About Gael Touya
Gael Touya, President of Aptar Pharma at Aptargroup, has been discussing the company's performance and market conditions in recent interviews. Touya stated that the company's numbers reflect inventory adjustments following the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that while consumer demand remains, growth rates in fragrance and other segments have slowed from pandemic-era highs. He described tariffs as "neutral" for AptarGroup, citing the company's philosophy of serving regions from within the region)Skip. Touya also noted that the Chinese market has not seen the vigorous rebound some expected, but that Chinese brands are supplying the market and Asia remains a positive region for the company.
Touya highlighted strong demand in the pharmaceutical sector, particularly for nasal sprays, inhalers, and sinus rinses, and said the company has invested over $180 million in capacity for biologic drugs including GLP-1 drugs. He identified weakness in the U.S. food and personal care home care segments, attributing it to changing consumer patterns and retailers working down COVID inventories. Touya noted that labor force issues have abated)Skip, and that the company's business is 75% outside the U.S., with travel retail driving growth in beauty and high-end fragrances. He described China as an important market and said the company is not in geopolitically sensitive areas.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Gael Touya's recent appearances.
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Transcript (17 segments)
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Kelly0:01
Starting to approach their 2021 highs, by the way. Steven, it's great to have you back. Welcome.
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Gael Touya0:04
Thanks for having me back, Kelly. Great to be here.
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Kelly0:07
Do you guys make some of the packaging for injectable diabetes and weight loss drugs?
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Gael Touya0:13
Well, we can't talk about any specific customers, but what I can tell you is indeed we supply elasto-merric components for three of the GLP-1 drugs that are on the market. And clearly consumers are very excited about it, patients and our customers are very excited about it, securing future supply, investing. We ourselves invest more than 180 million in our own capacity for biologic drugs including GLP-1 drugs.
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Kelly0:41
You guys, I think about your business the last couple years and you had to go quickly, make tons of hand sanitizer, okay, now pull back on that, okay, now go quickly make tons of supplies for the GLP drugs. How does your business respond to all of this?
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Gael Touya0:56
We've really been around for almost 80 years, public for 30 years. So we really are — if you want the Intel inside, all your viewers have product at home from spray-on sunscreen to upside-down ketchup to high-end fragrances and also unfortunately Narcan. It's all about delivering medicine, delivering consumer products to the consumer in the way that makes brands more enjoyable and drugs more available.
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Kelly1:26
Yeah. The upside-down ketchup might be the single greatest innovation. Makes my family life a little easier. But put that in context for us. Huge demand, for instance, in this weight loss category. Where else are things softer now? Because we know consumer goods and durable goods more — well, not that they're durable goods but that this is an area of softness lately.
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Gael Touya1:44
Yeah. Actually, overall demand for our products is very strong. The pharma business, whether it's nasal sprays for allergies or inhalers or sinus rinses. So anything the consumer has learned during the pandemic about keeping the sinus passages clear has really changed consumer behavior. Our beauty business actually very strong because of pickup of travel retail. The one area where we see weakness is in the U.S. food space and personal care, home care. Partially that's because patterns have changed out of the pandemic and part of it is our customers and retailers still working down their tremendous COVID inventories.
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Kelly2:29
That's interesting. So in personal care and home sort of things in particular — and that echoes what we've heard from other companies in that business. You think you have another year or so to normalize things there?
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Gael Touya2:41
We see food starting to normalize. We believe personal care, home care probably will run that course by the end of the year, early next year. Thankfully, I don't say it as often, our business is 75% outside of the U.S. And travel retail really, especially between the U.S. and Europe, has boomed and driving our beauty business, high-end fragrances, makeup, skin care. And of course pharma is global. And the U.S. patients and U.S. consumers need the pharma products whether the economy's doing well or not.
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Kelly3:17
That's fascinating. You guys really do have a — and it's not often you say it's a good thing we're 75% outside of the U.S. What about China? Any exposure or secondhand exposure that could tell us what's going on with trends there?
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Gael Touya3:31
No, China is an important market for us. For some of our segments like beauty, it's actually the largest beauty market in the world.
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Gael Touya3:38
And a lot of the sales that we report in Europe are really going through global beauty brands like L'Oreal or LVMH who then sell their products on to China. Clearly their recovery is more muted than people had hoped and expected. But even lower growth on a large base makes a big difference. And we have just started up one of our flagship investments in Suzhou, China and we continue to see China as an open market and thankfully we are not in any geopolitically sensitive areas. We're seen as benefiting the Chinese patients and consumers.
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Kelly4:21
Yeah, so far makeup is not on the list yet of highly sensitive industries. Before I let you go, can you talk just briefly about the labor force? I have to imagine between some of the slowdowns you've cited and everything else that you're not seeing the same staffing challenges you once had, but is there any sign of wages reversing lower or anything like that?
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Gael Touya4:41
No. But clearly the issues we talked about last night have abated. We saw more people joining the labor force. And those plants, particularly in the Midwest, are exactly the ones producing the things that are weaker. Personal care, home care. This is no longer an issue. And thankfully in the...
