated and that we foresaw during the quarter. And that's a big shift for MedTech in the quarter and the big change or deviation from what we expected initially in the quarter. But as Patrick said, we don't see that, that will have any impact on the full year numbers. It's just a phasing of sales in the U.S.
Got it. And that expectation, is that based on visibility that you have with your customers or underlying demand? Or how can you be so confident that the growth for the full year will be -- won't have an impact?
Yes, that's a great question, Adela. So we're tracking the customers who took up the AOP program in 2023 that did not participate in the AOP program in 2024, and they've now shifted over to either monthly or quarterly orders, and we're tracking all of those customers. And when we see their order pattern, we're very confident that we will -- they will make up that difference throughout the remainder of this year.
Okay. Got it. And I'm assuming that the reception so far with your customers have been positive. There's been no one that's been pushing back on this -- the strategic decision here.
No, it's voluntary. We're offering them to change from an annual program into either a quarterly or monthly. And we've been overwhelmed by how many have actually taken up on that offer and switched. So it's well received.
Okay. And then on Diagnostics, the comment here about margins being lower because of your decision to reinvest into the companion animal diagnostics. Is the margin going to be lower because of the initial cost base being elevated? Or is the companion animal diagnostics segment a lower-margin business versus livestock diagnostics?
The way we look at it, Adela, is that we're investing to put a more diverse portfolio in Diagnostics. We're a little bit too dependent on the livestock end market there. So it's going to be an investment in terms of a cost increase in the short term to build up a capability to, predominantly on the commercial side, sell these products into the companion animal space.
Okay. Got it. And then maybe a question for Ali, if I may, if he is still on the line. Great presentation here on Veterinary Services. I don't think you have any exposure to the U.K. within the segment, but it would be great to get your view on the CMA's current review of the veterinary industry there and if this presents an opportunity or a challenge for you should you want to expand into the U.K. or no impact at all.
Thank you for the question. We have no U.K. exposure at all in our operations. But in general, we support the investigation and looking forward to see what the outcome of that is. But I think the services we offer and the way we support the independent vet community will benefit from that.
Got it. And then lastly, M&A, which is the question everyone want answers, too. What's -- what does the pipeline look now with the rights issue being completed?
Yes. Since we last talked about this, our pipeline is continuing to grow, and the deals that we talked about a few weeks ago, they're progressing forward. So we feel very good about the M&A pipeline and our opportunity to buy value-creation -- creating companies in there and add to our existing business.
So still a combination of bolt-ons and larger acquisitions that you're looking at?
Yes, that's correct.
The next question comes from Vineet Agrawal from Citi.
Vineet from Citi. Just one clarification on the M&A contribution. I think on Slide 3, you mentioned the contribution of 3% in MedTech. But if I look at the financial report, I can see that the acquisitions didn't contribute anything in the MedTech but actually in spec pharma. So I'm just wondering if you can clarify that.
And then just on vet services margin, can you give any flavor as to what would have been the margins, excluding those investments in the digital platform? And are these investments largely done or likely to put some more pressure on the margins throughout 2024?
And then finally, I know that historically, you have given some sort of trading update into the quarter. I know you don't give any guidance, but you did use to provide some sort of color into the quarter. Just wondering if you have stopped it. Or can you give us some flavor as to what April looks like and -- yes, I mean May is only 2 days. So maybe how did the April shape up?
Thank you for your questions. Let me answer, so the question 1 and 3, and then I'm going to ask you to clarify question 2, sorry.
But taking question 1 and just to sort that out. And so if we understood it correctly, in Specialty Pharma and in Veterinary Services, we have a contribution from acquisitions of sort of, say, 6% to 7% within those 2 segments. Within MedTech, there's no contribution from acquisitions in the first quarters in our numbers.
And to your third question in terms of sort of current trading or full year expectations. As we said, if we adjust for the MedTech sort of change in the quarter and removing a large part of the seasonality of MedTech and that also contributed to a seasonality of the group, we see a stable development in the first quarter. We have started the second quarter according to expectations. And so we feel confident and are positive on our expectations for the full year. So we haven't changed our sort of perception or perspective regarding the full year from that end.
And then also, as I said, we're moving to the -- we're making a list change, have a target to move to the main market within the -- in Q1 next year. And as a consequence and as you noted in the last couple of quarters, we are tightening our reporting processes continuously and reporting sort of at a more timely fashion to the market. And as a consequence also, the current trading update in the quarter makes less and less relevance.
So sorry, could you just repeat the second question for me? And I'll try to give you a good answer on that one as well.
No. I was just checking on the vet services margins. Can you give any sort of flavor as to what would have been the margins, excluding those investments in the digital platform? And are these largely done or likely to put some more pressure on the margins throughout 2024?
I can start, and then Ali can give some more color.
If you look at Veterinary Services and in the last couple of quarters, we've seen a nice continued margin improvement in Veterinary Services in the last couple of quarters, good solid revenue growth, good strong organic growth, and we see the continuously positive margin development in the first quarter of this year. It's better than the first quarter of last year. There is some, you could say, small seasonality between the quarters.
And secondly, as we mentioned, we have taken conscious decisions to invest in the digital platform to ensure continued good growth in margin development within Veterinary Services going forward.
I can let Ali give you some additional color to -- so the investments and development for Veterinary Services.
Yes. No, I mean, I can just only reiterate. We've improved our margin by 170 basis points since the last quarter. We always -- a big part of our success is balancing the investments we're doing to the platform to support the community and allowing them to grow. If we hadn't taken those investments we mentioned this quarter, of course, the margin would have been higher. And I don't feel any -- I feel comfortable with our margin not being additionally pressured during the year.
The next question comes from Rickard Anderkrans from Handelsbanken.
Just trying to get a sense a little bit on the moving parts and expectations for the full year a little bit on growth and margins. So is it still reasonable to achieve a sort of high single-digit growth profile for the group in the year given the slower start? And as I understand in the annual ordering program, there were some discounts given to the customers for ordering in bulk. Is that discount still in the monthly or quarterly contract, so we should expect that a little bit of margin pressure in the MedTech segment in the coming quarters from that? Or maybe help us understand a little bit of the moving parts. So I'll start there.
Thank you for your question. The annual order program rephasing that's going on now, where customers go from buying on the full year to buying a monthly or quarterly, will have no impact on the full year. So you'll see a full recovery. And if we look at how those customers are behaving now that have switched to that type of order pattern, they're behaving exactly as you would expect them to behave for they to -- them to order the same amount of volume but through a different timing throughout the year.
So you will see Q2 and Q3 and Q4 recover the revenue gap that was created here in Q1. So from a full year perspective, this doesn't change how we think about the full year at all, neither on the top line or on the margin side.
That's very clear. And Ali, thank you for the presentation there as well. I was wondering if you could perhaps add some more insights and commentary on the rationale behind the clinic operations and direct investments into vet clinics, clearly a lower-margin and less scalable business than the remaining part of the operation. So maybe add some more details on how you're thinking going forward. Do you intend to expand that part of the business? And how should we think about it synergistically with the remainder of the VetFamily group?
Thank you for the question. I mean we have the co-ownership program to offer entrepreneurial veterinarians that kind of want to continue developing their clinics and, at the same time, contribute positively to our kind of entire community. These are clinics that want to be in the forefront of how you should run and operate a modern clinic for the future.
So we see these clinics and entrepreneurs as innovation hubs that gives us an opportunity to develop and test new ideas within important focus areas. So although these clinics, stand-alone, have a different growth and profitability profile than other parts of the business, we kind of look at our business as a whole and how kind of each part can contribute to the total business over time when we see synergistic opportunities in between.
In terms of future acquisitions, Rickard, it's hard to comment on that specifically, but we always evaluate value-creative opportunities. And that's also the case when it comes to the co-ownership program.
All right. And just to squeeze a final quick one in. Any uptake or uptick into -- heading into April or sort of end of the quarter from the avian influenza uptick we're seeing and some of the headlines we're seeing in media? I just wanted to check if there's anything to flag there.
Yes. No, and that's sort of very well spotted on sort of market activities. No, of course, we're aware of that outbreak. It's -- so far, it hasn't moved that much into production animal. I would say it still has been predominantly linked to wildlife. We're starting to see a little bit of spread into captive, especially in the U.S., where we are working closely with our partners to see how we can support the labs and our customers with this outbreak. But we haven't seen any, I would say, any large effects from a commercial point of view so far.
The next question comes from Kavya from UBS.
I just had a couple on the annual ordering program. So just on the first one, it's now currently EUR 5.5 million, right? Is this a level that you would expect it to remain at? Or would you look to further reduce it going forward and inviting more customers next Q1 to switch to monthly or quarterly ordering patterns?
My second question is just in terms of your other 2 competitors in terms of the veterinary orthopedic implant market. Is the annual ordering program, is this sort of standard practice? Or was this program kind of unique to Movora?
And then a third one, if I may, is just -- I was just curious to understand, presumably there was a discount attached to the AOP. And so does this now go away when you switch to monthly and quarterly ordering? I'm just -- I guess I'm just trying to ask, sort of what was the incentive for people to switch over? Was there a -- is there an economic incentive in any way?
Thank you very much for your questions. So it's a EUR 4.5 million program reduction this year. And I think your question was, how is this going to play out in Q1 2025? And if we look at the amount of customers that switched this year, there might be a few that will decide to switch again next year. It's hard for us to predict that. If there is any switching going on next year, it would be significantly smaller than what we've seen this year. It might be a significantly reduced impact. But again, the program is now relatively small compared to our total revenue anyway. So that's the first way of looking what might happen in Q1 2025.
And then your second question was around, is annual order program -- some comment in the industry or not. The program was born at a time when several companies in this space, particularly in the U.S., had some supply chain issues and delivery issues. And it was almost an insurance program for customers to always have availability of products when several people have trouble to deliver product. We don't have any delivery problems anymore. I think that's true for us and all of our competitors, too. So that way, you can kind of now adjust the program.
There are no particular -- going back to the discounts, there are no particular incentives to move from the annual order program into the monthly or the quarterly program. So there will be no impact on discounts or anything like that. So people are moving because they think it's a better way to order to match their consumption with the deliveries they're getting from us.
That's really clear. And sorry, just to clarify, prior to this year, were all U.S. customers, was it compulsory to be on the annual ordering program, if we just look at last quarter? Or were there still customers that could have the choice to order in a month?
You've always had a choice, but we had a very large uptick last year, an extraordinary large uptick last year. And we don't really see why the annual order program is so beneficial. We think it's better to match the consumption with the deliveries. But it's -- annual order program still exists. So customers who want that, we'll sign them up for AOP, and customers who do not want it, we'll sign them up for another order pattern. So we'll adjust to what our customer would like to -- how they best would like to do business with us.
The next question comes from Arvid Necander from Carnegie.
So first on spec pharma. Can you say anything on the rollout of the PAX test in the U.S.? Is it starting to pick up any speed?
And secondly, would you seeing the need to invest -- to increase investment in Diagnostics? Does that come on the back of lower-than-hoped-for uptake of new potential growth drivers for 2024, I guess, primarily Ovacyte? Or is that still too early to tell?
Yes. So we're seeing an improvement in the rates in our U.S. allergy business. But I think we still have a way to go there until that's in the shape and in the growth rates that we would anticipate and likely to see. And we're using our European business as kind of one of the proxies there where we're very successful with this particular product in that segment. We're working to get to the same level in the U.S., but we have a way to go to get there.
Your question about Diagnostics is -- you're correct. We're launching the Ovacyte product right now, and there's a prior question here is that we're investing in the go-to-market structure for that to ramp up sales in that segment. And I think the way we think about this is that we will expand some cost in OpEx as part of building this up, and that will deteriorate the margins in the Diagnostics business until we see the revenue ramp come up and match, which I think there's a delay between the 2 of them.
Is it possible to quantify the OpEx spend compared to last years or the increase for 2024 when it comes to Diagnostics?
So looking at Diagnostics and taking sort of the 2 of them, we see, and as you saw, I would say, still in the quarter, even with some investments then in companion diagnostics initiated this quarter, and we see more the full effect in the coming quarters from that investment in terms of cost base. And then as Patrick said, revenue will ramp up.
Looking at -- or sorry, livestock diagnostics, we still have a very healthy margin in that business, and we see that continuing. The investments that we're doing now in companion animals is, of course, it's difficult to speculate on sort of how quickly the revenue ramp be. And I think we'll have to come back to that in coming quarters, but we're expecting the investments in companion having the total margin for Diagnostics more being in single digit for the next 1 to 2 quarters.
Okay. Fair enough. And lastly, how should we think about the M&A-related costs for 2024? So I understand that it's, of course, hard to estimate integration costs for potential acquisitions, but it seems like there's some fairly recurring costs baked into the M&A-related NRIs, sourcing, stay-on bonuses, et cetera. So as you increase the focus on M&A, should we expect the base to increase significantly from the coming quarter even if no acquisition is made?
So very relevant question. I'd say, one, as you say, there's a few, and if you're looking at the quarter, there's costs related to, you could say, earnout-related costs. Those will start to move away in -- within a few quarters. Then as you rightly point out, it's difficult to have a sort of good insight into exactly what costs will be in relation to M&A going forward. Because, as you say, dependent on what type of sort of acquisitions we will engage in, timing of those, sizes of those acquisitions, I would say it's fair to assume that there will be some costs in the coming quarter in relation to us pursuing and, as I said, hopefully executing on M&A opportunities.
The next question comes from Patrik Ling from DNB Markets.
I have a follow-up on this annual ordering program, if I may. I mean you show on one of the slides that the AOP has declined from EUR 10 million to EUR 5.5 million this year. But when we look at your total sales in MedTech and exclude the AOP, I mean, you end up with having flat development from EUR 26.5 million to, yes, EUR 26.5 million this year as well. At the same time, you're saying that the clients that are not participating in the AOP program are growing double digit, and it's a high single-digit growth in Europe and APAC and Canada. So somewhere down the line, there seems to be some part of the business that is not doing as well as expected. So maybe you can elaborate a little bit on where we should see the shortfall in growth this quarter.
Thank you very much, Patrik. That's an excellent question. So there is a group of customers that were -- we said we encouraged them to go into AOP, and we really boosted them up. They're not part of the EUR 10 million in this calculation because the EUR 10 million is our normal AOP customer base. We boosted up another EUR 3 million with additional customers that we kind of enticed them to go into AOP last year, and they were newly acquired customers from our acquisitions and other things like that. So we expanded the AOP program last year. And they're not part of the calculation, which is also the gap that you're kind of looking for is that classification of those customers.
So there's a EUR 3 million kind of delta that you can put in either category. And they're not normal AOP customers, so we didn't want to reflect them there, but we did encourage all of them to do annual order programs last year. They have also not replicated that this year.
Okay. So what you're saying is really about the EUR 10 million that you show on Page 3 is -- I mean, in reality, it was EUR 13 million last year, but the EUR 3 million was customers that you, more or less, pushed into the AOP program. Is that the way I should interpret that?
Yes, that's correct. They were first-time AOP customers. And the way that it's played out here, that was the first time and the only time.
Okay. Great. And then the second question, I mean, if a client that has been an AOP client in the past, this year, decides to do, say, monthly or quarterly ordering instead, do they have the choice to go back to an annual program next year?
Absolutely. Anytime, yes.
[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you very much. Thank you for your interest in our first quarter report. Thank you for your questions. I really appreciate it. We look forward to continue to create a great animal health company and create value for our shareholders and our veterinary customers and our employees going forward. I look forward to see you again in the second quarter. Take care, and have a wonderful day.