Doretta Mistras
Chief Financial Officer at Viatris
Thank you, Philippe, and good morning, everyone. It's great to be here to discuss our Q1 performance. As Scott highlighted, we are off to a strong start to the year with our fourth consecutive quarter of top-line growth. We continue to execute against our growth plan, which includes maintaining our base business stability and driving new product revenue. Our globally diverse platform is generating growth from our base business in emerging markets in Europe and from higher-than-expected new product revenue.
In the quarter, we made great progress on our strategic initiatives. We closed the women's healthcare business divestiture, completed the Idorsia transaction, and expect to close the divestiture of the API business imminently. I will provide an update on these items as it relates to guidance in a bit. And I echo Scott's comments as it relates to Corinne. I look-forward to working closely with her as we continue to drive growth and unlock value from our platform. Turning to first-quarter performance, we delivered 2% year-over-year operational growth, which was in line with our expectations. This excludes the impact of foreign exchange, which was approximately 2%. This marks the fourth consecutive quarter of top-line growth and once again highlights the power of our well-diversified global platform.
The growth was driven by strength in emerging markets, Europe and Janz and by better-than-expected new product revenue of $154 million in the quarter. Moving to our commercial segment. For developed markets, Europe delivered another strong quarter, growing approximately 2% versus the prior year. We saw growth across our broad portfolio of brands, generics in key markets such as Italy and France and the positive benefit from new product launches. Our North-America business declined approximately 3% year-over-year as a result of channel dynamics and customer formulary changes in our brand portfolio.
This was partially offset by approximately 18% net sales growth in Yupelri and continued uptake in Tyrvaya versus Q1 of 2023. Generics performed better than expected, driven by new product launches, including Breyna as well as strong performance in base business complex products such as Wixela. Emerging markets had another strong quarter, delivering approximately 9% year-over-year operational growth. This performance was driven by strong results in the MENA and Eurasia regions as well as key countries like Thailand and Malaysia. Generics grew approximately 10% due to ARV phasing benefits and strength across our broad portfolio. And brands were up approximately 8% more than expected, driven by key products such as Lipitor, Elidel, and Xalabrands.
Janz grew approximately 2% over the prior year, driven by expansion of business activities in Australia. This helped to more than offset the expected declines due to government price regulations in Japan and Australia. And lastly, in Greater China, our results were flat versus Q1 2023. We continue to focus on the retail segment and on growing the self-paid patient base, while navigating the evolving policy environment. Now, I'll walk you through the remainder of the P&L and the drivers of adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. Adjusted gross margin of approximately 59% in the quarter was ahead of our expectations and was driven by positive portfolio and segment mix.
As anticipated, adjusted gross margin declined versus the prior year due to price regulations in Japan and the increase in COGS. As expected, first-quarter operating expenses increased due to SG&A investments in the eyecare franchise, new product launches, and progress in key R&D programs. Free-cash flow for the quarter met expectations and versus prior year was driven by lower adjusted EBITDA, the closing of divestitures and the timing of working capital. Excluding transaction costs and taxes from the divestitures, free-cash flow would have been $648 million. It is important to note that related taxes and transaction costs associated with the divestitures will continue to impact cash flow from operating activities.
The proceeds received from the divestitures will benefit cash-flow from investing activities. Moving to the balance sheet and capital allocation. We ended the quarter with approximately $1 billion in cash and cash equivalents on hand. We continue to execute on our balanced capital allocation framework and returned $393 million of capital to shareholders in Q1 in the form of both dividends and share repurchases. Now, I'll walk you through the details of our financial guidance for the rest of the year. We are reaffirming our 2024 financial guidance after adjusting the ranges solely due to divestitures and acquired IPR&D.
These adjustments represent approximately $270 million in revenue, $86 million in adjusted EBITDA, and $0.04 in adjusted EPS for the remainder of 2024. The underlying fundamentals for 2024 total revenue guidance include no change to the base business growth of approximately 2% operationally versus 2023 and continued confidence in meeting our new product revenue range of $450 million to $550 million due to the strong uptake of Breyna and the breadth of our new product launches. Lastly, if April foreign exchange rates hold for the rest of the year, there could be a headwind of approximately 2% on full-year revenue. Now a few comments about anticipated phasing for the rest of the year.
Total revenue is expected to be modestly higher in the second half, mainly due to normal product seasonality. New product revenue is expected to be higher in the first half driven by Breyna, which is treated as new product revenue through July. Adjusted gross margin is expected to be higher in the first-half versus second-half due to product and segment mix. We expect operating expenses to be relatively evenly phased between the first-half and the second-half. Taking these factors into consideration, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS are expected to be slightly higher in the second-half. Free-cash flow is also expected to be more weighted to the second-half.
As a reminder, free-cash flow tends to be lower in Q2 and Q4 due to timing of semi-annual interest payments. Based on the strong fundamentals of our business and our progress to date against our objectives, we believe we are well-positioned to meet our expectations for the remainder of this year. And with that, I'll hand it back over to the operator to begin the Q&A.