AptarGroup, Inc. (ATR) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Aptar's 26 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will be conducting a question and answer session. Introducing today's conference, call is Mrs. Mary Skafidas, Senior vice president, investor relations and communications. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for being with us today. Joining me on today's call are Stephan Tanda, our President and CEO Vanessa Kanu, executive vice president and CFO and Gael Touya, our CEO designate and president of Aptar Pharma. Our press release and accompanying slide deck have been posted on our website under the Investor Relations page. During this call, we will be discussing certain non GAAP financial measures. These measures are reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, and the reconciliations are set forth in the press release. Please refer to the press release disseminated yesterday for the reconciliations of non GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure discussed during this earnings call. As always, we will post a replay of this call on our website. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Stephan.

Thank you, Mary, and good morning, everyone. As many of you know, this is my final earnings call as CEO of Aptar before I will retire later this year. It has been a tremendous honor to lead this company and work alongside our talented teams around the world. I am incredibly proud of what we have accomplished together and confident that Aptar is well positioned for continued success. With Gael Touya assuming the role of president and CEO on September 1st, I am assured in the future success of the company and excited as a shareholder. Gael and I have worked closely together throughout this transition and for much of the last decade. I know Aptar will greatly benefit from his deep experience leadership, and vision. Gael is joining us on the call today and he will be sharing our outlook towards the end of the call. On a personal note, leading Aptar has been the greatest privilege of my career. What I will remember most is not any single accomplishment, but the people I have had the opportunity to work alongside and the relationships I have built with employees, customers, the investment community, and partners around the world. I have always believed that great companies are built by great people, and Aptar is fortunate to have an exceptional team a strong culture founded in performance and purpose, and a consistent focus on execution, innovation, agility, and value creation. While there is always more work to do, I believe Aptar is entering its next chapter from a position of strength. I am excited about the future under Gael's leadership and remain confident in the company's ability to deliver profitable growth and create long term value for shareholders. And now back to the business at hand. Let me begin my earnings remarks by highlighting our second quarter results. And later in the call, our CFO, Vanessa Kanu will provide additional details on the key drivers for the quarter. I am pleased to report that all 3 of our segments delivered positive sales growth during the quarter, and we delivered adjusted EPS results above our guidance range due in part to better than expected pharma performance. The pharma segment continued to perform well, driven by strong demand across our injectables, consumer health care and prescription businesses. Highlighting the strengths of our innovation led portfolio and the dedication of our teams around the world. We saw continued momentum in injectables supported by demand for elastomeric components used for biologics. Vaccines and GLP-1 therapies, which according to a recent survey showed that 11% of Americans are currently taking GLP-1 for weight loss, up from just 3% in 2024. Consumer health care benefited from strong nasal decongestion and eye care solutions sales. Prescriptions saw growth in central nervous system therapeutics, and asthma COPD applications. Which helped offset the anticipated destocking related decline in emergency medicines. Beyond pharma, beauty benefited from double digit core sales growth in prestige fragrance while closures saw a strong beverage demand particularly in bottled water. Operational performance in both segments improved progressively from the first quarter. Shifting gears from performance highlights I want to spend a few minutes discussing how we continue to strengthen the pipeline and long term growth of pharma. Beyond our core delivery systems, we continue to expand the value we bring to customers across formulation development, analytical services, regulatory support, and patient engagement. A few good examples include the patent applications we announced during the quarter, related to inhaled and nasal GLP-1 therapies. While these programs remain in the early stages, they build on formulation expertise that we currently provide to customers and demonstrate our continued exploration of capabilities that could create future growth opportunities in the delivery of biologics and other high value therapeutic areas. Turning to active material science, our US patent application for Ensorb has been approved Ensorb is designed to address unacceptably high levels of nitrosamine impurities in pharmaceutical products. The FDA has issued guidance on nitrosamine. Its predicted carcinogenic potency categorization, and recommendations on when a manufacturer should recall a product. As a first of its kind packaging delivered solution, Aptar's Ensorb technology is intended to give pharmaceutical companies a new tool to reduce risk meet regulatory demands, and deliver safer products. Additionally, we announced a collaborative system framework for injectable therapies. Providing customers with earlier insight into assembled system performance for injectable therapies. These expanded capabilities help customers make more informed development decisions. Better manage risk, accelerate development timelines, and address the expectation of The United States pharmacopeia. Taken together, these investments continue to advance our strategy focusing all the way from drug formulation to the patient. And deepen our role in the pharmaceutical development process. During the quarter, we also saw several milestones that reinforced the strength of our core pulmonary, nasal and injectable delivery platforms. In respiratory health, products utilizing Aptar technologies received FDA approvals across both rescue and maintenance therapies for asthma and COPD, further validating the performance and regulatory track record of our pressurized metered dose inhaler, or PMDI platform. Chiesi received approval from the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency for the world's first PMDI utilizing HFA-152a, 1 of the next generation propellants with low global warming potential. This achievement is particularly meaningful because in 2023, Aptar was selected by the US Food and Drug Administration to conduct research on next generation propellant PMDIs through our NanoFarm business. Recognizing our deep expertise in inhaled drug delivery. It is encouraging to see the first approval with this new propellant come to market helping expand patient access to essential respiratory therapies while helping to reduce environmental impact. We continue to see growing interest in nasal delivery across a widening range of therapeutic areas. A recent example is Eli Lilly's announced acquisition of atai Life Sciences and Beckley Psytech centered on an intranasal therapy for treatment resistant depression that has received the FDA breakthrough therapy designation. And the program has begun initiating Phase 3 trials. We believe this highlights and confirms a broader trend we have been discussing for some time now nasal delivery is increasingly being explored not only in allergy migraine, emergency medicines, but also in central nervous system disorders, where rapid onset and direct access to the central nervous system may provide meaningful therapeutic advantages. 1 of the most significant developments during the quarter was the FDA's update to multiple product specific guidance documents for generic inhaled therapies. These changes remove certain requirements, including certain clinical studies and bioequivalence testing, representing a significant shift in the FDA's expectations generic PMDI development. We believe this is a positive development for Aptar, as the streamlined requirements should help bring more generic inhaled products to market more efficiently while also highlighting the value of the scientific expertise and data generated through our collaboration with the FDA. Moving to beauty, we continue to focus on premiumization differentiated consumer experiences, and dispensing technologies that help our customers stand out in the increasingly competitive categories. We had the first commercial launch of our autoloading dosing dropper technology for Dermalogica's Pro-Collagen Banking booster skin care product. This technology features an auto loading dropper cap which fills the applicator with the same dose after each use and addresses consumer needs around dosage control, convenience, and clean usage. I also want to highlight a new range of fragrances by French luxury brand has launched in the Middle East market featuring our Prestige Fragrance Pump. Lastly, in closures, recent launches showcase our ability to improve convenience, functionality, and the overall consumer experience through differentiated dispensing solutions. Heinz is featuring our tabletop closure for clean, convenient directional dispensing on its new line of flavorful dipping sauces in North America. In China, our closure with Simply Squeeze valve is being used for easy, 1-handed spill free hydration on the go. In terms of sustainability, there are several notable accolades to touch on. Aptar was named a CDP supplier engagement leader for the sixth consecutive year. This assessment highlights companies that are engaging their suppliers on climate change and supporting efforts to address emissions throughout the value chain. We have also been named 1 of the world's most sustainable companies by Time for the third consecutive year and we have been named among the magazine's top 100 America's best companies. This inaugural list highlights top U.S.-based companies during the nation's 250th anniversary. The America's best companies 2026 ranking identified the top performing companies based on employee satisfaction, financial performance, as well as sustainability performance and transparency. Aptar is ranked within the top 5 companies nationwide in the engineering, manufacturing, and medical technology category and is ranked in the top 10 companies nationwide for sustainability and transparency. I also want to provide an update on litigation. Recently, the court issued a favorable ruling for Aptar in our litigation against ARS Pharmaceuticals related to Aptar's proprietary nasal drug delivery technology and confidential manufacturing know how. The court granted our motion to amend the complaint to maintain our state law trade secret misappropriation claim and denied ARS motion to dismiss the remaining claims. We were also pleased that the court transferred the later filed California action brought by ARS to New York under the first to file rule ensuring the related matters will proceed in a single jurisdiction. The litigation remains ongoing, and the next phase will allow us to further develop the factual record. Overall, we view this decision as a positive step allowing Aptar to continue pursuing the claims at the heart of the case and reinforcing the importance of protecting the intellectual property technical expertise, and manufacturing know how that differentiate us in the marketplace. Now I would like to turn the call over to Vanessa to provide additional details.

Thank you, Stephan and good morning, everyone. Let me begin by summarizing the highlights for the quarter. Our reported sales increased 6% to $1 billion a new quarterly record. And core sales which adjust for currency effects and acquisitions, increased 1%, compared to the prior year. We achieved adjusted EBITDA of $213 million a decrease of 3% from the prior year. And adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.7% compared to 22.6% in the prior year primarily due to less favorable product mix and ongoing operational challenges in beauty and closures that have progressively improved since the beginning of the year. Adjusted earnings per share were $1.42 compared to the prior year's adjusted earnings per share of $1.68 at comparable exchange rates. Before moving to segment performance, I would like to briefly address the higher input costs experienced since the start of the recent conflict in The Middle East. As anticipated, we experienced higher input costs during the quarter, which we largely offset through customer pass throughs. With some timing lag in beauty. As we look beyond Q2, we continue to monitor the situation closely, and we will also continue to take appropriate pricing actions to offset higher costs where necessary. And with that, let's turn to our pharma segment results. Pharma core sales increased 1%, impacted by the anticipated decline in emergency medicine. As previously discussed, emergency medicine sales are expected to decrease by approximately $65 million in fiscal year 26. Approximately 2-thirds of this decline has already been incurred in the first half of the year, with the majority of that having been in the second quarter. As we had anticipated. And the remaining 1-third is expected in the second half of the year, and primarily in the third quarter. We continue to expect that the year over year headwind will abate by the fourth quarter. Excluding emergency medicine, core sales in our pharma segment grew by 8% in the quarter, demonstrating resilience of the portfolio. Let me break that down by market, starting with our proprietary drug delivery systems. Prescription core sales decreased 7%, Excluding emergency medicine, prescription core sales increased 8%. Central nervous system and asthma COPD therapeutics were drivers of growth in the quarter. Consumer Healthcare core sales increased 15%, due to strong demand for nasal solutions, which grew 9%, with strong demand primarily for elastomeric components used for GLP-1, biologics and vaccines. Services also contributed positively in the quarter. And we continue to see strong pipeline build for Annex 1 GLP-1 and biologics projects. And for our active material science solutions, core sales decreased 2% in the quarter. Growth in probiotics and oral solid dose sales partially offset the decline in diabetes test strips, which reflected customer inventory normalisation following robust growth in the prior year. Pharma's adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 33.6%, a 180 basis point decline from the prior year. The margin decline was anticipated and driven by short term unfavourable product mix, primarily due to the decline in high margin emergency medicine sales. While royalties and productivity initiatives continue to positively impact margins. Excluding emergency medicine, the adjusted EBITDA margin for the segment would have improved. Year over year. Moving to our beauty segment, core sales increased 1%. As demand for beauty dispensing systems and the pass through of higher input costs more than compensated for lower tooling sales. Looking at the 2 largest end markets for beauty, fragrance, facial skin care, and color cosmetics core sales increased 2%. Primarily due to strong sales growth for prestige fragrance pumps and color cosmetics. Our turnkey indie beauty business also continues to perform well, benefiting from the growth of indie brands. Which continue to capture consumer interest across the beauty market. Personal Care core sales were flat, Applications for hair care continued to show good demand, but did not offset lower tooling sales from the prior year. Beauty's adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 12.2%, which while improved sequentially from the prior quarter, represented a decline of 190 basis points year over year. This was primarily attributed to lower product volumes unfavorable mix and the timing of resin pass-throughs. Moving to the closure segment, core sales increased 4%. Compared to the prior year Strong volume growth particularly in beverages, and the pass through of higher input costs more than compensated for lower tooling sales. Looking at the 2 largest end markets for closures, food core sales decreased 1% primarily due to lower tooling sales. Which was partially offset by continued demand for our sauces and condiments dispensing closures. This end market also faced a challenging comparison from the prior year period, of double digit growth. Beverage core sales increased 14% primarily driven by increased sales of bottled water, and functional sports drinks. The segment's adjusted EBITDA margin was 14.9%, a 200 basis point decline over the prior year. These results were temporarily impacted by the ramp up of new production lines and by a previously reported maintenance initiative that continues to make sequential progress. Selling research and development and administrative costs, or SG&A, increased in absolute dollars, largely due to currency effects. And the impact of acquisitions. Excluding currency effects and acquisitions, SG&A dollars were flat year-over-year. SG&A as a percentage of sales decreased from 15.6% in Q2 2025 to 15.4% in Q2 2026, a 20 basis point reduction year over year. These amounts include approximately $4 million in legal expenses, for non ordinary course litigation, which did not exist in the prior year period. As I noted earlier, adjusted earnings per share of $1.42 down 15% year over year at comparable exchange rates. This was due to lower sales of emergency medicine products in pharma, operational issues in beauty enclosures, as well as higher depreciation and amortisation expenses, associated with our capital investments and acquisitions. Interest expense also increased, from higher interest rates and a higher average debt balance. Our adjusted effective tax rate for the quarter was 23.7% compared to the prior year's 20%. In the prior year period, the tax rate benefited from the realisation of a deferred tax benefit, as well as greater excess tax benefits from share based compensation. Moving to our year-to-date performance, reported sales increased 8%, and core sales increased 1%. Strong growth in consumer healthcare and injectables offset the emergency medicine destocking, while beauty and closures also saw growth on a year-to-date basis. Adjusted EBITDA remained consistent at $401 million while adjusted EBITDA margin decreased by 170 basis points to 20%. Adjusted earnings per share decreased 12%, to $2.61 compared to the prior year period, including comparable exchange rates. Free cash flow year-to-date increased by $8 million to $99 million, comprising cash from operations of $222 million less capital expenditures net of government grants of $123 million. Over the last 6 months, the company has returned $212 million to shareholders, through share repurchases and dividends. So far this year, we have repurchased 1.1 million shares for $150 million. Finally, we ended the quarter with a cash balance of $190 million net debt of $1.2 billion and a leverage ratio of 1.49x. Reflecting a very strong balance sheet. Now on to our outlook for Q3. We anticipate third quarter adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $1.45 to $1.53 This assumes an effective tax rate range of 22.5% to 24.5%. And a euro to US dollar exchange rate of 1.14. For full-year 2026, we continue to expect capital investments to be in the range of $260 million to $280 million and depreciation and amortisation expense to be between $310 million and $320 million. Before I hand the call over to Gael, I want to take a moment to address Stephan. Stephan, it has been a pleasure to partner with you during an important chapter in Aptar's history. I joined Aptar because of its unique strengths. A rich history, a strong foundation that you have helped to build, its culture and values, and importantly, the robust opportunities that lie ahead. I have enjoyed working with you and appreciate your partnership. Stephan, thank you for your leadership, your contributions to Aptar, and the solid foundation you leave for the future. We wish you and your family all the best in retirement and do not be a stranger. With that, I will turn it over to Gael to provide a few closing comments before we move to Q&A.

Thank you, Vanessa. As I prepare to assume the role of CEO on September 1st, I do so with great confidence in Aptar's future. We expect growth across all 3 segments, supported by strong broad based demand in pharma, across injectables, and consumer health care and prescription applications excluding emergency medicine. As well as continued momentum in closures and improving trends in beauty. Before we open the call for questions, I would like to take a moment to recognize Stephan on his final earnings call as CEO of Aptar. Over the past 9 years, Stephan has led Aptar through a period of significant transformation. Strengthening our position in pharma expanding our global footprint advancing our innovation capabilities, and reinforcing our leadership in sustainability. He leaves Aptar a stronger company with a robust pipeline of opportunities leading market position, and an exceptional team that is well positioned for the future. On behalf of our employees, customers, shareholders, and board of directors, I wanna thank Stephan for his leadership partnership, and dedication to Aptar. Has been a privilege to work alongside him and I am grateful for the strong foundation he leaves behind. And now I would like to open up the call for Q&A. Operator, I think we are ready for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. In the interest of time and fairness to all participants, please limit yourself to 2 questions and then come back into the queue if you have more questions as time allows. If you would like to ask a question, please press *1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press *1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please standby while we compile the Q&A roster. The first question comes from the line of George Staphos. With Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Everyone. Good morning. Thanks for the details. Gael, congratulations again to you. Stephan, it is been an absolute pleasure covering Aptar in the time that you have been CEO. Not many CEOs can move as deftly from tachycardia to the latest in ketchup squeeze technology or have the buy side or sell side taking over unders on the references to systemic nasal drug delivery references on the call. But you have done a great job, no matter the rating. You have helped reinvigorate the growth at Aptar. You are on the front foot and remain so on sustainability. And you built a and continue to build a great bench. So congratulations, and enjoy retirement. Stephan. Best of luck to you. In terms of my questions, first of all, it looks like some have noted some weakness in the Brazilian market, Have you seen that at all relative to your beauty or personal care business And then I wanna stay on beauty and closures. I know there is been improvement but, you know, beauty has in particular, lagged an improvement for a number of periods You know, when should we and Gael, obviously, free to step in here too. When are we going to see beauty actually be a sustained grower both of volume and earnings. Thank you, guys.

Hello? There a tech solution? Are they talking?

[Technical Difficulty]

[Technical Difficulty] We are experiencing some technical difficulties.

You hear me now? Hello? We can hear you. Alright. Sorry about that. I am sure there will be a after action report. George, I did not hear your very nice comments. Thank you for that. Much appreciated. On your questions, yes, we have experienced also weak sales in Brazil. This is often famine feast, famine cycle, and they are really 2 main customers that trade shares. So we experienced quite some weakness in Brazil. On your larger questions, yeah, if I zoom out, certainly, there is always more to do, and certainly the beauty bottom line performance in particular is something that is left to do for Gal. As you remember, it is a story of 2 halves or 2 hemispheres. On the 1 hand, we are very proud with the turnaround we have achieved in Europe and I will not repeat all the things we did with shutting down plants, improving cost base, and Europe is firmly in the target range. Asia has done very well and is well above that. But we have fallen short in The Americas for different reasons. We have fallen short in North America and still wrestling with operational issues and now came this Brazil situation. So with respect to the future, time's certain, I certainly made the mistake of giving time certain, but I will leave it to you, Gael.

Yeah. The 1 comment I will make, George, last time I worked in June was sometimes ago, you know, more than 8 years with pharma. What I am doing right now is really to focus on making sure I have a fresh view and perspective as we look ahead. So I have been reengaging myself with the business, visiting factories, R&D centers around the world, and more importantly, I am starting to engage with customers on what I can tell you is that we have got all the ingredients. We have got deep and they are really looking at Aptar. it is not just being part of their supply chain, but being part of their success. So looking ahead, that is going to be I am going to be looking at. And for sure, I mean, we are going to look at building on what works and address and course correct what needs to be corrected, protect what makes Aptar special, and to really focus on delivering on our commitment and preparing the company for future growth.

Gael, look. I just wanna step in quickly here, I will turn it over. I You know, time's certain. We have been patient. Your investors have been patient. And, look, the track record of Aptar has been quite good over the years, so no complaints with that. But within beauty, does it come a point in time where you actually take action in the next year? To do something more structural to fix the performance. Thanks, and I will turn it over there. Thank you.

Yeah. Maybe I jump in first, Look, we, of course, have we are not taking the situation as is, and we have clear ideas on how to also address the shortfall in The Americas. But it is too early. To commit to that.

I mean, I mean, that was an open minded approach and looking at best interest for our customers and our shareholders. And I will come back to you on that in due course.

Alright. I will be back in queue with pharma. Thanks.

The next line comes from the next question comes from the line of Paul Knight with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Congratulations. Congratulations. Gael. The, as I look at the quarter, the gross margin was not the driver of expansion in Q2. It was the gross margin line or is it below the operating margin line with a big drop at SG and A. Going forward, I think it is implying margin expansion. Is it more on the gross margin line that we should be thinking about modeling, Vanessa, on what is already been a good margin expansion period in Q2. Paul from KeyBanc.

Looks like Thanks for the question. We are actually quite happy when you think about the emergency medicine pullback was the in quarter 2 compared to the prior year, and pharma was still within the long term guidance range. So we certainly-- as the emergency medicine situation normalizes, we expect the company margin to get back within its guidance range and not just within its long term targets and not just the pharma business. We did not quite fully understand the rest of your question. Maybe you can repeat, and then Vanessa will address.

Should we expect gross margin expansion in the second half of the year? Or is it still below that line item?

Yes. As we had said earlier, on previous calls so okay. Thank you, Paul. Now we understand the question. So a lot of what you are seeing on the gross margin line is the emergency medicine dynamic that we are previously discussed. And that dynamic was strongest in the first half. So 2-thirds of that year over year headwind was incurred already in the first half. Which will have the greatest amount of pressure on the gross margin. And so as that starts to ease in the back half, I do absolutely expect gross margins to actually improve. From where we have been in the in the first half. Also, as we said, Q2 was the biggest quarter of that EM headwind. As we had previously communicated. So that is the compression that we are seeing. Yeah.

Also, we see progressive improvement both in beauty and enclosures. Closures are already progressive improvement, but will continue as the maintenance issues abate. And we also expect some progressive improvement in beauty.

And then lastly on pharma, a really solid 8% quarter. Of growth. Is that momentum continuing here in the rest of the year?

Yeah. I can take that question. So, you know, we stated, we are confident with our long term targets and 2026 is the story of the emergency medicine as we explained to you. We have got a strong pipeline build, pipeline conversion is robust. The underlying market is strong and customers really are looking at us to be the partner of trust to support them from an early stage to market launch. So confident to be in the long term target.

Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Ghansham Panjabi. With Baird. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Everybody. Sorry. We are confused. Fine. Congrats. On our end as well. Wish you the very best along with you, Gael. Been a pleasure working with you, Stephan. Thank you. Truly. I guess, you know, during the first quarter, if I remember correctly, Rx was down about 10%, and roughly half of that was emergency medication related. What was part of the improvement in 2Q then just related to the catch up from the previous shortfall in Rx? You know, I am just trying to get a sense as to what the underlying growth in Rx suggesting for-- obviously, a lot of noise with the destocking and comparisons and so on.

Yeah. Again, Ghansham, when you look at the pharma business, I mean, we are present in different categories. The asthma and COPD market has been a great market for us, I mean, in the quarter. And you know that the market is going to transition to a new propellant, and Aptar is well positioned in that transition. You know that we are supporting the FDA in defining their guidelines for propellant switch approval If you look at the press release recently, Chiesi announced the very first, I mean, and COPD product using the new propellant gas in the U.K. with an Aptar solution. So the underlying performance of prescriptions is also on asthma and COPD of performance.

Okay. Thank you, Gael. And for my second question, you know, first off, can you confirm if there is any benefit from you know, any sort of tariff refunds and so on and so forth? And then, Gael, back to you. You know, obviously, core sales and pharma have been below trend for 2 years now. Know, different reasons for that last year versus this year. But it has been 2 years. And, you know, you have expressed confidence as a company as it relates to the secular growth there and so on and so forth. For 2027, is there any reason why we should not expect growth in pharma at this point to be within your 7% to 11% core sales, growth rate? Thank you.

No, Ghansham, you know that I am not guiding we are not guiding for the year. So the long term target for pharma, the 7% to 11%, I mean, is coming from the underlying robustness of our pipeline. And the market positions we have got with our with our customers. So confidence in there. Yes. Some years we are going to be up, some years we are going to be down. If you look at the past performance for the last 8 years, I mean, I would say we have pretty much delivered on our long term targets. So the team remain focused on what is delivering on our on our commitment, continuing to sharpen our to strengthen our capabilities in order to become or to stay the leading company in our respective market. So this is we are confident there.

And, Ghansham, I can absolutely confirm to you that there is no P&L benefit in the quarter from tariff refunds. The beat to our guide was purely operational coming from strength of pharma as we discussed earlier. So in fact, you may recall, our guidance was at 1.18 and actual exchange rates came at 1.16. So we, in fact, had a headwind a couple of cents that we had to absorb. So the beat was all operational. None of it was tariff refunds or anything else of that nature, of a 1-time nature.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you for that.

The next question comes from the line of Matthew Roberts with Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Stefan, I send my congratulations as well. Similar to my introduction with Aptar that began in France, I hope your send off is capped with the cheers of only France's Thanks. And that and Gael, congratulations and welcome. And for my first question, perhaps it is a right of passage to ask, but as you step into the role after roughly 10 years from growth in pharma, as we sit here, 2Q pharma margin is still in the mid 30% range. On the other end of the spectrum, beauty and closures are in that low to mid teens range. So what benefit do you see from either an operational or cost standpoint as you look to allocate capital, would you do it differently than your predecessor? Ultimately, is the coexistence of these businesses something you feel is necessary and should be maintained?

So first, Matthew, let me let me express how excited I am, I mean, to step in the role and to stand on the shoulders of my predecessors. I know the company even though I would for the last 30 years, and I am very confident on the company. So as I have said earlier, I am really focusing to reconnect and refresh my approach with the different businesses. I have been a beauty guy for years. I have been a closures accounts guy for years, but that was almost a decade ago. So I need to update my perspective as we look ahead. As I step in the in the role, I mean, commitment to deliver on our number, that is going to be number 1 priority. Number 2, to be very disciplined on execution and third, whatever the segment for the company, and last, to be extremely thoughtful in our resource allocation. So I am gonna keep on working protecting what is making Aptar special, and focusing where we can create more value for customers and our shareholders.

You, guys. I appreciate the comments there. Next question, Vanessa. Good color on emergency. Sounds like it was still 2-thirds of the impact in first half, but given this went from, like, down 7% to up 8% in Rx, can you say what the dollar impact was in 2Q? And then also on core sales, how much was the resin pass through in 2Q? And how is that split by segment? Any benefit you are expecting in 3Q on that? Thank you for taking the questions.

So, Matthew, I think the most I can say the emergency medicine is a 2-thirds, 1-third. We did not guide it by quarter, but I will say that the quarter was really in line with where we expected. And, of course, as we oh, sorry. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, the full year is also tracking as expected, and this should fully abate by Q4. So everything is tracking there. In terms of, you know, the resident pass throughs, indeed, we did pass on resin in another inflationary pass throughs. We did pass that through as we had said last quarter. And we did that successfully in every segment. The impact, I am not going to break down the impact by segment. The 1 that and you will know that the pass throughs tend to be bigger in enclosures because of the resin, you know, percentage that is used in closures. That being said, without the resin pass throughs closures had strong, you know, revenue and volume growth, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks. So that is not the driver of growth. And then the other piece I will mention is the context of beauty margins, we did have, and I mentioned this in my remarks, as well. We did have a delay, a lag in the beauty segment. So every segment passed through a beauty, but we had a bit of a lag, which was a bit of a you know, a detriment. it is probably about you know, 80, 90 basis points of margin on beauty impact of that delayed pass through in the quarter, and we expect that to be resolved in Q3. Thank you, Vanessa.

Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Larue with William Blair. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Okay. Thank you. And, Stephan, congratulations on your retirement. I wanted to ask on consumer it is now grown for 3 consecutive quarters after, you know, that period of decline. So it does seem like destocking perhaps has worked its way through. But 15% growth, very strong. Was that, you know, a function of just easy comps? Or was there any sort of pull forward in the quarter? And based on those 2 dynamics how does that kind of factor into the Q3 outlook?

Yes. I will hand to Gael here, but obviously, the destocking has run its course. I think we have already confirmed that in the previous quarter. And it is it is been a strong quarter. As we said. Especially in decongestions, but maybe, again, I do not know, you can give more color on consumer health care.

Yeah. Consumer health care. I mean, we have seen the demand being up nicely. The ophthalmic area, you know, that we are converting some of the market, the low phenoxy market to a multi dose preservative free formulation continue to be solid and solid across the regions. And the nasal decon is positive for us. So that the kind of color I can share with you for moving into Q3.

Yeah. And please go out and get some TheraFlu Great new gesture.

Well, it is cool starting again. I imagine I will be alright now. The I wanted to ask then actually on injectables. Again, strong growth here. You obviously referenced the Annex 1 opportunity as you have. Is there any way you can kind of describe how that funnel has started to build as a new growth driver? And then also, it would be great to get an update on Congruence just in terms of how you have been building into capacity and how that plan is scaling up.

So you did not quite hear your last question. Yeah. Sorry.

Just on Congress, but let me-- oh, Congruence.

Congruence, New York. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Yep. Okay. So, I mean, if you look at our pipeline in injectable, GLP-1 is and will continue to be a driver of our outperformance. GLP-1 by definition is part of the growth for the division, but not only we have got the biologics being strong and robust not only in the performance, but also in the pipeline. Know, that biologics are right now more than 50% of the pharma world research and development. The Alex 1 also, you know, the regulatory compliance being raising the bar. And after, you know, I mean, they are really looking for players having the ability to be fully compliant with the Annex 1. So this is some of the drivers driving the growth for injectable. As far as Congruence, I mean, we are done with the what we call the big bucks investment. We are set to be positioned from an injectable perspective, not only in Europe, but in the U.S. and in Asia with China, specifically for congress. I mean, we have got validation of our, I mean, implementations. So customers audit inspection, a panel ready, and helping us to deliver the growth that we are facing.

Very good. Thanks.

Your next question comes from the line of George Staphos with Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey. Thanks very much. 2 questions for me to wrap. On the 1 hand, can you talk, Gael and Stephan, about the collaborative framework You mentioned, I think, in the opening remarks regarding injectable therapy. what is behind it? What do you get out of it? How does it help your shareholders? I am guessing it is part of the more service-oriented approach Apgar has been taking to become something more than just a device company? And then switching gears to the third quarter, Vanessa, what should we assume is FX based on your guide kind of a $0.03 to $0.04 headwind there? Thank you and good luck in the quarter.

Yes. So let me take the first question, George. The job for us is to make validation and qualifications by our customers way easier. So instead of getting our customers qualifying, I mean, components on each components, we are working with the different players. Let's say the different PFS players in the market in order to come with fully integrated validation. So they know the performance, not only the plunger, but the plunger with the PFS, and the arenas on the complete device that a customer is going to acquire. So they have got day 1 all the validations, all the key elements for entering into their process on a on a on a better on a better shape. So we are making their process and their validation way easier. And it is giving us also some color regarding the kind of very close relationship. We have got with the other their players in that space.

And then, George, I think you were asking what is our Q3 what is our Q3 guide assume for FX? We are assuming 1.14. And Q2 average 1.16, so that is a headwind. A quarter over quarter headwind. And these days were trending about 4 cents annualized for every for every penny that we are off on the USD to euro exchange rate. So that is a 2-cent quarter over quarter headwind.

Got it. Thank you, Vanessa. Good luck in the quarter.

Thank you.

Hey, George. Before you leave, I also just want to know, right, recognize I just wrote down in front of me I think you are the only 1 who now follows 5 of the 6 CEOs of Aptar as a public company, starting with Carl Beetert, Steve, myself, and now Gael. So you can be relied on to keep us on our toes, so thank you for that.

We will be here. Thank you.

Yeah. Congratulations. We will be good for the next 1.

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Gael for closing remarks.

Before we conclude, let me leave you with a few thoughts on the quarter and the path ahead. For the second quarter, we delivered a solid performance driven by better top line performance across all 3 segments. Strong productivity improvements, and disciplined cost management. And we deliver adjusted earnings per share. Above our guidance range. Across the broader pharma portfolio, we continue to see encouraging demand trends in areas such as biologics, the GLP-1, the systemic nasal drug delivery but also consumer health care and other attractive end markets. Beauty benefited from continued strength in prestige fragrance, while closures delivered strong beverage growth and continued momentum in food. Aptar has a great foundation built on differentiated technologies, but also deep customer relationships leading market positions, and very talented people. We are what I call an indispensable partner to our customers. Helping them to innovate, grow, succeed across attractive end markets. And everything we do is ultimately focused on improving patient and consumer outcomes. Whether it is expanding access to therapies improving adherence, enhancing safety and reliability, or creating simply better end user experience our solutions bring meaningful value to the people who use our products. On a daily basis. That combination of a strong foundation trusted customer partnerships, a clear focus on end user outcomes gives me tremendous confidence in our ability to create sustainable growth and long term value for our shareholders. As I step into the CEO role September 1st, I am excited about this tremendous opportunity, and I believe my priorities are clear. Drive profitable growth, execute consistently, and allocate capital thoughtfully. Based on the demand trends we see today and the momentum exiting the second quarter, we are confident in our outlook for the third quarter and our long term prospects. Thank you for your continued interest in Aptar, and I will see you on the road in the coming months.

That concludes our call. Thank you, everyone.