• Net sales amounted to SEK 202.0 million (182.8), an increase of 10% (excluding foreign exchange effects, 21%). Product sales, net sales excluding royalty revenues, amounted to SEK 196.8 million (177.0), an increase of 11% (excluding foreign exchange effects, 22%).
• Net sales in the Paediatrics segment reached SEK 161.6 million (142.5), an increase of 13%. Product sales within Paediatrics amounted to SEK 160.0 million (139.3), an increase of 15%.
• Net sales in the Adult Health segment amounted to SEK 38.7 million (40.2), a decrease of 4%. Product sales within Adult Health amounted to SEK 36.2 million (37.5), a decrease of 4%. 
• Operating expenses amounted to SEK 81.0 million (77.4), an increase of 5%. Operating expenses included costs for evaluation of acquisition candidates of SEK 2.5 million and costs for restructuring of SEK 7.5 million. Excluding these costs, operating expenses amounted to SEK 71.0 million, a decrease of 9%. 
• Operating profit increased by 16% to SEK 64.2 million (55.6), which corresponds to an operating margin of 32% (30%).
• Profit after tax was SEK 50.4 million (41.7), an increase of 21%. 
• Earnings per share amounted to SEK 2.50 (2.39). No dilutive effects arose.
• Cash flow amounted to SEK 17.2 million (67.4) and cash and cash equivalents at 31 March 2021 amounted to SEK 1,486.8 million (284.1 at 31 March 2020). 

• On 27 January, BioGaia announced that the products Osfortis and Prodentis have been launched in Sweden and that BioGaia's entire Adult Health portfolio is now available in the domestic market. 
• On 3 February, BioGaia announced that the Board of Directors of BioGaia has chosen to revise the dividend policy so that 50% (previously 40%) of profit after tax in the Parent Company will be distributed to shareholders.  
• On 12 February, BioGaia announced that the subsidiary MetaboGen has received approval from the Ethics Committee to start a new clinical study to include people with prediabetes.
• On 17 March, BioGaia announced that a separate entity, BioGaia Invest, has been established. The focus for BioGaia Invest will be to invest in small companies that promote BioGaia's growth. A total of SEK 150 million has been allocated to enable investments of between SEK 5 and 15 million. 

• On 8 April, BioGaia announced that the company has signed an agreement with Minapharm Pharmaceuticals for exclusive rights to sell BioGaia Protectis drops in Egypt.
• On 13 April, BioGaia announced that a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in children showed that a supplement of two L. reuteri strains significantly reduced fever and pain in children with upper respiratory tract infections.

CEO's comment

As expected, the pandemic continued to hold the world in its grip in Q1 and will probably continue to do so until a large proportion of the global population has been vaccinated. This situation continues to prevent us from working in the way we and our partners are used to. The increased focus on online sales adopted earlier has now even greater significance and benefits BioGaia, above all in the USA and China. We are therefore giving high priority to increasing our online distribution in several markets and expect that this will further strengthen our sales development even when we can return to more "normal" times.

Following the two first, very strong quarters of 2020, sales decreased in the second half of the year, particularly in some of our more mature markets. It is difficult to predict when the return to more favourable conditions can be expected and it is therefore satisfactory to be able to deliver a sales increase of 10% (an organic growth of 21%) compared to the first quarter of last year. We therefore see a good increase in sales despite the fact that we have lower sales in two large and traditionally strong markets, Finland and Italy. We remain cautious, however, in our assessment of sales growth until the global situation has normalised.

For more information and the entire CEO comment, see attached interim management statement.

Teleconference:

Investors, analysts and the media are invited to take part in a teleconference on the interim management statement to be held today 6 May 2021 at 09:30 CET with CEO Isabelle Ducellier and CFO Alexander Kotsinas. To participate in the teleconference, please see Financialhearings.com (https://financialhearings.com/event/13236) for telephone numbers. The teleconference can also be followed here (https://tv.streamfabriken.com/biogaia-q1-2020).  

This information is information that BioGaia AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the CEO, on 06-05-2021 08:00 CET.