Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Merck investor and analyst conference call for the second quarter of 2022. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode. I will now hand the call over to Constantin Fest, Head of Investor Relations, who will lead you through the conference. Please go ahead, sir.
Dear ladies and gentlemen, a very warm welcome to this Merck Q2 2022 results call. My name is Constantin Fest, Head of Investor Relations here at Merck. Today, I'm pleased to be joined by Belén Garijo, Group CEO, as well as Marcus Kuhnert, Group CFO. For the Q&A part of this call, we will also be joined by Matthias Heinzel, CEO of Life Science, Peter Guenter, CEO of Healthcare, as well as Kai Beckmann, CEO of Electronics. In the next couple of minutes, we'd like to guide you through the key slides of this presentation. After that, we are happy to take your questions. Please note, we have reserved about one hour for this call, and I would ask to kindly limit you to a maximum of two questions per person. This will allow more of you to ask questions in the first place.
With this, I'd like to now directly hand over to Belén to kick off this presentation. Over to you, Belén.
Thank you, Constantin, and welcome everybody to our Q2 earnings call in this very sunny and very warm Darmstadt. I am now on the slide four of the presentation and starting with the highlights. Overall, we had delivered a robust second quarter with our Life Science sector once again being the main driver. Organically, the group revenues increased by 6.6% and EBITDA pre rose by 3.2% against tough comparables. Paired with significant currency tailwinds and a small portfolio effect, reported sales and EBITDA pre amounted to EUR 5.6 billion and EUR 1.8 billion respectively. While EPS pre of EUR 2.6 went up by 18% year-on-year. As you have noticed, the external operating environment has become even more challenging in the past couple of months.
The ongoing pandemic, the geopolitical tensions, the rising inflation and the supply chain pressures combined are really challenging our operations. However, in Q2, we once again show great resilience, and we continue to vigorously execute on our strategic priorities. As you have heard, we recently announced a EUR 440 million investment in Cork to expand our membrane and filtration capacity and another EUR 100 million investment in Wuxi, China to accelerate our single-use capabilities. We also opened our new CDMO facility in Verona and broke ground on a new lateral flow facility in Sheboygan, both in Wisconsin, in the U.S. The lockdowns in China only moderately affected our Q2 results, and we have seen a strong recovery since the month of June.
With regard to concerns around the energy supply in Europe, let me reiterate that our energy intensity is limited and that we have robust mitigation plans in place to remain operational, even in case of a sudden stop of Russian gas supplies. Based on our strong Q2 results and a solid outlook for the remainder of the year, we fully confirm our group guidance for 2022 at the organic level and raise the absolute target corridors for sales, EBITDA pre and EPS pre, mainly due to incremental currency tailwinds. In particular, we are now forecasting group net sales in a range of EUR 21.9 billion-EUR 23 billion, EBITDA pre of EUR 6.75 billion-EUR 7.25 billion, and EPS pre of EUR 9.85-EUR 10.75. We'll give you more details on our assumptions later.
Turning to page five, you can see our performance by business sector. As you can see, all three business sectors contributed to solid organic sales growth in Q2. Our main growth engines, that means Process Solutions and Life Science Services, Semiconductor Solutions, and the new Healthcare launches known as the "Big 3", are performing strongly and drove 100% of the organic growth in Q2. By business sector, Life Science had another record quarter with sales up by 10% organically, followed by Electronics with 7% and Healthcare with 1%. Please note that for Healthcare, Q2 last year got a one-time benefit around the temporary supply agreement with Eli Lilly, which generated sales of about €50 million in North America. Excluding this effect, organic sales growth for Healthcare would have been in the mid-single digits.
Note that Mavenclad returned to sequential growth in Q2. FX provided a significant tailwind across the board, adding over 7% to group sales and almost 10% to group EBITDA pre. In addition to that, we had a small positive portfolio effect stemming from the acquisition of Exelead. Within Life Science, growth was driven by an acceleration of the core business to 16%, which offsets the anticipated increase in the COVID headwinds. Note that we are reporting in line with our new business structure for Life Science for the first time. Life Science Services, which is still in a scale-up mode, had the highest growth rate in Q2 at 25% organically. At the same time, Process Solutions remains the largest contributor to growth, up to 12% organically and up to 24% in the non-COVID business.
Followed by Science & Lab Solutions, the former research and applied now combined, with solid organic growth of 6%. The slight organic sales increase in Healthcare was driven by over 40% growth from recent launches, while the established portfolio was down in the mid-single digits. This is mainly due to the Eli Lilly effect that I mentioned earlier, the manufacturing of Erbitux. In Electronics, our semi business was the clear highlight with organic growth of 20%, more than offsetting the decline in Display Solutions while Surface was slightly up. Regarding earnings now, EBITDA pre came in at EUR 1.78 billion, leading to a strong margin of 32%, slightly down year-on-year, mainly due to tough comps in Healthcare and some inflationary pressures in Electronics.
However, the margin in Life Science inched up, supported by volumes, mix, and pricing, with EBITDA pre cracking the EUR 1 billion mark in a single quarter for the first time. On to slide six for a few remarks on our sales by region. Overall, regional performance was mixed this quarter with double-digit organic growth in Europe, which was the fastest growing region or developed region in Q2, and also double-digit organic growth in LATAM. Low- to mid-single-digit growth for North America and Asia-Pacific, and a decline in Middle East and Africa, although the latter was due to timing of a tender business in Healthcare. Also note that growth in Asia-Pacific was held back by soft demand in Display Solutions and the lockdowns in China, mainly in Life Science and Healthcare.
However, we already saw a strong recovery trend in June, as I mentioned before. Strength in Europe was mainly driven by process as well as the ramp-up of Mavenclad and of Bavencio. Overall, our globally diversified business has shown strength yet again as individual regional, obstacles and external factors are balanced by a strong growth in key markets. With this, let me hand it over to Marcus for additional color on our Q2 results.
Thank you, Belén, and welcome also from my side. I'm now on slide eight for an overview of our key figures for the second quarter. Overall, we had a strong Q2 with double-digit growth of sales and earnings. Taking into account significant currency tailwinds as well as a small portfolio effect from the acquisition of Exelead, net sales increased 14.3% to EUR 5,568 million. EBITDA pre was up 13.1% to EUR 1,782 million, and EPS pre rose 17.9% to EUR 2.64. Operating cash flow came in at EUR 852 million, down 4% year-on-year, mainly due to higher working capital, as we are also mitigating here inflationary pressures.
Net financial debt increased by EUR 1.4 billion compared with the end of December, primarily driven by the acquisition of Exelead and temporary investment of excess cash. Accordingly, the net debt to EBITDA pre ratio slightly increased to 1.6 x from 1.4 x at the end of last year. Let me also briefly comment on our reported results. Moving on to slide number nine. EBIT increased by EUR 128 million in the second quarter in absolute terms. This is EUR 78 million less than growth of EBITDA pre, mainly due to a EUR 90 million impairment booked in connection with the discontinuation of the berzosertib trial. Financial result improved significantly, mainly due to lower LTIP provisions and reduced interest expenses amid ongoing deleveraging. The effective tax rate came in at 22.4%, which is in the lower half of our guidance range.
Net income and reported earnings per share both increased 16%. I want to make a short comment on the treatment of the berzosertib impairment as we have received a respective question this morning. The berzosertib impairment is included in EBIT and EPS, but adjusted, so that means not included in EPS pre. In EBITDA pre, it is anyhow not included as all D&A is added back, including impairment write-offs. EPS pre shall provide first and foremost a meaningful comparison over time. That is why we adjust strongly fluctuating items or use a normalized tax rate. We acknowledge that the write-down of pharma assets is part of our operating model in healthcare. When weighing this aspect against the comparability over time, we have years ago introduced a threshold of EUR 50 million. All impairments below are not adjusted, thereby affecting EPS pre.
Impairments more than EUR 50 million are adjusted. With that, let's move on to the review by business sector, starting with Life Science on slide 10. Life Science delivered another strong quarter with sales up 10.4% organically. This is slightly ahead of the growth in Q1, with the mix shifting further towards the core business. In fact, the core business accelerated significantly with organic growth of 16%. This was partly offset by an expected increase of the COVID impact to -6% in the quarter, with absolute COVID sales similar to Q1 and significantly below prior year. From a portfolio perspective, Process Solutions remains the key driver of growth, with sales up 12% organically. Here, the core business increased by 24%, mainly driven by bioprocessing, while the COVID impact was -12%.
We increased output in bottleneck areas further, supported by ongoing productivity gains and ramp-up of new capacities. Order intake declined against tough comps, mainly driven by the COVID business. The book-to-bill ratio was 1 for the quarter, and the order book remains healthy. Life Science Services had the highest organic growth with sales up 25% in Q2. Again, this was mainly due to strong performance of the core business growing 29% organically, given strong demand and positive phasing in our CDMO business and continuously robust demand for contract testing services. The COVID impact was still moderate at -4%. Science & Lab Solutions for the former combination of research and applied had a good quarter, again, with sales up 6.4% organically, supported by positive pricing and growth across all business lines, with Lab Water and BioMonitoring even reaching double-digit territory.
The core business was up 9% organically, while the COVID impact accelerated to a -3%. Geographically, we recorded double-digit organic growth in all regions except Asia-Pacific, in turn reflecting lower COVID sales and lockdown effects in China, although activity picked up significantly in June. From a customer perspective, sales to academia were flat, while all other segments delivered double-digit growth led by pharma and biotech. With regard to earnings, EBITDA pre soared to over EUR 1 billion for the first time, rising 14.5% organically with a record margin of 38%. The +70 basis points increase in margin reflects a positive product mix in the core business, as well as operating leverage and favorable pricing, partly offset by a lower share of COVID business and ongoing strategic investments.
That said, please note that we now expect the Life Science EBITDA pre-margin to be roughly flat organically for the full year. Moving on to Healthcare on slide 11. Here, organic sales growth in Q2 was 1.4% as a -5% decline, and the established portfolio was more than offset by over 40% growth of our recent launches. By franchise, Oncology led the growth with sales up 8% organically. This was driven by ongoing strong ramp-up of Bavencio, growing 61% organically, partly offset by a 9% decline of Erbitux. However, as already said, please note that Q2 last year benefited from a roughly EUR 50 million contribution related to the temporary supply agreement with Eli Lilly. Excluding this effect, Erbitux would have grown above 10% again. Our N&I franchise was slightly down, with a -1.2% organic sales decline.
Improving momentum of Mavenclad, up 27% year-on-year, driven by consistent uptake in year one and year two patients, could not fully offset the higher Rebif decline of 19%, in turn, mainly related to pressure on the interferon segment. The Fertility franchise was down 3% organically due to tough comps and a modest impact from the lockdowns in China. However, we expect a recovery effect in China in H2 and are encouraged by the strong growth of Pergoveris. Sales in CM&E increased 3% organically, supported by strong Euthyrox and Concor performance, while Glucophage was down in the tender phasing in Middle East Africa. Regarding our pipeline, let me focus on evobrutinib first. Following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, we had decided to add extra patients outside of the affected countries.
Startup activities are well on track, and the recruitment has recently begun. We work towards our aim of having data in-house by Q4 2023. Of course, we also continue to support our patients affected by the conflict inside and outside of the country. Xevinapant, we are progressing in launching our second phase III study, XRay Vision, in high-risk postoperative patients who are not eligible to receive cisplatin. Zooming out for the broader picture, we are reloading our pipeline with promising early-stage assets, with the most recent addition of M9140, our newest anti-CEACAM5 antibody drug conjugate entering phase 1. Regarding earnings, EBITDA pre amounted to EUR 604 million, down 9.5% organically, with a margin of 31.4%.
However, please note that the organic decline, earnings decline was almost entirely related to the absence of the earnings effect from last year's supply agreement with Eli Lilly, mentioned earlier. In terms of income from active portfolio management, we recorded about EUR 20 million in Q2, fully in line with our low double-digit million-euro guidance and about EUR 5 million higher than in the year-ago period. With about EUR 35 million of income from active portfolio management recorded in the first half year, we are already within our unchanged full year guidance range of a low- to mid-double-digit euro million amount, and therefore you should not expect any meaningful contribution in Q3. Also note that our full year guidance implies better earnings momentum in H2 compared with H1, which has to be seen in the context of much softer comparables.
Just think of the Eli Lilly agreement and Bavencio milestones which boosted H1 last year. Turning to Electronics on slide 12. Electronics delivered strong organic sales growth of 7.4% in Q2. Semiconductor Solutions, which contributes two-thirds to the sector sales meanwhile, remained the key growth engine, with sales up by a remarkable 20% organically. This strong performance was fueled by acceleration in semi materials to high growth, supported by increased pricing and growth across all material categories, especially thin films, patterning, and specialty gases. In addition, we saw ongoing contributions from project business in Delivery Systems and Services. Sales in Display Solutions were down 16% organically, mainly due to a continued decline in liquid crystals, which was amplified by a lower utilization at some of our Chinese customers.
Surface Solutions were slightly up with organic sales growth of 2% as soft trends in coating were more than offset by strong growth in cosmetics. EBITDA pre amounted to EUR 293 million, growing almost 14% in reported terms amid strong currency tailwinds, but declining 2% organically given inflationary pressures and a low double-digit million-euro amount of ramp up costs for capacity. The margin was down 70 basis points year-on-year to 29.4%. Similarly to Healthcare, our full year guidance implies better earnings momentum in H2. However, rather than a comp effect, this is related to mitigating measures for inflation, both pricing and cost kicking in more strongly. Before I hand back to Belén for the outlook, let me also comment on our balance sheet and cash flow statement.
As you can see on slide 13, our balance sheet expanded by EUR 3.3 billion compared with the end of December. The main drivers behind this development are business growth, FX and actuarial gains amid rising interest rates. On the asset side, cash and cash equivalents are down, partially driven by temporary investment of excess cash. Receivables and inventories are up on higher sales, inflationary effects, higher safety stocks and FX and intangibles are up on FX and the acquisition of Exelead. On the liability side, financial debt is up mainly due to the issuance of new bonds. Pension provisions are down due to actuarial gains, so the rising interest rates and that equity is higher given growth in profit after tax, actuarial gains and positive FX effects.
As a result, the equity ratio improved further from 47% at the end of December to 53% at the end of June. Turning to cash flows on slide 14. Operating cash flow came in at EUR 852 million, down EUR 36 million year-on-year. Despite higher earnings, this was mainly due to higher working capital for the already mentioned reasons. Apart from business growth, we saw an increase in receivables due to sales phasing in connection with the China lockdowns, while inventories were influenced by inflationary effects as well as higher safety stocks and goods in transit. Cash out for investing activities increased significantly, primarily driven by temporary investments of excess cash. Last but not least, the difference in financing cash flow can be explained by net issuance of financial debt in Q2 this year, versus net repayments last year.
With that, let me hand back to Belén for the outlook.
Thank you, Marcus. Now on slide number 16. In summary, our Q2 results have been very, very solid. We have shown a strength and resilience across our three business sectors in a highly complex external operating environment. Looking ahead, we don't expect these headwinds to ease anytime soon. Nevertheless, we are fully confirming our organic growth ambitions for 2022 and remain firmly committed to our midterm ambition 25 by 25. That is EUR 25 billion, as you know, in 2025. Given additional currency tailwinds, we increase our absolute target corridors for the current year. We now expect group net sales for 2022 in a range of EUR 21.9-EUR 23 billion, EBITDA pre in a range of EUR 6.75-EUR 7.25, and EPS pre in a range of EUR 9.85-EUR 10.75.
This is based on organic sales growth of 6%-9% and organic EBITDA pre growth of 5%-9%, fully aligned with our outlook provided in May. Currency is now expected to provide additional tailwinds of 5%-8% for sales and 6%-10% for EBITDA pre, ahead of the 3%-6% and 4%-8% that we guided before, mainly due to further strengthening of the US dollar. Also note that we don't see a major risk to our 2022 outlook from potential gas shortages in Europe. For example, in a scenario where we would need to reduce our gas consumption in Europe by 50% and replace this 50/50 with oil.
If we replace this 50/50 with oil and electricity, we would be faced with incremental costs in the low- to mid-double-digit million-euro range based on reasonable assumptions for further price increases. Of course, we are also dependent on suppliers who could be challenged by potential gas shortages in Europe, but those indirect effects on us are truly difficult to assess. However, we are in close contact with our suppliers and are in parallel qualifying alternative suppliers to minimize potential indirect effects. Moving to the next slide, to take a look at the sector guidance. We continue to expect organic sales and earnings growth in 2022 to be supported by the three business sectors. We expect Life Science to be the fastest growing sector in terms of sales, followed by Electronics and Healthcare.
We confirm our organic sales growth guidance for Life Science and continue to see the core business as the main driver of growth. Our COVID assumptions remain unchanged. We are just reflecting, so the numbers, the breakdown of the COVID sales is reflecting the new business unit structure. This means we expect COVID sales of up to EUR 450 million in Process Solutions, up to EUR 250 million in Life Science Services, and around EUR 100 million in Science & Lab Solutions, making a total of up to EUR 700 million as we guided in Q1. Earnings-wise, we have become slightly more optimistic on organic EBITDA pre-growth in Life Science, suggesting a roughly flat organic margin development.
For Healthcare, we fully confirm our organic growth guidance for both sales and EBITDA pre, with recent launches as the main drivers of growth and the established portfolio staying about stable. In Electronics, we have become slightly more cautious on margins, and this is due to the inflationary pressures, but we remain very confident on our strong top-line growth, mainly driven by Semiconductor Solutions. With this, we are going to be very happy to take your questions.
Jake, if we could have the first question, please. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now begin our question-and-answer session. If you have a question for our speakers, please dial star one on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask your question. If you find that your question has been answered before your turn to speak, you can dial star two to cancel your question. If you're using speaker equipment, please lift the handset before making your selection. One moment for our first question. We'll hear first from Richard Vosser, JP Morgan.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Two, please. Firstly, just on Process Solutions, you referenced very strong 24% underlying growth. What do you see the step-up of growth being related to? Is that any particular modalities, I don't know, diabetes, obesity, peptides, biosimilars? And how sustainable do you see that? And do you feel that the order book is now normalized in Process Solutions? And then second question, just on evobrutinib. I think you've been monitoring the product for liver enzymes for the whole of your phase three. We've seen some competitors have some drug-induced liver injuries in their programs. So just wondering what you've seen in your trials to date and how you see that affecting the ultimate profile of the product. Thanks very much.
Hi, Richard. It's Matthias. Indeed, process utilization in the core business was 24%, and it's basically across the board, across regions, across modalities. And that is two main drivers. First of all, a really strong demand, strong underlying demand, kind of ex-COVID and beyond COVID. And secondly, our continued efforts around capacity expansions and capacity relief, really. We feel confident about the continued core business growth as COVID continues to decline. With respect to the order book, the order book remains healthy. I think you heard it in the remarks that order intake comes down slightly, and that has also to do with the lead times.
As you may recall, over the last quarters, we had really very long lead times, and as the lead times through the work around capacity expansions are coming down, we see a bit of a normalization to order patterns from customers. With that, a little bit of a decline in order intake, but again, the order book remains very strong.
Yeah, Richard, on evobrutinib, I think it's important to clarify some perceptions or even maybe misperceptions that may have been created last week during some of these earnings call. Perhaps three points, if you allow me. First of all, liver enzyme elevations have been observed with evobrutinib since our well-conducted phase II placebo-controlled trial. I remind you that all of them were reversible, neither met Hy's Law nor associated with any decompensation of the liver. As you also know, these elevations typically occurred within the first two to three months after treatment initiation. Number two, let's talk about data and facts. As the phase III trials are running, the only source of data regarding liver enzymes elevation is our phase II trial in RMS that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2019.
There are several types of events and reporting patterns that needs to be clarified. First are the lab reports of liver enzymes. Each report contains the upper limit of normal. Grade 1 elevations, particularly of ALT, which is considered the most sensitive enzyme, are between 1x - 3x times the upper limit, and overall considered by regulators as non-clinically meaningful. As you will be able to see in the supplementary appendix of the publication, there are many patients with such elevation and even more on dimethyl fumarate, which I think we all agree is definitely not known to be a hepatotoxic drug. When we looked then at grades 2 to 4, i.e., 3 x the upper limit or higher, which are considered by regulators of clinical importance, there we see the signal we have been reporting transparently in the past years. This is a mid-single-digit elevation.
The second layer of reporting is what the investigator considers as reporting worthy as an adverse event. Here, also clear in the phase II publication, you see a reporting rate of ALT elevations adverse events at a rate of 9% for the 75 mg BID dose, which is the equivalent one in our phase III dose, as you know. Now, what is important to mention that in general, liver enzyme elevations in clinical trials are very common. These are usually mild, self-limited elevations that can occur due to a variety of reasons, even following a viral infection, for example. The problem is how many of these elevations, particularly of higher grades, convert to a true life-threatening drug-induced liver injury, which mostly requires hospitalization and supportive care.
These, as we understand, were the cases that have led to the partial clinical hold imposed on tolebrutinib. We feel that it's not really serious to compare between data points that I just commented on. Just to wrap this up, there was also a mention of double-digit rates of discontinuations of evo due to liver enzymes elevations. I guess that the one who made this comment was looking at table S7 in the publication. In reality, because there is an overlap between different enzyme elevations, the real rates of patient discontinuation due to liver enzymes is 7.4%. There is something important else to remember. The reporting rates as well as the discontinuation rates vary obviously according to the monitoring plan and the stopping rules. In other words, when you don't take the temperature, you don't find a fever.
If protocol X has a more frequent monitoring plan and stricter stopping rules, then you will have different rates of LFT elevations and also discontinuations. I believe that these were not identical between evo and tole protocols to begin with. Number three, and last but not least, what's really important to remember is that evobrutinib has the most comprehensive data package among BTKI inhibitors supporting its potential for best-in-disease efficacy on relapses. 0.11, I remind you, which is anti-CD20-like versus 0.17 reported by other BTKI inhibitors. Biomarkers of progression and neurodegeneration like NFLs and slowly expanding lesions, where we were the only ones to show an effect. Evobrutinib is the only compound that today managed to demonstrate, not just claim, penetrance into the central nervous system of MS patients.
Our well-thought-through dose and dosing regimen allows the highest BTKI occupancy at both peak and trough levels, and this, we believe, enables the strong efficacy attributes I have just mentioned on progression and on neurodegeneration. At the end, I would like to state that while other company representatives may like to share their interpretation of data related to our pipeline assets, it is ultimately our responsibility to present and explain our own data in a transparent manner. We believe we have done this to date, and we will continue to do so moving forward.
We'll now move to our next question, which will come from Matthew Weston with Credit Suisse.
Thank you. If I can take two questions, please. The first is a follow-up on Process Solutions growth. It's really about what we should expect going into 2023 for that EUR 700 million that still comes from COVID. I'm sure you're having detailed conversations with your customers, so it'll be interesting to know further along in the year what your expectations are moving forward. But also, given the cadence of capacity adds that are coming on, how should we think about the underlying trends going into next year? I'd be very interested. Then the second is a question for Belén. It's following up on this issue of gas and oil exposure in Germany. Is there any number that you can give us in terms of a percentage of what Merck's businesses rely on Germany, the geography?
The reason I ask that is I think of Serono as being Swiss, Sigma in the U.S., Millipore was always France and the U.S., Versum, certainly not German. Is it a misinterpretation that Darmstadt is a critical hub for Merck? Any commentary would be great.
Yeah, let me start with a Process Solutions question. Just as a reminder, from now on, we report Process Solutions and Life Science Services separately. For both of them, obviously, we do see the impact of a continued COVID decline, which is actually in line with our kind of midterm assumption and midterm guidance. For the combined, like PS and LSS together, we had said we're expecting low- to mid-teens% despite a COVID decline over the years, and that's exactly what we're seeing for the next years. Of course, we are in discussion with our customers, but we are kind of remaining with our guidance for this year up to EUR 700 for PS, and we'll see that continue to decline. At the same time, we are confident about our strong core growth.
Matthew, let me give you some context before I go to your question so that you can really get the different dimension of this. First of all, we are not a very energy-intensive company. Our total energy cost last year, for example, were EUR 100 million. This year, we expect energy costs around EUR 150 million and further increases next year, and this is based on the current pricing environment and the hedges that we have in place. Now, as I mentioned during the introduction, we have built solid contingency plans in place should the gas supply from Russia decline or stop. Darmstadt, indeed, has the highest gas demand in Europe. It's also covered by Russia.
Other European production sites in Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland have relatively low exposure to the Russian gas. In the event of challenges in this sourcing, we can permanently switch to alternative energy sources, including oil and electricity, and we have already secured oil reserves at our sites, at our site in Darmstadt in particular. Let me ask Marcus. Marcus, do you want to say something on the cost side?
Yeah, sure, Belén.
Agencies.
Yeah. When we would have to what we said. First of all, important to stress again, we can permanently switch to alternative energy sources. This would, of course, lead also to higher cost. In a scenario where we would need to reduce our natural gas consumption in Europe, let's say, by 50% and replace this at equal parts, so 50/50 with oil and electricity, we estimate that we would be faced with incremental cost in the low- to mid-double-digit million euros in 2022. Let's say reasonable assumptions for further price increases assumed in the mid- to high double-digit million euros in 2023. Given the size of the company, the size of the EBITDA pre, you will notice that this is nothing that will fundamentally alter or have the potential to fundamentally alter our guidance.
Of course, we are also dependent on suppliers who in turn depend on gas and could be challenged by potential gas shortages in Europe. As Belén already said, those indirect effects are extremely difficult to assess.
I think the only point I would like to add is that we continue to invest in renewable energy and of course continuously aim to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. You may have seen our recent announcement as a proof point of this. We have installed 7,000 new solar panels at our Sheboygan site in Wisconsin that give us enough energy to power the equivalent of 700 homes. We are converting our operation and facilities to alternatives to natural gas anytime we have the opportunity, and obviously around the capacity expansions that we are implementing in the manufacturing side.
We'll now move to a question from Gary Steventon, BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking the questions. Firstly, just on bioprocessing, could you just talk to the profile of the higher growth that you're seeing in the core non-COVID business?
Just wondering here kind of how much of the current growth is being driven by conversion of that historically strong order book, which is coming down, versus what's being driven by kind of true underlying demand and the incremental capacity, so just to get a better sense really of the level of the recurring business now. Secondly, just looking at semis and your exposure here. I guess with the diverging performance we've seen for some of the semis exposed names over Q2 and then the strong growth that we've seen from your semis business, it would be helpful if you could just shed a bit more light on your end market exposure in terms of the customer base, you know, consumer, industrial, autos, et cetera.
Also just relative exposure to logic and memory and also leading and trailing edge chips. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks for your question. To your question around Bioprocessing, I mean, actually, it's a combination of both. We talked about the slight decrease in order intake. For the most part, that was related to COVID. Our core business order intake was actually only slightly down, and with that, the order book remains strong. I should also say there's probably a bit of a catch-up effect where now customers who in the past were kind of not high on the priority list given the strength, the strong need to support COVID customers. There's a bit of a catch-up effect. It's actually a combination of both.
We do see a continued strong inflow of orders for the core business, while of course we need to also serve now those customers who have been waiting for a long time to get their products. It's a combination of both.
This is Kai. Kai speaking. Gary, I will take the semi question. Our exposure on logic and memory is approximately 50/50, so that we are pretty well balanced between these two areas. As you were asking about the kind of the growth driver and exposure to end markets, with the product portfolio and the broadest and deepest material portfolio in the industry, I think we have a pretty good coverage of all different end markets. We can currently see in logic there is gradually a shift towards more kind of industrial use of semiconductors away from consumer end markets there. Will be more impacted by current consumer behavior, while it has no impact on kind of on the growth pattern overall on our side.
Leading edge is driving more of the growth than trailing edge technologies. This is where we benefit, of course, the most because of more materials complexity and materials consumption in leading-edge chips. That's the pattern by and large for the semi business.
Okay. Thank you.
Next, we'll hear from Peter Verdult with Citi.
Thank you. Peter Verdult, Citi. Two questions. Just firstly and quickly, Peter, just could you provide us latest dynamics or market shares for Mavenclad, U.S. and Europe, in light of some pretty strong performances from the CD20 players? Then Matthias, back to Life Science. I mean, with reference to the 15%, underlying organic growth, could you ballpark quantify, you know, what the impact from those temporary China lockdowns were? I mean, what would it look like if they had not been in place? Can I just clarify as well that the supply bottlenecks that you've been talking to the market about for the last sort of two to three quarters, are they now in the rearview mirror, or is there any significant supply bottlenecks left to resolve?
If I could squeeze one in lastly, just you mentioned in your comments about, you know, a fast-growing ADC business and your high-potency API. I know you don't go into individual business lines, but if you would at least perhaps just give us a sense, ballpark quantify what the current size of that business is. Thank you.
Okay, Peter, I'll take the Mavenclad question first. As Belén mentioned already in her speech, we are quite satisfied with the performance of Q2 with strong sequential growth of 12% versus the previous quarter. To your point, Peter, and I had mentioned that already in the past, is that it is in a competitive market, especially in the U.S. with the anti-CD20s. We see quite divergent trends for Mavenclad in the U.S. and in Europe.
In order to remind you, I think it's important to mention that the Mavenclad label in the U.S. is more restricted than the one in Europe due to the fact in the sense that we don't have a first-line label in the U.S., whereas in Europe, we do have a first-line label. As a consequence, of course, with you know, high-efficacy treatments moving up in more and more as a first-line treatment, we continue to gain share in Europe in the high-efficacy setting. We actually see now countries in Europe emerging where we are the leading high-efficacy drug in the overall dynamic high-efficacy market. In the U.S., our share in the high-efficacy market is rather stable.
The fact that we do gain leadership in the dynamic, high-efficacy oral, market, I think is quite a testimony to our team in the U.S., despite the mentioned label constraints and despite the fact that we can't really compete in the first line. That gives you a little bit more color of what's happening between U.S. and Europe.
Yeah.
All right. Yeah. Let me address your three questions on Life Science. The first one around China. Indeed, from Q1 to Q2, we did see a slight dip in China for the full quarter, especially in the months of April and May. Then June, we already saw the uptick as the lockdown was lifted, and we could again ship to our customers. There was indeed a slight dip. In terms of the bottlenecks, I would say, yeah, major improvements, if I look at lead times for our key products.
I mean, at least they were cut by 30%-50%. I would say we are not in every product category kind of through that, but there's a major improvement. I would say, yeah, for the most part, we have left the biggest challenges behind us. On our services business, just to give you a high-level split, in our LSS business, we have about 45%, what we call the testing business, and about 55%, which is then our CDMO business. We are not going further into the details than by product line, ADC, mRNA. All together, they're around 5% of the reported LSS numbers, but obviously on a high growth path.
Thank you. I'll try again at the CMD. Thanks a lot.
Yeah. We'll see you at the CMD.
Now moving on to a question from Wimal Kapadia with Bernstein.
Great. Thank you very much for taking my question. First can I just ask a little bit more about the anti-CEACAM5. You know I saw that you've moved into phase I, and one of your competitors is quite advanced in phase III with data next year. Just curious, you know, what gives you confidence to start that trial against that target, given you seem like you're quite behind. Then, you know, I'd appreciate if you could provide any more color also on that target, the CEACAM5 versus TROP-2 competition, which seems to be, you know, particularly strong in a similar population. My second question is just on Electronics EBITDA margin, please.
You dropped below 30% EBITDA margin in 2Q, and you flagged raw materials, energy, capacity ramp up, et cetera, as drags. You've got pricing supporting semi. I'm just curious, how you think about the outlook for these impacts. Should we expect inflationary pressures to accelerate, and how much capacity is there to actually increase semi pricing, moving forward? Thank you.
Yeah, Wimal. I'll take first the question on the anti-CEACAM5. Three points, if you allow me. Number one, this is a new antibody, specifically designed against the CEACAM5 antigen with very high target affinity and specificity. That's the first point. The second point, most importantly, is the warhead a topoisomerase I inhibitor that we use there as a payload. That actually will lead us probably when we select the type of tumor to look for tumors that are resistant to the tubulin inhibitor, which are actually the ones that are used in the other anti-CEACAM5 antibody-drug conjugate that you mentioned.
Basically, what we try to do is explore new tumors where indeed we can be first to market with this ADC. Then the third one is of course, you know, the payload, linker itself, which has high potency, good stability and circulation with a new technology. We're very excited. We're very confident with our anti-CEACAM5. In order not to steal the thunder of our R&D update call, I will stop here. I can tell you that you will hear much more about it in the R&D update call in November. Thank you.
Wimal, on the electronics margin situation, I think just to give you a bit more flavor on this one, there are very different factors. I think you mentioned already kind of the investment side of things. That is definitely a kind of transitory impact. As Marcus highlighted, there are investments in capacity. The engineering team that we have built with 80 people executing the projects, R&D investments on future sales growth that will be more a temporary impact. We have a mix effect driven by the headwinds that we experience on the display side, based on kind of a lower utilization of our customers, specifically in China. That mix effect leads to margin impact.
We have the inflation in two different areas. On the semi side, we found good solutions with our customers to kind of manage the impact. On the display side, however, especially on the liquid crystal side, where kind of the price only knows one direction, there is of course very limited space to manage inflationary pressure. By and large, I don't see kind of a long-term impact of that. It's more two elements that have definitely a short-term impact primarily, and one area which is an impact that reduces over time since the exposure to liquid crystal is diminishing.
Jake, we have time for one more last question, please.
That last question will come from Sachin Jain with Bank of America.
Hi there. Thanks for letting me on. Just two big picture questions. Firstly, for Belén, I guess, on M&A, with target valuations in some of your target areas, so life sciences, biotech having fallen, balance sheet strengthening, just wondering if you're beginning to flex your perspectives on larger M&A, which you drew out to the end of this year. Just any sort of big picture thoughts there. Second question, I guess, follow on from some prior. Given the 24% process growth and your confidence, Matthias, it's clearly trending above midterm guide. Just wondering if you have enough confidence to update that midterm guide of process, which I think was low- to mid-teens at CMD in September. Thank you.
Sachin Jain, on M&A, you know, we have a very solid organic outlook, so we are not really in a hurry. However, we are permanently screening and scanning opportunities for acceleration of our Big 3, with a focus on our Big 3. We are definitely not close to entering a phase in which we are a bit bolder in identifying those bigger opportunities that may come our way. We will be able to provide a bit more transparency on M&A during the Capital Markets Day, but obviously both terms continue to focus on Big 3 and open to bigger things.
Yeah. Around Process Solutions in the midterm guidance which we provided, which was indeed low- to mid-teens% for PS, and at the time, of course, including Life Science. That guidance of low- to mid-teens% obviously included a decline from COVID. We are very much committed and confident to really hit that guidance. I should also say that at CMD, we are planning obviously then to split that guidance into our new reporting structure, and we'll provide specific guidance then for the new Process Solutions business, but also for the LSS business, which I understand there's obviously, for the right reasons, a lot of interest. We're kind of in this transition mode, I would say. That's why we split kind of core growth to kind of the total business growth in PS.
Because we're in the transition as COVID comes down, obviously more and more the core strength is really important, and that's what we are showing. Yeah, clear commitment and confidence on the midterm guidance for PS.
Thank you.
Belén, any closing remarks from your side?
Very quickly, because I know there are other calls that our audience probably have to attend. We delivered a very robust second quarter. We showed strength. Our business showed strength and resilience in a very challenging operating environment, and we at the same time continue to make significant progress on our strategic agenda. We have confirmed our organic growth targets for the year, and we remain firmly committed to our midterm growth ambition. We really look forward to meeting many of you in person at the upcoming meetings and most importantly, at the Capital Markets Day in October 6 here at our headquarters in Darmstadt. Thanks again, have a great summer, and see you in the fall.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This call has concluded. You may now disconnect.