Matthew Walsh
Chief Financial Officer at Organon & Co.
Thanks, Kevin. Before I talk in more depth about our results, I'll remind you that we haven't completely lapped the June 2021 spin transaction as far as financial reporting is concerned. So while our 2022 third and fourth quarters are apples-to-apples with the prior year periods, first half of 2022 comparability is impacted by the carve-out basis of accounting that we needed to employ for pre-spin-off accounting periods. And that really implies more to expense items on the full year income statement rather than revenue, and I'll call that out as necessary.
So with that opener, we'll move to Slide 7 and discuss fourth quarter revenue. Fourth quarter revenue was approximately $1.5 billion, down 7% as reported, but up 1% at constant currency. This marks our fourth consecutive quarter of constant currency growth. We'll spend more time talking about the individual drivers when we get to the full year. But isolating the fourth quarter for the moment, we had solid volume growth in the period. Our key growth franchises, Women's Health and Biosimilars were the main drivers of growth, but Established brands also contributed. For example, recently, we've seen particular strength in Atozet in France and Spain, and with some generics still out of the market in Japan, we're getting some pick up there as well. In the fourth quarter, we had about a $15 million impact from volume-based procurement or VBP in China, which reflects the implementation of Round 7 in November. The Organon product that's impacted in this round is EZETROL, which is sold as ZETIA in markets outside of China.
The biggest number on this walk across is foreign exchange translation, which represented an 800 basis point headwind to revenue growth in the fourth quarter. This is the largest FX translation reporting impact of any quarter in 2022. This might seem counterintuitive because everyone's most recent memories of the U.S. dollar weakening versus most foreign currencies. But the numbers show that trend started at the very end of 2022. And given that north of 75% of our revenue is outside the U.S., FX translation was a significant theme for Organon in 2022. Our portfolio faced a significant financial reporting headwind from the strengthening U.S. dollar and unfortunately, that dynamic masked the operational growth in local currencies that we delivered in the fourth quarter and in the full year. And speaking of a full year, we have an identical revenue bridge on Slide 8.
For the full year 2022, revenue was approximately $6.2 billion, down 2% as reported but up 4% at constant currency when compared to prior year. Starting with loss of exclusivity, or LOE. For the full year 2022, LOE impact was modest at about $30 million, and it's coming mainly from NuvaRing LOE in the United States. We didn't have any LOE impact in Established brands this year. And as we've said before, the most significant LOEs facing the Established brands portfolio washed out prior to the spin-off. And what we expect going forward is a cumulative few hundred million dollars of impact over the next several years. The full year impact from VBP of about $20 million primarily reflects the November implementation of around 7, as I just discussed.
We saw an approximate $140 million impact coming from price for the full year 2022. And that's consistent with our expectation that we'll continue to see low single-digit price erosion on a company-wide basis. The majority of pricing pressure continues to come from Established brands where products are subject to mandatory annual price reductions in some markets as well as from Biosimilars. For volume, we expected to see strong volume growth during 2022 across our franchises, and that indeed happened. We saw volume increases coming from what we call our growth pillars, Nexplanon, fertility and biosimilars, but Established brands also grew volume as well. For example, NASONEX and SINGULAIR drove strength year-on-year, Atozet grew in Europe, and we continue to see significant growth in the China retail channel. When looking at Supply Other, the approximate $70 million impact primarily represents supply sales to Merck and other third parties which consists of relatively low-margin sales of pharmaceutical products under contract manufacturing arrangements. Last year, we signaled that the volumes under these arrangements would decline in 2022, which has been the case. And finally, you can see the significant financial reporting headwind we had in foreign exchange translation, 600 basis points for the full year, which again is a function of more than 75% of our revenue being generated outside the U.S.
The next few slides lay out our performance by franchise. Kevin covered very well the highlights, and the quarterly and full year details are provided in the supporting earnings materials. So I'll focus on topics that may be relevant to your modeling as we think about 2023. We'll start with Women's Health on Slide 9.
As Kevin mentioned, Nexplanon had a strong performance in 2022, was up 8% ex FX in the quarter and up 11% for the full year. In fact, we set two new sales records for Nexplanon in 2022, first in the third quarter and then again in the fourth quarter. As you think about quarterly phasing for next year, it's worth reminding you that in the fourth quarter of last year, Nexplanon [Phonetic] also set a sales record which was then sequentially followed by a weaker first quarter due in part to the buy-in, buy-out dynamic we tend to see around the timing of price increases in the U.S. This is a dynamic we would expect to see again in the first quarter of 2023.
Turning to Biosimilars on Slide 10. As Kevin mentioned, this franchise continues to be an important growth driver for us. We know investors are focused on the potential revenue contribution from our U.S. launch of Hadlima this year. Based on our expectations for a gradual market formation in 2023 and only a partial year revenue contribution given our July 1st launch, we expect that globally, Hadlima will represent no more than about 1.5% of our consolidated 2023 revenue.
Turning to Established Brands now on Slide 11. Here, I want to drill down into the fourth quarter because in addition to VBP implementation, there was another item that impacted Established Brands fourth quarter performance. In January 2023, we initiated market actions for sterile suspension injectables, Diprospan and Celestone Chronodose. This was related to a purchase component used in the sterile filling process at Organon's Heist facility in Belgium that was determined to be nonconforming. To be clear, no product quality complaints or adverse events have been reported nor are any expected. Due to the compliance aspect, it was prudent to exercise these market actions and discard inventory deemed to be impacted. And for reference, combined, these two products represented about $165 million of revenue in 2022.
Turning to Slide 12. You can see that this action had the effect of reducing fourth quarter revenue by $8 million for potential sales returns and we recorded a onetime inventory charge of $36 million that shows up in cost of goods sold. We're breaking out the issue in this manner to show that excluding the total $44 million that flows through to adjusted EBITDA, our fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA margin would have been 28.4%, very much in line with what our expectations were for the fourth quarter when we last provided guidance in November. We're also showing the full year impact of reference. Since spinoff, we've been very pleased with our ability to forecast our business. So while events like a market action were always a potential risk in this industry, we're confident about the durability and diversity of our business as it relates to forecasting it.
Let's now turn to key P&L line items on Slide 13. For non-GAAP gross profit, we are excluding from cost of goods sold, purchase accounting amortization and onetime items related to the spin-off. The market action I just discussed was the major driver of the change in gross margin in the fourth quarter compared to the prior year period. For the full year, adjusted gross margin was 65.7% compared with 64.7% for the full year 2021. Keep in mind that full year comparisons for items below the revenue line are less meaningful because they're only truly comparable for the second half of the year. That said, the year-over-year increase in adjusted gross margin is primarily a result of lower supply sales in 2022, which carry lower margins as well as pre-spin allocated costs related to the separation of Organon that occurred in the prior year.
Adjusted EBITDA margin was 25.6% in the fourth quarter compared to 29.3% in the same period of last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 33.8% for the full year 2022 compared with 36.1% for the full year 2021. The decline in the fourth quarter and full year was a result of costs associated with the market action at Heist as well as expenses related to positioning the company for future growth. We've been talking about the importance of reinvestment in the business to create a pipeline of new products to drive revenue growth for a while now. And you see that in higher selling and promotional costs as well as research and development spend associated with our prior acquisitions.
As we look at debt capitalization and leverage on Slide 14, as of December 31, 2022, we have gross bank debt of $8.9 billion netted against cash and cash equivalents of $706 million. We ended the year with a net leverage ratio of about 3.8 times, which ticked up from the 3.6x we reported at the end of the third quarter. That primarily reflects the combination of the strength of the euro and impact of the fourth quarter 2022 results. Given our adjusted EBITDA guidance for 2023, which I'll discuss in a moment, together with the currency impact on our euro-denominated debt, leverage is likely to be stubborn in 2023. In fact, given the inevitable math of this past quarter's inclusion in our LTM EBITDA calculation during the upcoming quarters, we could see leverage tick higher before leveling back down by the end of the year. This doesn't have a significant impact on our capital allocation priorities given the strong cash flow characteristics of the business.
So let's turn to Slide 15 for a moment and take a closer look at cash flow. When we reported our third quarter financials, there was still a lot of noise in the September year-to-date cash flow numbers stemming from some transient spin-related items. This is washing out. And you can see that in the fourth quarter, our free cash flow generation was very strong. In the full year 2022, there was about $300 million related to nonrecurring spin-related working capital build early in the year. And if you recall the discussion from last quarter, we said that a good portion of that $300 million was actually expected in late 2021, but instead landed in early 2022. With the spin-related build largely behind us and reaching what we expect to be a more normalized ebb and flow to our working capital position, we saw a significant improvement in Q4 cash generation.
The other driver was foreign exchange translation. Consistent with weakening of the U.S. dollar, we had a positive impact of $100 million in the fourth quarter from foreign currency cash balances within our global liquidity management program. And that partially offset the $160 million headwind we had experienced year-to-date September. But the key message here is that putting aside the $300 million of working capital build that should not repeat in 2023, our free cash flow ex-onetime costs related to the spinoff is in that north of $1 billion range that we communicated at the time of the spin. Our capital allocation priorities remain consistent with past communications. We will continue to prioritize servicing the current dividend, followed by pursuing organic growth through life cycle management opportunities within our current portfolio of products.
Capital expenditures in the range of 3% to 4% of revenue remains a good estimate for forecasting purposes. With that capital going to modernizing and growing our production capacity, standup-related investments like our global ERP implementation and other strategic investments in the business. With these priorities satisfied, we expect to have significant remaining cash flow available as we continue to balance external growth opportunities against our commitment to our BB Ba2 rating. Having a higher leverage ratio at points during 2023 likely raises the bar on business development as it competes for capital. But even without discretionary debt repayment, which we've done twice as a stand-alone company, we can still get deals done and stay within the parameters of our rating much as we have been doing since the spin-off.
Now turning to 2023 guidance on Slide 16, where we highlight the items driving our 2023 revenue guidance range of $6.15 billion to $6.45 billion. Beginning with LOE, we expect an approximate $50 million to $75 million impact for full year 2023, which reflects the continued impact of generic competition for NuvaRing. This also includes an impact from Atozet, which will go LOE in Japan in 2023 as well as a provision for DULERA where we expect a generic entrant sometime in late 2023 after not seeing one in 2022 or 2021. We expect impact from VBP to be in the range of $125 million to $175 million in 2023, driven mostly by the inclusion of EZETROL in this latest round. We expect company -- sorry, we expect approximately $75 million to $125 million of price erosion in 2023.
On a total company basis, we've been able to stem pricing pressure a little better than we thought at the start of last year. Over the longer term, we would expect pricing erosion to be in the range of 200 basis points to 300 basis points of headwind, and that is mostly related to mandatory pricing decreases in certain markets and smaller LOE impacts but also due to product mix. So for example, as biosimilars becomes a bigger business within Organon, that will put more pressure on price. And for volume, we expect growth of approximately $500 million to $600 million for the full year in line with what we saw in 2022. The majority of the volume increase is expected to come from our multiple growth pillars, Nexplanon, Biosimilars, fertility, China retail and to a smaller degree, recent business development activity, including Jada. Given where FX spot rates are trending, we would expect a more modest impact from foreign exchange translation in 2023 compared with 2022. We're estimating an approximate $50 million to $100 million impact from FX for the full year which would represent about 1 percentage point headwind. That means that our guidance range implies constant currency revenue growth of approximately 3.5% at the midpoint.
Moving to the other components of guidance on Slide 17. We expect adjusted gross margin to be in the low to mid-60% range, which is modestly lower than where we finished 2022. As I've talked about previously, much of the inflationary impacts from 2022 were held in inventory and, therefore, have a greater impact to our cost of goods sold this year in 2023. On operating expenses, our ranges for SG&A and R&D as a percentage of sales are in line with what we guided to and delivered in 2022 and reflect continued investment in the business as we position it for future growth. Our estimate for R&D expense includes line of sight to about $40 million of IP R&D expense that's tied to the $8 million investment we made in Clarion Medical in January plus an estimate for a milestone achievement for ebopiprant in 2023. Any upfront payments related to future business development would be incremental, and we would call that out in our announcement of any such transactions. Those opex assumptions would bridge you to an adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 31% to 33% for 2023.
For below-the-line items, given the increasing interest rate environment, we have increased our estimate of interest expense for 2023 to approximately $510 million. The knock-on effect of higher interest expense also means that we had a cap with regard to interest expense deductibility for tax purposes. For 2022, we actually finished on the low end of our tax expense guidance range. So for 2023, our non-GAAP effective tax rate range reflects a normalization of expectations for tax expense plus incremental expense for limitation of interest expense deductibility.
Wrapping up the financial discussion, 2022 was a very solid year for the company. In addition to all the operating accomplishments Kevin mentioned, as we advance Organon's mission in Women's Health, on the financial front, we delivered constant currency revenue growth of 4%, which is well aligned with the mid-single-digit expectation we had for the year. We deployed over $200 million of capital across four promising transactions to drive future revenue growth. We proactively retired $100 million of debt, and we returned $290 million in cash dividends to shareholders. We're looking forward to 2023 where we expect to deliver continued growth and strong capital performance based on the earnings guidance we're providing today. With that, we'll now turn the call over to Q&A.