In the first quarter, we continued to invest against our highest priorities, including investing $92 million of CapEx back into the business to drive organic growth. We made our third annual payment on our national opioid settlement obligation. We did not draw on our credit facilities and received a positive change to the outlook on our investment-grade rating from Fitch as well as from S&P in Q2. We returned over $630 million to shareholders through payment of our quarterly dividend and the launch of a new $500 million accelerated share repurchase program, which completed in October. Now for our updated fiscal 2024 guidance, on Slide 8. Today, we are raising our fiscal 2024 EPS guidance to a range of $6.75 to $7, the midpoint of which is 19% above our fiscal 2023 EPS result.
This $0.25 increase to our EPS range primarily reflects an improvement to our Pharma outlook as well as some improvement below the line. We are raising our Pharma segment profit guide to 7% to 9% growth for the year and are pleased with the momentum in the business. Our updated guidance reflects the strong first quarter performance, higher than originally assumed contributions from COVID-19 vaccine distribution, which continued into October; the ongoing strength of our business, consistent with a 4% to 6% growth trajectory for the segment on a normalized basis. Finally, as a reminder, on the Pharma quarterly cadence, we continue to assume Q3 branded inflation will not repeat at fiscal 2023 levels. In Medical, we are reiterating our outlook of $400 million of segment profit for the year.
Recall, that we previously guided that Medical segment profit would be significantly back-half weighted. That assumption remains unchanged. The first half-second half cadence continues to be driven by progress on Cardinal Health brand volume growth, the cumulative impact of inflation mitigation and some business-specific seasonality. While we are encouraged that the business slightly overperformed relative to our expectation in Q1, due to execution against our plans and our cost management efforts, our expectation for Q2 segment profit is unchanged from our original guidance, which reflected some seasonality in Q2-specific expenses like health and wellness. Altogether, Q2 segment profit should be slightly higher than Q1, which benefited from overdelivery.
We expect continued progress from our Medical Improvement Plan initiatives over the course of the year. Below the line, interest and other is reduced to a range of $100 million to $120 million, while we are maintaining an effective tax rate in the range of 23% to 25%. We do expect the tax favorability we saw in the first quarter to be offset in Q2. We are also lowering our shares outlook to approximately $249 million, which reflects the already completed $500 million of our baseline share repurchase. I want to reiterate that, as we shared at Investor Day, neither our fiscal 2024 guidance nor our long-term targets reflect M&A, which is difficult to predict in timing or magnitude, or additional opportunistic deployments of capital to share repurchases beyond our baseline repurchase.
We will continue to evaluate both opportunistically to drive long-term value. So, an overall successful first quarter. The Cardinal team is a lot to be proud of with respect to our accomplishments. We are confident in the plans we have in place, and we are excited for our team to realize the significant value creation opportunities still in front of us. With that, I will turn it back over to Jason.
Jason Hollar: Thanks, Aaron Now for a few updates regarding our recent progress on our three key strategic priorities, beginning with priority number one and building upon the resiliency of the Pharma segment. The key enabler to the pharma business is outstanding performance over a number of quarters now, has been the team’s consistent prioritization of what matters most, operational execution in the core. We’re leveraging our scale, efficiency and breadth of essential products and service capabilities to deliver for our customers and their patients. Within the core, our generics program remains a critical component. Our performance is anchored by Red Oak Sourcing, which continues to do a fantastic job fulfilling its dual mandate, managing both cost and supply to help maximize service delivery for customers.
