Good day. Welcome to the bioMérieux First-Quarter 2021 Business Review. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Franck Admant. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Kim. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us to review bioMérieux performance for this first quarter of 2021. As usual, I am online with Alexandre Mérieux, Chairman and CEO, as well as Guillaume Bouhours, the CFO. Before I link the call over to Alexandre for preliminary remarks, please note that this conference call will include forward-looking statements. I would like to remind you of the usual disclaimer saying that forward-looking statements are based entirely and partially on assessments or judgments that may change or be modified due to uncertainties and risk related to the company's environment, notably those described in the 2020 registration document, including but not limited to economic conditions, financial exposure to currency exchange fluctuations, change in government policies or regulations, third-party reimbursement policies, timing on the onset, length, and severity of the flu season, and competition.
Accordingly, we cannot give any assurance as to whether we will achieve these objectives. I also remind you that today's call is being recorded and that the replay will be available on our website. I now hand the call over to Alexandre Mérieux, and then we will open the call to discussion and questions.
Thank you, Franck, and good day to everyone. Thank you for joining this call. Let's start with the review of the activity for the first quarter before we take your questions. So in Q1, we recorded sales of EUR 845 million, which represent an organic growth of 16.5% compared to last year. The reported growth reached almost 10%, and this was mainly due to currency fluctuations year-over-year. This growth has been driven by our molecular BioFire solutions, growing at 19%, despite the slowdown in respiratory demand in the U.S. by the end of the quarter. Driven also by solid performances, both in immunoassays, displaying +28%. Also industrial application at +14%, whereas microbiology came back to growth at a rate of 3%.
I would also like to highlight the good performance across all regions, and particularly in Asia Pacific at +27% and Latin America at +25%, while North America and Europe and Middle East grew at solid mid-double-digit rates. Let's dig more into details for each range of product, and we start with the molecular range. On the molecular front, BioFire FilmArray product line enjoyed a strong performance with sales of EUR 295 million booked over the quarter versus EUR 255 million in Q1 2020, implying an organic growth of 19.4%. Respiratory panels still present a significant part of our sales, but the non-respiratory panels enjoyed a sharp increase, such as gastrointestinal at +33%, BCID at +61%, allowing also for us to come back to a more balanced mix with a 65% of sales linked to respiratory panels and 35% linked to non-respiratory panels.
However, the nice improvement of the sanitary situation in the U.S. is driving down hospitalizations and it's also impacted the demand for RP panels, particularly at the end of the quarter. As you know, we are quite exposed to the U.S. market with our sales on RP panel. On the other side, I would say that the sanitary situation is evolving differently in other regions of the world. For example, in Europe, BioFire panel sales delivered a 35% sales growth, mainly driven by RP panel. For example, also we saw strong evolution of the demand in Japan. I would say that the evolution of the pandemic is contrasted and evolutive, bringing some uncertainties on business trends and demand. Today, we are out of back orders for BioFire FilmArray.
We can supply the full range of panels. I would say that the almost 10,000 additional units that were installed over the last 15 months are a strong base to grow the promotion and the adoption of the syndromic approach. Regarding immunoassay, you have seen that immunoassay displayed a very nice growth of plus 28%. This performance was mainly driven by a recovery in most of the regions and also by COVID-related assays such as antibodies IgG and IgM, but also D-Dimer, which is used for COVID patients monitoring testing, and also a strong contribution for immunoassay to the growth of the company. On the VIDAS PCT test in the U.S., we still see price erosion and also volume decrease, which have affected negatively overall our U.S. immunoassay business.
I would say that VIDAS remains a key pillar in bioMérieux strategy, and we feel encouraged by the recent important launches that we could do successfully and on time, such as a NEPHROCHECK for acute kidney injury, latent TB, or [audio distortion] with dengue, keeping us differentiated through a high medical value menu. Moving now to microbiology. Microbiology showed a very decent performance at about a 3% growth, and this growth was fueled by sales in both VITEK and BACT/ALERT ranges.
It was also a nice recovery in APAC and Latin America, while routine activities have still not come back to the pre-pandemic levels. We believe that we are very well positioned to lead the fight against AMR, thanks to our comprehensive portfolio of solutions. Talking now about industry to close this opening remarks. The industry microbiological unit demonstrated a very strong start of the year with a 14% growth versus 2020.
Both food and healthcare businesses have seen their growth driven by equipment sales across the various regions. I would like to conclude this short introduction on our annual perspective. Our strategy, focusing on several applications and well-balanced geographically wide, are bringing solidity and resilience to potential headwinds. As I mentioned it earlier, health situation is evolving in a very contrasted mode. The demand for BioFire respiratory panels is decreasing in the U.S. All in all, we have to monitor things cautiously and with pragmatism, as we have thousands of new units that have been installed over the last 15 months on other panels that have to keep on being promoted. Also, it's worth noting also that the other parts of the business, such as the non-respiratory panels and BioFire, immunoassay, and industry, are displaying a nice performance in Q1.
Overall, the first half sales are now expected to grow at around 10% at constant exchange rates and scope of consolidation. I would say that in a unpredictable environment with contrasted evolution of the pandemic, full-year sales are now expected to grow organically at low to mid single digit rate, and general guidance for contributive operating income is maintained. With this being said, I propose that we leave the floor to the Q&A session.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is disabled to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, press star one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. We can now take our first question from Patrick Wood from Bank of America.
Perfect. Thank you very much. I have essentially two questions, please. The first on the BioFire side of things. The system placements were quite good, but obviously you then had the growth begin to drop off. How should we reconcile the strong system placements with the slightly fading demand that we saw through the quarter? That's question one. Question two on a generally similar topic. Just curious on your thoughts of what, if any, impact you think there could be on the multiplexing world and molecular in general, the Luminex and GenMark Diagnostics takeouts could mean for you guys. Last one, just curious, could you give us a few details on, obviously you're keeping the sort of guidance for EBIT essentially flat. Just curious, what are the actions you're taking in the background to offset some of the slightly softer top line? Thanks.
Thank you. We'll take your first question on the BioFire system placement. It's true that I think we had more than 2,200 system installed and placed in Q1 so far. For us, it's a strong signal when we add that also to the close to 7,000 system we had last year. The placement, it's a worldwide placement. What we saw, I think at the end of the first quarter, is less demand coming on our respiratory panels in the U.S., maybe a bit in advance compared to what we had estimated. For us, the placement is a good signal. As I mentioned, for us, it's a base in the future to keep on growing and promoting the syndromic approach also beyond respiratory. Your question around multiplexing. I won't comment about competition.
I just believe that syndromic is also a very nice medical value proposition, which meets a stronger medical demand. It's here to grow, it's here to stay, also in a post-pandemic world also, where we'll have to face more than one virus. I would say maybe a question on the EBIT. Guillaume, you can take it.
Yes. On EBIT, thank you for the question. Of course. We maintain our target to have an EBIT that is around the level of last year, let's say around EUR 600 million. We believe we have a number of levers to, let's say, somehow offset some of the slightly lower sales targets. First, the current environment prevents, unfortunately, travel in a big way and in some ways, the marketing and the congress promotional costs. We have significant savings that were, let's say, clear last year and that are actually continuing more than we thought this year and will continue. We clearly have some levers also around the variable cost and, let's say, variable compensation as well overall. I can mention that the phantom shares, you remember this subject that we had the last tranche of this phantom share program that actually ended end of March.
We have a few EUR million of savings there compared to what we had forecasted due to the share price slightly lower at the end of March and the end of December. Again, the cost base would be a key subject as well to reach this target. Overall, we maintain our target as mentioned.
Super. Thanks, guys.
We can now take our next question from Maja Pataki of Kepler.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I will start with one on BioFire . In the press release, you stated that you've been able to work down the backorder that you had in BioFire. Would you be able to give us an indication how much this added to revenues to get a feeling for the underlying demand in the market? That would be my first question. The second question relates to microbiology. You state strong instrument sales in the quarter that were helping to return to growth. How shall we think about the quarters going forward since this is a rather lumpy business? Do you think that there is a high demand that needs to be met over the next couple of quarters, or do you think that the reagent sales will start to pull through?
On BioFire pricing, has there been a change in the ASP for BioFire over the last 12 months based on geographic mix or pricing pressure in one specific market? Thank you.
Okay. BioFire pricing, we have not seen changes overall on the ASP. On this, we say that's a worldwide level. Your question on microbiology, I believe we are not yet back to the pre-pandemic level. It's true that we had a good level of sales of our equipment this quarter. Things are progressing. As you know, it's very contrasted, depending on the countries and depending on the regions. What we believe is that today it's about COVID, but we believe that AMR, antibiotic resistance, is and will be a key topic, and we are ready to cope with the activity when it comes back. Your question on backorder. Backorder, in fact, it's more the ability that we have now to better fully serve, I would say, the customers, and also to be able to promote a bit more the non-respiratory panels, such as gastrointestinal, meningitis, and BCID.
I'm not sure we can relate the end of the backorder to extra sales. That's not the point, I believe.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you.
We can now take our next question from Scott Bardo from Berenberg.
Yes, thanks very much for taking my questions. First question on BioFire, please. I appreciate we're in a quite unusual market environment with COVID-19, but I think this is the first time I can recall that the company has negatively revised guidance so early on in the year. I'm assuming that BioFire did not live up to expectation. Can you help us understand what sort of growth trends you saw in month by month in the first quarter, to give us some flavor for how much the business stalled in the month of March? Following on from that, is it now the anticipation that you're in year-over-year declines for BioFire in the second quarter and beyond? I just wonder if you could help explain that a little bit within the context of your half-year and full-year guidance, please, just so we can understand the trends you're witnessing.
Yeah.
Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I have some follow-ups.
No.
After those answers.
Okay, we can swap. Sure. No, your first question, yeah. You're right to notice it's an unstable environment. What we saw linked to BioFire, this is quite linked to the demand in the U.S. What we saw was the first signal came in March, where we got the signal. I think this is linked first to the improvement of the sanitary situation in the U.S. Maybe the fact also that people are also less hospitalized, people are more using single type of test. These are signals that we are monitoring. This is why also we have tried to work on the projections and revise the H1 perspective. It's moving. Market is moving. I would say the decrease we saw in March is linked to respiratory in the U.S.
Scott, you might remember that when we discussed our initial guidance two months ago, some people were surprised about the implied negative in H2. Actually, we were already maybe expecting at some point to have a kind of slowdown, and we discussed that together, I think.
What came in March, and that was a surprise that it came, let's say, earlier and maybe stronger than expected. I would say a slowdown was to come at some point. Again, the intra-quarter was strong in January, February, and as Alexandre said, signals of weakening demand in March in the U.S. On RP, on respiratory.
Indeed, and I appreciate those comments. Is there any sense of magnitude that you can give us? I guess we're all trying to work out now what the new normal is. Are we likely to see, in what was also a very strong prior year, BioFire down, say, 30% or so year-over-year into the next quarter? I'm just trying to understand what your current data in the month of April is highlighting for you.
It's very difficult for us because, again, you understand that this change is pretty recent, and the evolution is going fast because we are talking about the U.S., but we all see other parts of the planet where the situation is going the other way around. We all read today about India, which seemed to be or thought to be out of the pandemic only two months ago, is now at a terrible situation. Again, things are moving fast. It's an incredibly uncertain environment. We took, of course, let's say, the best possible view on what we see as a demand in the last weeks, both on the BioFire RP-U.S. but also the strong positive demand on non-RP, on immuno, on industrial applications, as Alexandre highlighted.
All this is in our guidance for H1, around 10%, the best we could see, even more difficult, of course, to see, but in our, let's say, broad guidance on the full year.
Okay. That's very helpful. Maybe just following on from the first question on profitability. Remarkable job BioFire has done in maintaining high levels of profitability given the volatility in the top line. I go back to some comments that Alexandre made, I think about 12 months ago, which was highlighting that you would expect a resumption of selling and marketing cost, travel costs, conference costs, and so forth. Is it fair to say that these high levels of profit that the company sees today, in some instances, is a little abnormal and would be at lower levels going forward? If you could make any comment there, that would be helpful. The last question, please, Alexandre, you touch upon this.
You note that there's been more demand for the low plex tests, so to say, and also the environment for multiplexing has rapidly consolidated in the last four weeks or so with larger competitors stepping in. Is this in any way making you revise your long-term expectations for what you can do with BioFire? Or has it triggered any sort of strategic review for you to be more exposed to the low plexing market? If you could comment there, please.
For the recent moves, we have seen the field of multiplexing, I would say, a recognition of the value of syndromic and multiplex testing by other key players. That's the way I see it. This company were acquired, so it was competition which was existing before. For us, FilmArray syndromic approach is the way to go, and the goal for us is to keep on, I would say, reinforcing our advance in terms of the new panels and the evolution of the platform. We are confident in the value and the future of the syndromic approach. We know that the molecular goes also beyond the Ct. I think there are needs for molecular or low plex, single plex and multiplex. So far, we are promoting and keep on pushing the syndromic approach.
Again, that was a very important install base, which could be a good base for the future. I believe I missed the first part of your question.
On profitability and spending, sales and marketing spending. Yes, we have said, of course, that we are in an abnormal underspend on travel, on marketing, on promotional spend. Again, as I said a few minutes ago, given the environment, this underspend will continue this year, will continue more than expected, and is a way to, let's say, offset and is one of the levers that will help us to keep our EBIT at the levels we expected. That being said, I understand your question is more beyond the current year. We should expect, of course, at some point, in some way, to spend more on sales and marketing and travel and going to our customers. Of course, this is also a lever for growth, because having the sales force not being able to access customers is also somehow limiting in some parts, the growth.
It's both effects. It's the spend, but also the growth outside.
That's understood. Thank you very much indeed.
Yep.
We can now take our next question from Alex Gibson from Morgan Stanley.
Great, thanks. I have two questions. My first one is just on the guidance for the first half year. It implies a very sharp fall-off in molecular biology. If I just take the run rate of sales for the rest of the businesses, it could imply probably a 20%-25% decline in Q2. Could you confirm that's kind of what you're baking in as a base case situation in your first half guidance? The second question is just around M&A. Others in the diagnostics space have started to be very active here. You have a good balance sheet. Are you going to be ready to deploy that anytime soon? Are you looking at potential bolt-on M&As or strategic acquisitions? If so, what areas of focus would you look at today? Thanks.
Yes. Your question on M&A. Yes, it's true that we are a debt-free company, which gives us room of maneuver. I would say, as usual, we will keep on looking on targeted acquisition, which makes sense for the portfolio. We lack a new addition of technology. These are the things we are
We are, I would say, addressing at the right time with the right target. Those are things we are assessing. Q2, Guillaume, you projected, again.
yes, there will be a fall in molecular again, because the demand on RP-U.S. is going down. You remember that last year we had actually especially very strong end of Q2 in molecular when we launched RP2.1 at the end of May, very strong June, fueled by RP2.1, so the RP with COVID. Certainly, on the trend, I won't confirm the precise figure, but definitely it's the decline on respiratory with still growth again on the non-respiratory. Again, very good trend on non-respiratory in Q1 that we expect to be pursued in the rest of the year.
Yeah. Maybe just a follow-up on that. Is there anything else in the other businesses that would be an incremental impact from Q1 to Q2?
It seems like you've got quite a lot of momentum, so if you do the numbers, it feels like molecular biology is the only business that could really drive that or has to be that negative to get to your guidance. Is there anything that we should consider in Q1 maybe that happened in the other businesses which are maybe less recurring? If so, what is it? How big are they?
We said the only other non-recurring part is always the equipment parts, which as you've seen, we highlight in different parts that we had a very strong Q1 in equipment, which is very good news for the install base and future for microbiology for industrial applications. Obviously the sale itself of equipment is by essence, somehow lumpy. Yeah, it's more difficult to forecast for the coming quarters.
It can happen, but not so sure. That's maybe the only other elements to answer your question is equipment sales. Okay. On the M&A one, just while we're here, do you think anything would be done this year? Do you anticipate to do a deal this year, or is it opportunistic as it comes up? No, it's difficult to predict. We don't control timing on the targets.
Okay, thanks.
Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one now. We can now take our next question from Maja Pataki from Kepler.
Yes, perfect. Thank you very much for taking a follow-up questions. Alexandre, as you can see, we're all trying to get some numbers out of you with regards to the slowdown in March, what you've seen in the U.S. Can you maybe just give us some indication on how much respiratory was down in Q1 in the U.S.? I guess respiratory in the U.S. was accounting last year, this time around, probably for around 75% of the BioFire revenues. That was the majority of BioFire sales. Are we looking at a 30% decline in respiratory or less or more? The second question is just on the tax rate. With the U.S. tax likely to increase going forward, what would that do to your group taxes if the U.S. tax were to increase to 28%?
I don't have this one. You have it for the tax? What could be the implication?
It will indeed impact us because we have a significant base of profits in the U.S., and taxable profits in the U.S. Certainly our about 23% average tax rate will move by several percentage points, probably to 25, 26 if the U.S. tax rate was to move, let's say, as expected. At this stage, I think it's announcement, not yet bills. Yes, it would definitely impact us a few percentage points. On RP-U.S., again, as we said, we have a January and February where we're still strong. Actually, that's what we were saying when we discussed together early March. The decrease came really strongly in March. We are monitoring. I think we are monitoring at this stage.
It's difficult to tell you what will be the decrease in Q2 because it's under monitoring, I would say, at this stage.
Right. Just a quick follow-up. You've mentioned the 10,000 instruments that you've been able to place in the more recent past. What is your internal assumption as a percentage of those instruments that will stay in use going forward? 50% of those 10,000? Given the fact that you have been selling quite a bit to existing customers throughout 2020, and I understand also in Q1 2021, how are you internally thinking about the installed base as a realistic number?
It's very difficult to predict. I think we will have to monitor this maybe in a post-pandemic situation if it happens. Hopefully, it will. Difficult to predict, especially on this one. Then again, we insist on the fact that, yes, RP will be impacted because we hope that we get out of this pandemic situation. The job we have to do this year or maybe early next year is to evaluate the potential we have on respiratory and non-respiratory on these new platforms. I think this is still a work in progress at this stage. Sorry for the lack of visibility.
Thank you.
It's really moving in a contrasted way in different parts of the world.
No, I understand. I was just thinking that probably you should have also kind of a assumption for your budget or knowing your hospitals. I was wondering whether you were just excluding 50% or all those instruments that you've placed to existing customers as a, "Okay, that's not going to be in use," and then only base your budgeting or forecast on new account instruments.
I think that too-
That's okay.
Too many moving parts at this stage.
Good. Thank you.
We can now take our next question from Scott Bardo of Berenberg.
Thanks very much for the follow-ups, and sorry again to focus on BioFire. I know it's been an important growth driver for you guys. I'd just like to understand then, please, with respect to your comments for the other panels outside of respiratory, were there any particular panels that were showing disproportionate growth? Were they all sort of growing the same? Perhaps you can give us, as of Q1, what the current mix is, please, between respiratory and non-respiratory. That would be helpful. Related question, please. You've spent, obviously, a lot of time and high degrees of CapEx in significant manufacturing expansions in Salt Lake City now for BioFire. That looked very prudent a few quarters ago, very sensible. I wonder if there are any concerns now that, in a sense, that the market demand is falling away and that there wouldn't be the requirement for those capacities.
I wonder if you could help me with those two, please.
Okay. CapEx in Salt Lake, we invested for the future. We have decided this investment before the pandemic situation. It is helpful in the current context, but we did it for the future. It's having a long-term view on the potential of Syndromics. Nothing to say there. We also keep on working on the more automation of our production. This is still ongoing work and investment on that part. Sorry, I'm like a golden fish. I forgot the first question.
The first question was on the other panels.
Alexandre highlighted some of the GI and BCID growth. We can say that RP was 2/3 of BioFire in Q1, sorry.
Worldwide.
Worldwide, non-RP was one-third. In terms of growth, it was 38% growth for non-RP and 6% growth, of course, the 6% is inside that contrasted between U.S., non-U.S., and of course, early in the quarter and late in the quarter. 6% overall for respiratory in Q1.
That's very helpful. Thank you. Last follow-up from me, please, just relating to your immunoassay business. I note that you had some nice contribution from serology testing this quarter for COVID. Is this the start of things to come maybe, or is this just a one-off in your mind? Lastly, very pleasing to see you launch the QuantiFERON type or latent tuberculosis test, your own test, of course. Can you give us some sense as to the market response and reception to that test and maybe some indication of magnitude that you're expecting from a revenue perspective?
Early days for TB growth, because it was launched or CE-marked, I believe two weeks ago or a few weeks ago. Early days, it's more, I would say, the early adoption with some customers, but good. We could ensure it's a good test and with a good performance, with a good level of automation. Otherwise, regarding the serology test for COVID, we see it has been helpful in the growth in Q1. It was helpful also in Q4 to grow immunoassay. We'll see. I think it will depend also on the guidelines, which will be given on the use of serology linked to vaccination.
We believe it's a good offer, and we see traction right now on our immunoassay range with SARS-CoV-2 test, but also with the associated tests such as D-dimer or Ferritin, which are also used or tested for patients which are in a difficult situation in the hospital.
Very good. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you.
We can now take our next question from Louise Boyer from Stifel.
Hello. Thanks for taking my question. I have three. If I may, I'd like to go one by one. Firstly, if I'm correct, 7% of the sales are still made in the U.S., talking about BioFire, obviously. Some could assume that the COVID crisis has accelerated some buying decision. I understand that for the end of the year, the visibility is reduced. If we try to look at a more normative year, what can we expect in number of machines sold in the U.S. market and from the rest of the world? Are you expecting to go back to the 2,000 unit per year rhythm or stay somewhere between the 7,000 and 2,000?
Well, it's a bit early to say. There was a sharp increase this year linked to COVID. I believe things will also depend on when, if the flu season comes back, is active or not. It could a bit depend on this. It's difficult to talk about the normative, I would say at this stage. Just to add, you remember that we were self-limiting our own installations in the past few quarters due to our own backorders on reagents. I would say part of the good news now with no backorder is that we will be able to deliver our customers and therefore to basically deliver in terms of instruments and reagents, any potential new customers.
Okay. Thanks for that. My second question is about the quantity of reagents sold per machine. Another way to see it is out of the 9,000 equipment that you sold since the beginning of the crisis, how much were sold, how much were leased, and out of the total, how much were sold or leased to the existing clients?
Yeah, to try to answer that, among the new units in Q1, in the U.S., we sold at a high level, actually 83%, and outside of the U.S., 87%. A very high level, actually, a very high percentage of sold versus placed. Then your question was about the new capacity. For example, on the U.S. part, which is as you know where we monitor maybe thinner on the additional units in the U.S. in Q1, 65% was capacity increase and 35% was with new customers to answer your question on this.
Would you say that those 65% were kind of a norm through this crisis?
Were, sorry, a norm?
Yeah. Were the Q1, two, three, and four of 2020 about the same?
No, really, I think as Alexandre said, there's no norm in this crisis. There's nothing normative. It moves, again, as we just described, from one month to the next, from one country to the next. I think it's difficult to have norm describe a model. Yeah. Okay.
Okay. If I may, last one for me. Looking at Roche acquisition of GenMark, I know they are still more than 10 x smaller than you with their ePlex instrument, are you expecting that kind of consolidation to bring price pressure on BioFire? Have you already seen anything or is it not in the environment right now something that we should fear?
No, we have not seen a specific pressure on price right now. I don't know what they will do. I believe they will have to go the menu and on develops, so that will be in their hands. Syndromics, it's a value player, so it's a medical value system. We will see what happens. At this stage, no specific pressure coming from GenMark or Roche. I'm not sure it has been finalized yet, but wait and see.
To date, can you share with us a quick recap of how many panels are your competitors offering versus what you have and you can offer?
No, I can talk about mine. I'm not so sure about theirs. I don't know. There are two or three. I might say mistake a few things. It's available on the website. I'm sorry. For us, it's five. For our competitors, yes, it's maybe two. Two or three. Most of them, they have two or three. For us, it's five currently. Plus, we announced that we have filed with the FDA the Joint Infection Panel that should be therefore launched hopefully in a few months. Yeah.
Okay, thanks for that. That was very helpful. Thank you.
We can now take our next question from Del Louet from Société Générale .
Hi, good afternoon, everybody. Del speaking here. I'd like to come back on the pattern that we have seen in molecular biology over the quarter. Alexandre, you say we were landing two-third respiratory panel and one-third for non-respiratory panel and the four other panels. How that evolve over January, February, if we say we had a very strong growth over these two first months and then a collapse on the RP by the end of March? Can we get a figure of what was the growth January, February for RP? Just for us to get an idea. How much compared to Q1 last year, RP is representing, meaning that we had a very strong growth already last year, but that was more into research than anything else?
Just for us to get a sort of flavor and trying to get better visibility or being in a position to make more accurate forecast.
Thank you much.
Yeah.
Maybe last year, remember, we didn't get the RP with COVID. End of March, we were promoting the respiratory without COVID.
No. Let's say COVID related. Yeah, if we open up and say COVID related.
RP went up to 80% of our sales of BioFire panels in Q4 2020 versus back to 65% in Q1 2021. I hope that answers your question. Then again, in January, February, without giving a figure, we were on a very similar trend to what we saw in Q4, which was with basically our, let's say, our discussion and our assumption for H1. We had a very strong trend in molecular in January, February, quite similar to Q4.
Okay.
We were also able to better serve on the GI and the BCID and meningitis market, because before it was also the priority was to respiratory. Now we're also back to be able to serve a bit more this syndromic needs.
Yeah, very useful. Okay, thank you very much. Regarding the order book evolution in the quarter, anything specific that we have to keep in mind looking forward into Q2?
The big difference in, as you said, order book is actually this backorder issue that we had in the U.S. I think we commented through the last three or four quarters that we had backorders on respiratory reagents overall, and we were not pleased to not be able to serve our customers. It was not a good situation. We now have, let's say, solved. Of course, we are not pleased either to have a reduced demand, but at least now we have no backorder. We can serve our customers on their demand of RP, but also of GI, of meningitis, of blood culture, and of pneumonia panels.
Okay, fair enough. A question has been asked already regarding the reimbursement on BioFire, on the different panels. Any major event regarding reimbursement to come or any major discussion on any of the panels in the next 12 -1 8 months is scheduled? Do you have any idea on this one?
Nothing planned to my knowledge. Nothing that we have in our radar.
Okay. Another question regarding VIDAS and the newer test that you've been launching, can we get an idea about the pricing or the premium of these dengue tests compared to the current offer of, let's say, the average price for VIDAS test?
For dengue, I don't think I have a specific I think I don't know.
No.
No. I think acceptable market price links the value.
Yeah.
It will be mainly dengue and will be mainly sold and promoted. That's not for every country. That's for south countries or some developing countries. No, I think it will be acceptable. It's also a public health need. It should be in line with our VIDAS current portfolio. Just to remember, because there were questions earlier on the mix also, I think, regarding our profitability. We mentioned a lot that BioFire is at higher than average gross margin. We can also say that VIDAS, which is performing very well right now, is also one of the strong contributor in terms of margin.
Okay. Many thanks. Very useful.
Thank you.
We can now take our next question from Alex Gibson from Morgan Stanley.
Great, thanks. Last follow-up from me is on the backlog that we keep on talking about. Can you specify how much of the sales in molecular biology were backlog in the quarter? How many million of sales that was? Secondly, on the BioFire installations as well, 2,200. How many of those systems were also backlog related, so where you took the order before the quarter, and how much were made in the quarter? I think that would also be helpful to understand the underlying dynamics that you're seeing. Thanks.
Sorry, it's difficult. We don't track that exactly this way, because we, let's say, for example, reagents, of course, we had a significant backorder in early January. When we deliver in January, we deliver orders that are pre-opening and some that are also taken during the quarter. I don't think we have this split, actually.
Okay. On that and the installations as well?
On the instruments, neither. Sorry, but we don't track it this way. Going forward, obviously no back orders for Q2.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks.
We can now take our next question from Hugo Solvet from Exane BNP Paribas.
Hi. Thanks for taking the question. Two on the immunoassays. Sorry if I missed that earlier in the call, could you at first quantify or give an indication of the impact of antibody COVID-19 testing in Q1? Just wanted to know more about the underlying ex-COVID growth on that business. Second, you mentioned in the press release that PCT pricing has been declining similarly to volumes, which is a bit of the reversal of the trend that we were seeing before COVID and last year, if I'm not mistaken. What triggered this trend? Would you expect stabilization to come shortly? Lastly, I think, Guillaume, you mentioned, when answering a question, that you're working on different scenarios for the install base of the FilmArray.
Does that imply that one scenario would be that part of the install base would not be used at all anymore and that you could redeploy it? Is that something you could actually do? Thank you.
I will take some of the questions. Yes, PCT in the U.S., we saw pressure on price, and we saw also a decreasing in volume. That's a trend that we are monitoring. We were used to the price. It's the volume and maybe a bit different. That's under investigation. I would say it's only a quarter, but something we are monitoring, and we can come back to you in the future calls. Immunoassay, I don't know if you missed it, the growth in Q1 was at plus 28%. SARS-CoV-2 test was helpful. I'm not sure, do we give-
EUR 5 million.
Five. Okay. EUR 5 million sales for SARS-CoV-2 . I would say what has been also useful with VIDAS is also the associated tests such as D-dimer, which are being used also to monitor patients which are impacted by COVID. There is SARS-CoV-2 , but there's also the other ranges of tests which are helpful in the current context.
And the question on the-
Yeah. I'm not sure if you can repeat your question, Hugo. I'm not sure about the scenarios of install base that I mentioned.
You alluded to the fact that you were looking at your install base to see what type of customers can order what and when, just wanted to know if considering the install base, which has been increasing massively in 2020, with lower RP sales in 2021, that could imply that some instruments will not be used at all anymore. If that's the case, could you redeploy them?
If I did, yeah. Okay. One of the answer is that there is a work that, in line with our strategy of a broad menu on the syndromic approach, in line with the strategy to actually make sure that we have a multi-panel consumption by our customers. That actually they use at least a part or a significant part of the menu. At the end of Q1, I can tell you that close to 60% of our customers are multi-panel users, so more than one panel. Of course, we need to work on all the others that are single panel users, not always only RP, by the way, to convince them that they can use their install base for other uses. This is an effort that is not new for us, nor for BioFire. Of course, we need access to the customers for this. It's a midterm effort.
That's something to be worked on and with some potential upside. Not short term, again, but upside and confidence on the way we can work on install base in the midterm.
Okay. Thank you very much.
We can now take our next question from Scott Bardo of Berenberg.
Thank you again for the additional follow-up. Alexandre, you've kept R&D levels as a priority, high innovation expenditure for the group. I think you've discussed some of the testing menu and reagents that you are creating and commented on those. I wonder if you could talk to a little bit about the investments you're making in automation infrastructure. Has the time come for another platform for BioFire? I think that platform is now some 10 years old or so. Do you need to further innovate the platform, or do you think that that is, in a sense, perfectly acceptable for your future growth? Also similarly in microbiology, I believe that you have expressed an interest on more rapid phenotypic-type identification and antibiotic susceptibility testing. Is this an area where you're making any progress internally? Thank you.
Yes. We invest in our company, which invests in R&D. This is one of our motto, because it's
That's part of bringing innovation. Yes, we investigate all these areas. Maybe to come back on bioMérieux and FilmArray, I think we always mention it's an evolutive platform. We have already brought some evolution on the FilmArray, and we started with the FilmArray 2.0, then we added a new version. We launched the Torch, which is also an evolution of the FilmArray. Yes, FilmArray is also an evolutive platform. I believe in all the space that we are addressing in infectious disease, what is needed is automation and fast time to results. These are things, yes, that we are working on and investing on. Nothing to announce at this stage, but we have lots of R&D projects on this topic.
Thank you.
Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one now. We can now take our next question from Bertrand Casalis from Trusteam Finance.
Yes, hello. I was wondering whether we could say that with the vaccination in the U.S., the need for COVID tests was coming to an end, or if we consider what's happening in the U.K., the number of tests performed per head is increasing and is very rapidly, whereas the vaccination is almost ended. What do you think of the future evolution, considering the number of tests which will be needed?
I don't know the number of tests, but what I believe that you need different approaches. You need prevention, you need diagnostic, and you need treatment. It won't be only a vaccine strategy. It will be vaccine with testing and the social distancing, and hopefully soon also drugs and treatment. I believe fighting a pandemic, but also the same fighting infectious disease, you need a combination of prevention, diagnostic, and treatment. No, I believe diagnostic is here to stay. Again, it won't be a one-size-fits-all. You will need rapid test, you will need singleplex, you will need lowplex, you will need multiplex. I think the more the offer is complete, the better it is to fight the pandemic and other potential infectious disease which might reoccur. The strategy to fight the pandemic will be based on the different pillars.
Thank you.
It appears there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to now pass the call back over to Mr. Admant for any additional or closing remarks.
Thank you. Thanks to all for participating to this call and for your questions. Our next formal release will be on September 1st with a webcast to present bioMérieux half year results, both sales and financial performance. By then, we remain at your disposal if you have- any questions. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
Thank you.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.