“long-term improvements in gross margin will remain a key focus for the company over the next few years.”

In context

“oach is working. We continue to focus on key products and geographies. We've refined how we allocate our commercial field resources globally. And we're further optimizing our marketing resources into key priority areas. We saw strong contributions across our product portfolio, primarily driven by the Vyndaqel family, Padcev, Eliquis and Nurtec, partially offset by declines in ABRYSVO and XELJANZ. Adjusted gross margin in the fourth quarter was approximately 68%, primarily the result of a net unfavorable mix related to our COVID-19 products, primarily due to the Comirnaty profit split with BioNTech and applicable royalty expenses. This was partially offset by our ongoing focus on cost management across our manufacturing network, as I previously mentioned. And as we previously communicated, long-term improvements in gross margin will remain a key focus for the company over the next few years. We expect to begin to achieve initial savings from Phase 1 of our manufacturing optimization program in the latter part of 2025 and continue to expect approximately $1.5 billion in savings from this first phase by the end of 2027. We continue to evaluate other strategies to improve our network structure and as well as our product portfolio. And we plan to share more information on those components of the program once it becomes available. Total adjusted operating expenses are essentially flat operationally at $7.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024. And I will note that this amount includes spending acquired via our Seagen transaction. Looking at the components specifically, adjusted SI&A expenses decreased 4% operationally, driven primarily by a decrease in marketing and promotional s”