ALK strategy 2028

Allergy+ — our approach to helping more people with allergy

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We are the pioneers of allergy solutions

Allergy is the most common chronic disease globally and it has profound impact on people’s lives. More than 500 million people worldwide live with respiratory allergies, more than 200 million people have some sort of food allergy, and more than 100 million children are living with allergic rhinitis. These numbers are only expected to increase, and as a result, the need for allergy solutions is ever-growing.

For more than a 100 years, ALK has been at the forefront of long-term allergy treatment. Building on our strong heritage, we are now stepping into the next 100 years with a mission to help even more people, with more solutions, more efficiently. We call it Allergy+.

Allergy+ — ALK’s corporate strategy towards 2028

With this new direction for the future, we are aiming for more. More specifically, we are aspiring to help 5 million people living with allergy in 2030 – that is more than double the number we helped in 2023.

Allergy+ is shaped by our mission to help people living with allergy, and they are therefore at the very centre of our four strategic pillars: Focus, Innovate, Optimise and Cultivate. Our strategy aims to further strengthen ALK’s leadership in long-term allergy treatment, establishing a leading position in food allergy and anaphylaxis, as well as pursuing new innovations to address adjacent allergic conditions with high unmet needs. It builds on our promise of providing life-changing solutions to the millions of people with allergy.

CEO Peter Halling says: “We want to sustain ALK’s growth for many years to come and leverage our insights and business platforms to help more people with allergies to a better life. The new strategy prioritises high-potential growth levers – markets, projects and innovations - with the largest potential to generate strong returns and the greatest impact for patients and prescribers. We will allocate resources carefully, and we will simplify and reduce complexity across our business to effectively scale up ALK for future growth in revenue and earnings.”

Focus

We will grow by focusing on new patient groups and high-impact markets

The first pillar of our corporate strategy is ‘Focus’. It describes how ALK will prioritise and focus our commercial activities as we work to strengthen our global position in respiratory allergy, primarily through extending the reach of our current tablet portfolio.

We will focus on helping new patient groups, including children living with allergy. Key initiatives include:

Targeted expansion to new patient groups
Investments in high-impact markets
Efforts to increase prescription depth and breadth among healthcare professionals
Digital mobilisation of eligible patients and prescribers

A significant growth contribution is expected to come from completing ALK’s respiratory tablet portfolio and by leveraging the expected full paediatric coverage. Across markets, ALK will also explore collaborations with partners to speed up commercial adoption.

Innovate

We will innovate to create a balanced pipeline

The second pillar of our corporate strategy is ‘Innovate’. To help more people with allergy, we will innovate and expand our R&D pipeline in a balanced way, maximising the value of our existing core products while diversifying our portfolio into food allergy, anaphylaxis and other adjacent, allergic diseases. Key initiatives include:

Strengthening the evidence supporting our core products in new patient groups, such as children and geographies
Building a portfolio of treatment in food allergy that addresses the unmet medical need among the ~200 million people worldwide affected, particularly among children
Continuing our prioritisation of treatment of acute life-threatening allergic reactions (anaphylaxis). The area is underserved - for instance, in the USA, where around 20 million people are at risk of suffering anaphylactic shocks, but only around 3 million carry an adrenaline autoinjector
Proceeding innovation efforts targeting selected adjacent disease areas with strong scientific and commercial links to the existing product portfolio and channels, building on our scientific leadership and core R&D capabilities within molecular and clinical allergology and immunology

Overall, our focus will be on expanding our leadership into core areas, while exploring new solution areas that will drive our growth.

Optimise

We will optimise to create the right foundation for scaling

The third pillar of our corporate strategy is ‘Optimise’. To reduce complexity and maintain competitiveness, ALK will further optimise our operations and thereby create a robust foundation for future growth. We will simplify in order to scale and improve efficiency, while ensuring quality. Key initiatives include:

Continuous improvements of our manufacturing model while maintaining high quality excellence
Expansion of our production capacity for tablets
Optimising the cost base, reducing structural complexities across the value chain, and investing in infrastructure such as digital solutions and AI

On the longer term, ALK will also explore options to optimise the global manufacturing footprint and further prune the product portfolio.

Cultivate

We will cultivate our unique capabilities to stay ahead and to grow sustainably

The fourth and final pillar of our corporate strategy is ‘Cultivate’. The activities and targets in this strategy are underpinned by ALK’s commitment to cultivate the capabilities of our people and organisation to foster a strong performance culture through high engagement, and to conduct business sustainably by improving access to allergy care and reducing the environmental footprint. Key initiatives include:

Investing in further development and upskilling of our employees to ensure that our organisation retains the right capabilities and an agile culture of continuous learning and growth
Conducting business ethically and responsibly while fostering a safe, diverse and inclusive work environment
Improving access to allergy care by expanding our reach among people with allergies through training of healthcare professionals and allergy awareness initiatives

We will also continue our focus to reach our science-based CO2 targets in line with the Paris Agreement. This includes reducing CO2 emissions from our own operations (scope 1 and 2) by 42% in 2030 and ensuring that 80% of emissions from our suppliers will come from suppliers that have science-based targets in place by 2028. Read more about our sustainability goals here.

Financial ambitions

We will continuously measure our progress

The Allergy+ strategy includes measurable financial ambitions, which will allow us to track our progress.

Our corporate strategy targets:

Average revenue growth of minimum 10% in local currencies (5-year CAGR) until 2028.
An EBIT margin of ~25% in 2025 after which we will aim for annual profitability improvements in line with revenue growth implying a projected EBIT margin of around 25% until 2028.

Reaching these financial targets, will enable our company to invest in strategic growth initiatives to bolster our long-term growth and profitability trajectory. We aspire to self-fund our development, implying that underlying margin improvements above ~25% will be reinvested in commercial activities, R&D, business development or infrastructure. This does not rule out that margins can be higher or lower in the strategy period subject to market conditions and the timing of strategic initiatives.

ALK will maintain an efficient capital structure with a financial gearing of maximum 2 x NIBD/EBITDA. Our organisation will be disciplined about capital allocation to ensure flexibility to deliver on our growth ambitions while also generating attractive shareholder returns.