Operator

Welcome to Vitrolife Q1 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]

Now I will hand the conference over to CEO, Bronwyn Brophy; and CFO, Par Ihrskog. Please go ahead.

Bronwyn Brophy
CEO & President

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Vitrolife Group Q1 2026 Earnings Call. Thank you for dialing in. I am joined by Par Ihrskog, the CFO of the Vitrolife Group. And I'd like to start this morning and today's presentation by providing you with an update on the latest dynamics that we are seeing in the reproductive health market. I've broken this down into 3 key areas. Markets or regions, customers and competitors. So let's start with the markets.

What we're seeing is European IVF cycles are remaining stable. We see cycle growth rates starting to increase in North America after a slow start to the year. And what I would point out is we're starting to see an increased seasonality there, whereby January is a particularly slow month and the growth tends to accelerate as the calendar year progresses.

Middle East IVF cycle activity is significantly down as one would reasonably expect given the geopolitical situation. In APAC, the markets are performing stronger than expected, but I would like to point out that Q1 2025 was exceptionally low. And then the other dynamic that we are seeing is an increase in regulation of genetic testing. We welcome this