CEO COMMENT

Accelerating innovations to elevate cancer care

We managed to increase orders, gaining market shares and grow the installed base in a pandemic affected market, giving more cancer patients access to radiotherapy. The successful execution of our new strategy will lead us towards a world where everyone has access to the best cancer care.

Supporting our customers during an unprecedented year

This year was unprecedented in many ways. The effects of the pandemic continued to cause uncertainty and many challenges. We focused on supporting our customers to keep cancer treatments up and running. Despite endless obstacles, clinicians all over the world were determined to maintain radiation therapy treatments and our task was to ensure that we did everything we possibly could to help them. Thanks to tremendous efforts by our customers and by our employees truly heroic achievements were accomplished. It has been a privilege to take part in all those stories of dedication throughout the year. I am especially proud that both our customer and employee satisfaction rates increased substantially across all areas.

Elekta demonstrated resilience and acceleration this year. We managed to grow our orders by six percent, and we gained market share. The acceleration of orders in the last quarter shows the suppressed need for cancer care equipment post the pandemic. Our revenue grew by one percent, low by historical comparison, but explained by difficulties accessing hospitals to install systems during the pandemic. Our strong margins were supported by lower expenses and cash flows were healthy throughout the year. I am especially pleased that we grew our installed base by five percent, giving more cancer patients access to radiation therapy treatments around the world.

“Our mission at Elekta is to not just provide technology; we provide hope for everyone dealing with cancer”

Accelerating innovation with customer utilization in mind

During the first part of the year, we focused on resilience initiatives and digitalization of our processes, enabling acceleration for innovation projects in the second half of the year. Elekta’s priority is to be world class in precision radiation medicine, but we have always believed in taking an open and proactive approach to building strong partnerships in the cancer care ecosystem. We use our precision radiation expertise to work hand in hand with clinicians and our partners to continuously develop innovative, outcome-driven and cost-efficient solutions that provide lasting clinical difference. And we can be fast and agile in turning needs into new innovations.

During the year, we have launched several new solutions that have the potential to improve patient outcomes and make workflows more effective. Our new linac, Harmony, introduced in September, recently treated its first patient. Harmony has the potential to be a valuable asset in mature market cancer centers, and at the same time serve as the key in bridging the gap in access to radiation therapy in emerging markets. On the software side, we released MOSAIQ 3 our latest version of oncology informatics and Monaco 6 in treatment planning as well as the latest treatment optimizer for the Leksell Gamma Knife, Lightning. We leveraged our acquisitions in the tumor planning tool, ProKnow, and patient- reported data application, Kaiku, with very promising results. Our brachy business launched Elekta Studio, which can improve treatment outcome significantly for a therapy essential to cancer care in underserved markets.

We also drove the paradigm shift towards MR-Linac with Elekta Unity, which moved into the second phase of commercialization in the beginning of the year. When we closed the year, we celebrated the 100th Unity order and Unity has now treated more than 2,500 patients for over 40 indications with outstanding clinical feedback. The MOMENTUM study is currently generating the clinical data that will be the basis for the ongoing and future reimbursement processes.

After the fiscal year, we strengthened our existing strategic partnership with Philips to include both R&D and distribution collaboration agreements. This will unlock opportunities pro- viding better patient outcomes, easier selection by clinicians of the optimal treatment strategy, and more efficient and effective therapy delivery.

Our strategy – ACCESS 2025 – delivered in a sustainable way

Moving forward, we see two main growth drivers in our market: a steadily increasing cancer incidence, and increased demand for better healthcare in both mature and emerging markets. With a successful execution of our recently launched strategy, ACCESS 2025, we want to do our part to move towards a world where everyone has access to the best cancer care. We set the focus on closing the access gap, elevating cancer care and increasing the patients’ participation in their own care. Our target is to increase access to radiation therapy for more than 300 million people globally, and to elevate cancer care through innovation making it more effective and efficient by doubling the clinical usage of short course treatments (hypofractionation) and quadrupling the usage of adaptive treatment. The patients’ active participation in their own cancer care journey is essential for improved outcomes and quality of life and we want to increase that from less than 1 percent to 20 percent of the patients. Our mission at Elekta is to not just provide technology; we provide hope for everyone dealing with cancer.

Our ACCESS 2025 must be delivered in a sustainable way. Providing cancer care to low- and middle-income countries is our most important contribution in building a more sustain- able world. But we are also leveling up our ambition on the environmental area, our social responsibility and governance, committed to doing our part in a world that needs to change. Since we signed the UN Global Compact in 2017, we have continued to push the agenda forward and now we have also committed to set science-based targets in accordance with the Paris agreement.

Towards a world where everyone has access

As we end this year and look towards accelerating innovation in radiation therapy, I look back at a year that everyone in Elekta should be proud of. I would like to extend my gratitude to all customers, partners and Elekta employees who through- out this year have done their utmost to support the journey towards a world where everyone has access to the best cancer care.

Gustaf Salford,

President and CEO