“Our commitment to delevering our capital structure to a gross leverage target of 3.25x by the end of 2025 remains a key priority.”

In context

“s. And as a result, we recorded approximately $2.9 billion in noncash intangible asset impairments related to several medicines in development as well as several in-line products. These decisions reinforce our focus on future growth as well as innovation. Now let me quickly touch upon our capital allocation strategy, which is designed to enhance long-term shareholder value. Our strategy consists of maintaining and growing our dividend over time, reinvesting in our business at an appropriate level of financial return, and finally making value-enhancing share repurchases after delevering our balance sheet. In 2024, we returned $9.5 billion to shareholders via our quarterly dividend, invested $10.8 billion in internal R&D, and as expected, completed business development activity was minimal. Our commitment to delevering our capital structure to a gross leverage target of 3.25x by the end of 2025 remains a key priority. In support of that goal, in 2024, we delevered by approximately $7.8 billion, paying down approximately $2.3 billion in maturing debt and approximately $5.5 billion in commercial paper. And in January of '25, we monetized another tranche of our Haleon shares, which for reporting purposes is a Q1 '25 event. We received approximately $3 billion in net cash proceeds, and now our ownership in Haleon was reduced from approximately 15% to approximately 7%. We intend to monetize our remaining Haleon investment in a prudent fashion during 2025. Overall, in Q4, we generated robust operating cash flows which combined with the most recent Haleon net sales proceeds of approximately $3 billion, resulted in significant free cash flow generation as we enter 2025. Our objective remains to delever and ret”