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Baxter International Inc. (BAX)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Jan 29, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Baxter International's Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded by Baxter and is copyrighted material. It cannot be recorded or rebroadcast without Baxter's permission. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Mary Kay Ladone, Corporate Vice President, Investor Relations at Baxter International. Ms. Ladone, you may begin.

Mary Kay Ladone

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Thanks, Sam. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q4 2014 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Bob Parkinson, CEO and Chairman of Baxter International; Ludwig Hantson, President, BioScience; and Bob Hombach, Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, let me remind you that this presentation, including comments regarding our financial outlook, new product developments and regulatory matters, contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, and of course, our actual results could differ materially from our current expectations. Please refer to today's press release and our SEC filings for more detail concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. In addition, in today's call, non-GAAP financial measures will be used to help investors understand Baxter's ongoing business performance. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures being discussed today to the comparable GAAP financial measures is included in our earnings release issued this morning and available on our website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Bob Parkinson.

Robert L. Parkinson

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Thanks, Mary Kay. Good morning, and thank you all for calling in. 2014 was a great year for our company and I'm very pleased with our achievements and progress we've made from a financial, operational, scientific and strategic perspective. First, we were successful in meeting or exceeding our financial objectives with accelerated growth in sales, solid earnings and significant cash flow. And we've consistently executed a disciplined capital allocation strategy that balances reinvestment in the business with returning value to shareholders in the form of increased dividends and share repurchases. Positive momentum continues to build across the commercial franchises as we extend our global reach with the core portfolio, enhance care with the introduction of several new products and position both businesses for sustained success. We're balancing this with investments in commercial and operational excellence as well as manufacturing capacity to improve our competitive position and support the solid underlying fundamentals in future demand that we foresee for Baxter's products and therapies across the globe. We're also transforming innovation and advancing the pipeline with the achievement of significant clinical and regulatory milestones, while expanding the portfolio through acquisitions and collaborations. And most notably, in 2014, we reached a significant milestone in Baxter's history as we remain committed to driving long-term value for shareholders with the creation of 2 independent publicly traded companies in mid-2015, providing investors with 2 unique and compelling investment opportunities. Before turning the call over to Bob Hombach for a discussion of the financial results and future outlook, let me take just a few minutes to reflect on a number of the achievements from the past year. First, strong sales performance reflects our strategic focus on improving access and treatment standards, broadening our global presence while investing to support future growth. Baxter's worldwide revenues totaled $16.7 billion…

Robert J. Hombach

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Thanks, Bob, and good morning, everyone. Adjusted earnings per diluted share from continuing operations increased 2% in the fourth quarter to $1.34, which exceeded our previously issued guidance range of $1.30 to $1.33 per share. These results reflect strong revenue growth across several key franchises and continued investments in operations and research and development. As we mentioned in the press release, GAAP earnings of $1.74 per diluted share reflects both earnings and an after-tax gain from the recently divested vaccines franchise totaling $429 million or $0.78 per diluted share. In addition, our GAAP results reflect after-tax special items totaling $209 million or $0.38 per diluted share for intangible amortization costs associated with business development and contingent milestone payments, integration of the company's acquisition of Gambro AB and Baxter's planned separation. Now let me briefly walk you through the P&L by line item before turning to the financial outlook for 2015. Starting with sales. Worldwide sales of approximately $4.5 billion advanced 3% on a reported basis. On a constant currency basis, sales increased 7%, reflecting a sequential improvement in growth over the last 4 quarters from an organic perspective. This growth also favorably compares to our guidance for the quarter of approximately 3%. Each product category contributed to the overachievement with particular strength coming from the hemophilia franchise, driven by ADVATE and FEIBA, and strong U.S. performance across the Medical Products portfolio. Sales in the U.S. increased 6% and international sales, excluding foreign currency, increased 7%. As Bob mentioned, sales in emerging markets were strong, advancing by more than 15% in the quarter with robust growth in the BRIC markets, driven by hemophilia sales in Brazil and the timing of tenders as expected. For the full year, worldwide sales of nearly $16.7 billion advanced 11% on a reported basis or 13%…

Robert L. Parkinson

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Thanks, Bob. Let me end our prepared comments this morning with a brief update on the anticipated spinoff of our biopharmaceuticals business. Our organization has been fully engaged in separation activity since the announcement that we made last March, and we're energized by the prospects of separating Baxter into 2 leading global health care companies, one focused on developing and marketing innovative biopharmaceuticals and the other on life-saving medical products. This decision supports Baxter's evolution and underscores our commitment to ensuring long-term strategic priorities remain aligned with shareholders' best interest, while creating value for patients, health care providers and other key stakeholders. The 2 businesses operate in distinct markets with corresponding underlying fundamentals and each possesses unique and compelling growth prospects, investment requirements and risk profiles. The spinoff will create 2 well-capitalized, independent companies with strong balance sheets, investment-grade profiles and disciplined approaches to capital allocation. The spin will also provide greater management focus, the ability to more effectively commercialize new and existing product offerings to drive innovation and enhance our flexibility to pursue respective growth and investment strategies. This will result in revenue acceleration, improved profitability and enhanced returns for shareholders. During 2014, we named our senior leadership teams for both companies, established the international and commercial structures for both organizations, formally unveiled Baxalta Incorporated as the name of the new publicly traded biopharmaceutical company and filed a preliminary Form-10 with the SEC for Baxalta. While we continue to work through the complexities, this process is unfolding in line with our expectations, and we continue on track toward a mid-2015 completion. We recently announced that we'll be hosting an investor conference in New York City on the afternoon of May 18 for Baxter International and on the morning of May 19 for Baxalta Incorporated. At these conferences, we'll introduce you to the new senior management teams and provide investors with more information regarding the strategies, growth prospects, capital structure and financial outlooks for each company. We'll also engage in a comprehensive Investor Relations effort, including investor road shows for both companies with their respective senior management teams several weeks before the spinoff is completed. In closing, while 2015 will be a challenging year, momentum in the core business is building and we remain excited about our future prospects, and we're poised for improved performance in 2016 and beyond. As we chart distinct and unique paths forward as separate global health care leaders, we look forward to unlocking value for shareholders, partners, employees and the patients and health care providers that we serve. As always, I'll be happy to take any questions on these or other topics during the Q&A. So with that, I'd now like to open up the call to your questions, if we might.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] I'd like to remind participants that this call is being recorded and a digital replay will be available on the Baxter International's website for 30 days at www.baxter.com. Our first question comes from Kristen Stewart of Deutsche Bank.

Brittany Henderson

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

This is Brittany Henderson in for Kristen. I just wanted to kind of get more clarity as we think about 2015. How should we just think about the incremental standalone costs versus kind of the stranded costs associated with the Baxalta spin?

Robert J. Hombach

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Okay. Well, we're still working -- as we mentioned, we're still working through the details around that. We've talked about initial dis-synergies of approximately $300 million or approximately 2% of Baxter's current sales. Interestingly enough, almost half of that is going to relate to IT-related costs, and we will be working towards separating the IT infrastructure over time, but that is one of the longer lead time items. So that is actually a difficult thing to break out at this point. Our initial estimate was a little bit heavier towards Baxalta in terms of dis-synergies, but a fair amount of stranded cost for new Baxter given, again, some of this IT overlap for some period of time. But at this point, I'm still working through those details. That's part of what we look to address in the May investor conferences where each of the 2 companies will lay out the financial outlooks.

Brittany Henderson

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Okay. And just a quick follow-up. How should we think about Suprane in 2015? What are the assumptions for competition there?

Robert L. Parkinson

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

This is Bob Parkinson, Brittany. We anticipate Suprane is going to continue to grow in 2015. Having said that, we also anticipate that we may get generic competition in various markets around the world, although as we sit here today, it's not evident when or if or who that will be. I will tell you that there continues -- it continues to be promotionally sensitive in many markets around the world. So longer term, we view the anesthesia contract -- franchise with Suprane as kind of a foundation product as a growth vehicle, not only in '15, but, frankly, over our LRP.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from David Lewis of Morgan Stanley.

James Francescone

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

This is actually James in for David. Just wanted to get a quick sense from you. The first quarter earnings guidance of $0.85 to $0.90, how representative do you think that is of where the business stands from a profitability or earnings power basis today? On the one hand, obviously, you've got some idiosyncratic headwinds from quality spending that are going to fade through the year. But on the other hand, it seems as if FX and any potential ADVATE competitive impact would get greater through the year. So is 1Q kind of a reasonable representation where the business stands today? Or is it wrong?

Robert J. Hombach

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

As we've looked at the situation, there are clearly some things in Q1 that are more pronounced. The $0.10 in manufacturing, clearly, is something that is very much front-end loaded. Overall manufacturing, just to give you a sense, is definitely a meaningful headwind in the first half of the year but a slight tailwind in the back half of the year, and so that clearly is not representative of what the ongoing situation is with the company. FX and cyclo are clearly meaningful headwinds here, both around $0.40. They will be somewhat back-end loaded, particularly FX. We're very well hedged in the first half of the year on the euro and a few other key currencies. But again, as we've been highlighting for 6 months, the emerging market depreciation in currencies that happened in the back half of 2014 is still very much there, and we're much more exposed as well. So Q1, I would say, is definitely not representative. And as a general matter from a seasonality standpoint, it's usually, by far, our lowest quarter from an earnings perspective in any given year.

James Francescone

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Okay, that's helpful. And then just second, any help that you could give us on hemophilia guidance? Obviously, you've done very well in that business, strong double digits -- or double digits at a minimum for the past several quarters, decelerating to 0% to 2% next year. Clearly, there's some competitive impact there. But how do you think about balancing the U.S. competitive impact versus the continued strength internationally?

Ludwig N. Hantson

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Well, this is Ludwig, James. First of all, the hemophilia team is doing a great job, as you see from the numbers. We will continue to grow ADVATE faster than market internationally. So internationally, we'll see positive growth. In the U.S., as Bob was alluding to, our guidance of high single-digit market share loss between -- from the Biogen launch to 855's launch is still a guidance. This will result in a negative growth in the U.S. With respect to our sales guidance, as we said, hemophilia, this is the base business only. It's 0% to 2% for the year. We have a separate sales guidance for the inhibitor market. Our business will continue to grow 6% to 8%. So overall, when you take the 2 together, we're talking about those single digits market, low single-digit growth.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from David Roman of Goldman Sachs.

David H. Roman

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

I wanted just to start on HYQVIA, which, Bob, you gave some disclosure in your prepared remarks. I think you said that there are 400 prescribers as of now. Could you maybe just go into a little bit more detail on the launch? Was that a U.S. or a global number? And how are things going thus far domestically?

Robert L. Parkinson

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Yes, David, I'll let Ludwig address that. Go ahead, Ludwig.

Ludwig N. Hantson

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Yes, thanks. So we're very pleased with the launch in the U.S. The 400 number that we gave you is the U.S. number only. So the interest is very high. We have a value proposition for the patient as well as for the payer. The value proposition for the patient, clearly, it's a subQ once a month with one needle. From a payer perspective, although we take a price premium of about 30%, we -- overall, the cost of the treatment is still a favorable number. Overall cost, we think, about 10% less because of the higher viability that we have with HYQVIA versus subQ. So overall, it's a very strong proposition for all of our key stakeholders. Our objective is that HYQVIA is become -- will become a leadership brand within the PI market long term. With respect to our 2015 guidance, you saw 6% to 8% for IG. We think that HYQVIA will be about $100 million for 2015.

David H. Roman

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

That's very helpful. And then maybe secondly, just broadly on the U.S. businesses. I think this was one of the better quarters you've had domestically in quite some time, particularly in some of the more volume exposed or Medical Products businesses. Can you maybe just talk through some of the underlying dynamics in the U.S., what really drove -- got better this quarter? And your guidance doesn't -- does not seem to suggest that that's sustainable, but why would that be the case?

Ludwig N. Hantson

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

With respect to hemophilia, when I think about ADVATE, 2014 as well as the fourth quarter, we've seen an impact of 1 to 2 market share points from the Biogen launch over the last 6 months. However, when you take all the different pieces of the puzzle together here, the positive contribution of the prophy conversions, and we have more than 650 patients that converted to -- as a prophy, so that's positive contribution. In addition to the weight gain contribution, more than offset the share loss. So that's the dynamic that we have, and that's the reason why we are growing faster than the market. Then our projection for 2015, we will continue -- as we said, we're on track for a high single-digit market share loss for the year, but we will not only have a Biogen competition, our assumption is that we will also have new entries in the short-acting Factor VIII market segment.

Robert J. Hombach

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Yes. And David, I would just add that given the momentum we've seen the last couple of quarters, we are sticking with our original assumption here of the high single-digit market share loss, but that may prove to be conservative.

David H. Roman

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Understood. I guess, I was asking more broadly about your U.S. franchises across the board. I think if I look at the BioSurgery business, that did better. You had nice momentum in things like the specialty areas. Is that -- why wouldn't that continue in 2015?

Robert L. Parkinson

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

I think -- Bob Parkinson here, David. Yes, I think, in many of those areas, it will continue in '15. I think we're seeing a little more stability in the market in terms of hospital procedures and hospital activity compared to what it was earlier, which is encouraging. We're also managing out of our -- some of the supply constraints that we incurred earlier in the year and got in a much better position in the fourth quarter on both IV solutions and PD solutions, and we're bringing some more capacity online in '15. So I think the underlying fundamentals, whether it's the IV Fluid Systems business, whether it's parenteral nutrition, BioSurgery as you mentioned, anesthesia. And again, we'll expand on this when we get together at the investor conference and so on, but I think each of these product segments, these are not -- these are never going to be double-digit growers, but they're going to be solid single-digit growers. And we'll provide some more color on that when we get together in May.

Mary Kay Ladone

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Yes, David, I think that -- yes, just to add -- it's Mary Kay. I will just say the decline in cyclo and in the other category are really predominantly what's driving the U.S. performance to where it is in 2015.

Robert L. Parkinson

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

And offsetting the strength in the other areas that I commented on. So you get some pretty large netting effects there, as you know.

Mary Kay Ladone

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Correct. That's correct.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mike Weinstein of JPMorgan.

Michael N. Weinstein

Analyst · JPMorgan

Let me just -- I want to circle back to the first quarter guidance because that's what I'm getting the most questions on. So the $0.10 that you're calling out that's kind of the manufacturing impact, the quality upgrade, how much of that do you want us to think is ongoing versus onetime?

Robert J. Hombach

Analyst · JPMorgan

Well, as I mentioned, we will see, on a year-over-year basis, a meaningful improvement in the back half of the year. The nature of these are partly due to capacity expansion and the timing of that, which will come online in the first half of 2015. So that will certainly alleviate the need for some of the expedited freight and incremental logistical costs that we've been incurring. Other aspects of the process modifications that we're working through will take a little bit more time to work down as we work down the cost curve on that. These are well-established processes that we've been manufacturing PD and IV solutions for, for decades, so we'll take a little bit of time. So I would say a meaningful portion in the back half, some will linger into 2016.

Michael N. Weinstein

Analyst · JPMorgan

Okay. So if we think about just the $0.85 to $0.90 starting point and recognizing the first quarter's historically like 22% to 23% of the year's earnings so it's not a best representation, but you still have in front of you the full impact of generic cyclos. It sounds like you're assuming the front-end part, but not the whole part, so there's still a little bit of a tail there. And then, obviously, you've got that, call it, $0.45 of dis-synergies from the split of the 2 companies. Is that the right way to think about it in terms of what's still in front of you in terms of the EPS headwinds that we won't see in the first quarter, but we'll still see at some later date?

Robert J. Hombach

Analyst · JPMorgan

Well, as it relates to cyclophosphamide, we do anticipate a pretty meaningful impact here in the first quarter. It won't be 1/4 of the year, but it will be meaningful, and certainly, even the first -- excuse me, in the first quarter, we expect a meaningful impact. And in the first half, almost half of the full year impact we expect to see. As you know, when generics come in, the pricing volume dynamics start to play out pretty quickly. So that is fairly representative of what the full year is going to look like. As it relates to the dis-synergies estimate, again, we won't really see those in the P&L in any meaningful way until the back half of 2015. The initial estimate is around $300 million, but both of the 2 companies are going to get busy as quickly as possible post spin to start working those down. So how that plays into what our full year 2016 is going to look like, I don't anticipate that's going to be $300 million. I think it's going to be lower, and that will be part of what we lay out in the May time frame.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Larry Keusch of Raymond James.

Lawrence S. Keusch

Analyst · Raymond James

Bob, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the outlook for Brazil in 2015. You obviously did as you anticipated for this year and achieved over $100 million in sales. But talk a little bit about what has to continue to happen on the conversions and where you think you are as you go towards that, I think, $200 million-ish target.

Robert L. Parkinson

Analyst · Raymond James

Why don't you take that?

Ludwig N. Hantson

Analyst · Raymond James

Yes. So we gave you a target of $200 million. Clearly, we're on track to achieve that over time. As far as the market is concerned, there are about 10,000 hemophilia A patients in Brazil. We have now converted more than 4,000 patients. As we convert from plasma to recombinant, we also convert those patients from on-demand to prophy, and our penetration of prophy in those patients is about closer to 70%. So we still have a long way to go, and that's where the additional $100 million opportunity is coming from. 2015 will be the next step in the journey that is going to take longer than 2 years to get to the 100% conversion.

Lawrence S. Keusch

Analyst · Raymond James

Okay, that's helpful. And then, I guess, for Bob Parkinson, one thing that you've talked about is potential opportunities to establish other public-private relationships such as the Brazil hemophilia agreement. Could you provide any thoughts on -- do you think that's still viable in other either geographies or other product categories and when we may see something transpiring?

Robert L. Parkinson

Analyst · Raymond James

Yes. I think it's -- Larry, I think it's going to be an increasing opportunity actually for both companies in both businesses because I think governments are going to be thrust in a position to kind of embrace new paradigms in terms of how they manage health care cost. And I think inevitably, it's going to involve collaborations with suppliers, certainly, leading suppliers in ways of doing business going forward that are different. So obviously, the Hemobrás collaboration in Brazil on hemophilia has been well discussed and everybody understands that. But I mean, we're building a new solutions plant in Thailand to manufacture PD solutions, which was the direct result of us working with the Thai government to establish from a policy point of view peritoneal dialysis as the therapy of choice, not hemodialysis, largely because it's lower cost. It saves the government money, and in the process, we're making investments. We're creating jobs in Thailand. China is another good example where we've had a program that we'd refer to or describe internally as the Flying Angels project, which has really been another example of a great collaboration that's driving adoption of PD therapy. And I know Ludwig and his team continue to have discussions on various fronts as does new BAX. So I just think this is going to be a new way of doing business going forward, and I would anticipate in the coming years both companies will do more of these kinds of collaborations.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Derrick Sung of Sanford Bernstein.

Derrick Sung

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein

I wanted to ask a little bit about if you could help us think about the capital structure of the 2 split businesses moving forward. Can you give us a sense for how we should think about, will debt be split evenly amongst the companies? And in terms of the dividend, how should we think about high level kind of dividend profile of the 2 businesses?

Robert J. Hombach

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein

Derrick, this is Bob Hombach. As we've been saying, we're going to give the whole financial picture for both organizations, the financial outlook for sales, for earnings, CapEx spend and capital structure, including capital allocation assumptions, in the May time frame. A lot to work through as we work through the separation here and that act is obviously a very key aspect of this. We do believe both companies are going to generate significant cash flow going forward, and we'll have a significant amount of flexibility to be disciplined about capital allocation and to think about returning significant value to shareholders as we've been doing in the past, but also continue to reinvest in the businesses to support future growth. So we'll lay all that out in the May time frame.

Derrick Sung

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein

Okay. Well, maybe then focusing a bit on the Baxter, the Medical Products business, for, I guess, either of the Bobs. You've talked a bit about the potential for a margin expansion opportunity coming out with a relatively lower margin relative to your peers. Could you help us think a little bit more about kind of -- does that margin expansion come primarily from mix shift? Is it -- we understand the Gambro piece to it. But beyond Gambro, where does that primarily come from and kind of how do we get there?

Robert L. Parkinson

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein

Yes, Derrick, Bob Parkinson here. Let me spend a couple of minutes responding to that. First of all, the comment about our returns being lower than peers, I think everybody understands one of the reasons for that is we are in very logistics-intensive businesses. Shipping IV solutions and PD solutions is expensive, so we have a freight distribution line on our P&L, which is inherent in those businesses as opposed to, let's say, traditional medical device or hospital supply businesses. Now having said that, what we will show you at the investor conference in May is a steady improvement over the LRP and operating margins that are very achievable and I think will be significant as well. And they really emanate from a series of things, and I'll just touch on a few in the interest of time. We clearly are going to increase our focus and investment in what I'll call higher-margin, higher-growth product categories, things like anesthesia, BioSurgery, parenteral nutrition, the acute -- the CRRT business in the hospital setting. These are all businesses today that range between $0.5 billion to $1 billion that are promotionally sensitive, have prospects for higher growth and are higher margin, so would represent a mix upgrade. Also, we're very excited about the engagement, if you will, in the infusion pump business with the approval of the SIGMA Spectrum Version 8. We'll be rolling that out in 2015 in the U.S. We effectively have been out of the infusion pump business for a number of years, and there's been a lot of margin that's been lost attendant [ph] with share loss with -- starting with the colleague, things and so on. So we're on the cusp of being able to get that back. Also, our new product low in new BAX and again,…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Bruce Nudell of Crédit Suisse.

Bruce M. Nudell

Analyst

Ludwig, could you just parse in the U.S. hemophilia guidance for next year, how much of the high single digits kind of ELOCTATE versus more standard competitive or recombinant Factor VIII? And just comment more generally on -- basically, all the surveys, everybody did, on the sell-side indicated that ELOCTATE would be much more impactful than it's proving to be. Does that -- and given the changes in hemophilia that are likely to occur over the next 5 years or so, does it speak at all to Baxter's competitive advantage in that space because of the intimacy you have with patients and caregivers? Just any general comments in that regard.

Ludwig N. Hantson

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Well, it's a good question, thank you. With respect to the surveys, I think my answer would be we'll post the surveys. We have now 6 months of data. So at this point, the surveys are very qualitative, but the quantitative piece comes from the actual data. So that will be my answer to the survey question. With respect to the market itself, it's a very sticky market. We've seen this. We see this in Factor VIII. Now when you look at the market dynamics in IX, it's not much different with the new entrants including RIXUBIS. So the market, I believe, will continue to look for the standard treatment because we raised the bar, and the bar is very high. The bar is 0 blips. And when you look at the clinical data, 0 to 1 is where the SA data comes out, and that's a very high bar. So irrespective of the new technology, we're talking about an efficacy target, which is very high. We do believe that we have a very strong strategy in place, starting from the gold standard ADVATE moving to 855, which is ADVATE in a PEGylated form to known technologies, moving to 826, which is ADVATE in a PSA technology, and then leapfrogging maybe those technology with potentially gene therapy. In gene therapy, as you know, we'll post proof of clinical concept in hemophilia B. We're going to show that data in a couple of weeks in Helsinki. But overall, we believe that we are in a position of strength to continue to grow this franchise moving forward.

Bruce M. Nudell

Analyst

And Bob, just talk -- could you give us some general comments about your assessment of the progress of Gambro? I know that PD is growing high single digits, low double digits thereabouts and your guidance for renal, 4% to 5%, in '15. How does Gambro figure into that? Is it tracking as you hoped in terms of revenue growth?

Robert L. Parkinson

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Yes. First of all, relative to synergies, we're tracking very much on target, okay? And so the numbers that we laid out at the outset will be achieved, both in total and the time frame attendant with that, so we're pleased with that. In terms of commercial performance, frankly, we got off to a little bit of a slow start that we've really picked up steam. I think if you look at the first half, second half comps, '14 versus '13, you saw the momentum build in the second half, and I think that's a by-product of the natural challenges of integrating organizationally and getting the alignment leadership established and so on. But I think we are very much on a pace to generate revenue growth commensurate with what we messaged at the time of the acquisition. And of course, we look forward to being able to expand dialyzer capacity in 2016 and beyond, which is going to be very helpful to meet more demand. The other thing I would say, the commercial synergy component of this, now having the full product line, gives us a lot of flexibility. I mentioned in response to one of the earlier questions about public-private partnerships and so on, managing the cost of providing access to treatment of end-stage renal disease, dialysis is a very -- that's a big ticket item on every health care budget for every country around the world, and this is an area where naturally they're going to look for collaborations and how to partner to manage that. Given our full product offering, I think we're in the best position to partner with governments to do that, as evidenced by the example I gave with the PD First program in Thailand. So I'm very pleased with the acquisition. There's always fits and starts when you do something of this size and complexity, but I'm really glad we did the deal, and it's going to be a big part of our growth going forward. Bob?

Robert J. Hombach

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Yes, maybe just a clarification, Bruce. We have talked about patient double-digit patient growth in the U.S. as a result of change in reimbursement. Recall U.S. is less than 20% of global PD sales. So if we look at our guidance for 2015, kind of mid-single digits for the overall renal business. In fact, PD and the legacy Gambro business are both expected to grow in that mid single-digit range. So it's comparable.

Operator

Operator

Our final question comes from Chris Hamblett of Cowen.

Christopher Hamblett

Analyst · Cowen

Just one follow-up on hemophilia. As you kind of position gene therapy as the next major potential breakthrough for the longer competitive dynamics in that market, what do you think you'll need to show in terms of long-term durability and safety to address potential regulatory concerns there with the gene therapy? And then second, what exactly are you going to show in terms of new clinical data for BAX 335 in February? And when might the Factor VIII gene therapy be ready for the clinic? I believe you said later this year, but I wanted to make sure that was correct.

Ludwig N. Hantson

Analyst · Cowen

Okay. With respect to the gene therapy, as I mentioned, we'll post proof of concept on hemophilia B. So the data that we're going to present in 2 weeks from now will be individual patient data where we will be showing -- and I've shared that before, we see sustained levels of Factor VIII expression elevated versus current treatments. With respect to what is the target level, there is some data with respect to target level, depends on activity of the patient. When you're talking about patients that are active, it might be 20%-plus and yet we are able to achieve those levels with hemophilia B. Then with respect to your question on regulatory pathway, that is still a work in progress. My assumption at this moment is that for every new technology that comes into hemophilia, that it might be a little bit different than the way that we've developed ADVATE 855 because there's always going to be more questions with respect to efficacy, sustainability and long-term probability. But we'll keep you posted as soon as we got the regulatory input. And with respect to the timing of gene therapy for hemophilia A, we're planning to start our clinical program in the next year. So hemophilia B, we'll post proof of concept; hemophilia A, we're going to take the same technology into the clinic in about a year from now.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call with Baxter International. Thank you for participating. Everyone, have a wonderful day.