Call Start: 09:00 January 1, 0000 9:40 AM ET
AptarGroup, Inc. (NYSE:ATR)
Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call
April 26, 2024 09:00 ET
Company Participants
Mary Skafidas - Investor Relations
Stephan Tanda - President & Chief Executive Officer
Bob Kuhn - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
George Staphos - Bank of America
Ghansham Panjabi - Baird
Daniel Rizzo - Jefferies
Matt Larew - William Blair
Gabe Hajde - Wells Fargo
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Aptar's 2024 First Quarter Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Introducing today's conference call is Ms. Mary Skafidas, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Communities. Please go ahead.
Mary Skafidas
Thank you. Hello, everyone and thanks for being with us today. Joining me on today's call are Stephan Tanda, President and CEO; and Bob Kuhn, Executive Vice President and CFO. Our press release and accompanying slide deck have been posted on our website under the Investor Relations page.
During this call, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. These measures are reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure and the reconciliations are set forth in the press release. Please refer to the press release disseminated yesterday for reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures discussed during this earnings call. As always, we will also post a replay of this call on our website.
And now, I would like to turn the conference call over to Stephan.
Stephan Tanda
Thank you, Mary and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us on the call today. I will begin my remarks by highlighting our first quarter results. Later in the call, Bob Kuhn, our CFO, will provide additional details on key drivers for the quarter.
Starting on Slide 3. For the first quarter, I'm pleased to report that after achieved core sales growth of 5% and delivered adjusted EPS of $1.26, a more than 30% increase over the prior year quarter. Strong demand for our Pharma segment's proprietary drug delivery systems and improved performance for the injectables unit as well as the recovery in North American consumer end markets contributed positively to our quarterly results. Our Pharma segment continued to see robust sales of our proprietary drug delivery systems with high single-digit core sales growth in the quarter following more than 30% core growth in the first quarter of 2023.
Demand was broad-based with growth in every region and across several end market categories from emergency medicines through allergy treatments and central nervous system therapeutics. As a reminder, our proprietary portfolio of drug delivery systems is expected to grow within our 7% to 11% long-term core sales range target also this year after strong [indiscernible] core sales growth in 2023. The injectables unit saw a marked improvement over the prior year quarter as the ERP system implementation headwind from the first quarter of 2023 did not repeat and demand for elastomeric components for the biologics market continue to grow nicely.