“As noted last quarter, we anticipate fairly consistent operational sales growth throughout the year with a higher fourth quarter due to the benefit from the 53rd week referenced earlier.”

In context

“results reflect heavier investment is planned to occur in the first half of the year. As a reminder, our pretax operating margin guidance takes into account the costs from the 53rd week of operations and the announced voluntary agreement with the U.S. government to improve access to medicines and lower cost to U.S. patients. We are maintaining our guidance for net interest expense, net other income and the effective tax rate for the full year. Turning to adjusted operational earnings per share. We are increasing our guidance by $0.02 to a range of $11.30 to $11.50, representing 5.7% growth at the midpoint. As such, we now expect reported adjusted earnings per share of $11.55 at the midpoint or a growth of 7.1%. I'll now shift to some qualitative considerations on phasing for your models. As noted last quarter, we anticipate fairly consistent operational sales growth throughout the year with a higher fourth quarter due to the benefit from the 53rd week referenced earlier. In Innovative Medicine, the depth and strength of our portfolio will continue to drive accelerating growth this year. We expect contributions from our newly launched products across oncology, immunology and neuroscience to increase throughout the year. As Joaquin mentioned, we are excited by the launch of ICOTYDE as well as that of INLEXZO, our innovative new therapy for certain types of bladder cancer, which had sales slightly above $30 million in the quarter. On April 1, we received a permanent J-code for INLEXZO reimbursement, which will enable broader patient access and serve as an important catalyst for growth. In neuroscience, CAPLYTA continued to build momentum following its FDA approval in adjunctive major depressive disorder with new patient starts and total continuing patient gr”