Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Chief Financial Officer Shiniu Wei. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and good evening for colleagues joining us from the U.S. This is Shiniu Wei. Welcome to GenScript's 2024 Interim Results Conference Call. Joining me on the call today are Mr. Robin Meng, our Chairman of the Board; Mrs. Sherry Shao, our Rotating CEO; and Dr. Patrick Liu, Off-Duty Rotating CEO and Chairman of GenScript ProBio. We also have other senior executives from the business participating. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone about the forward-looking statements we will be making on the call. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements because of various important risk factors and changing market conditions. We do not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements. In today's call, Sherry will share our first-half business highlights, while I will present our first-half financial results and share financial commentary.
Then we will open up for Q&A. As a reminder, you can find today's presentation on our Investor Relations section of the company's website. Now, I'll hand it over to Sherry.
Thank you, Shiniu. Let's go to slide 4. GenScript delivered another strong top-line growth in the first half. The group's revenue increased by 43.5% to about $561.4 million. Adjusted net loss of the group was significantly narrowed to about $79 million. In particular, our groundbreaking product for treating multiple myeloma, Carvykti, is making a significant difference in the lifestyle for multiple myeloma patients. By the end of the first half, more than 3,000 patients had been treated by Carvykti. This remarkable progress was made possible by our strategy and our dedicated employees. By the end of the first half, our global employee base exceeded 7,000. Among them, about 12% of our employees are R&D-focused, showing our commitment to leading industry innovation. We also further strengthened our IP position.
Now, GenScript has accumulated more than 350 patents, and we also have over 1,000 patents in the application process. In the first half, we secured EcoVadis' bronze rating, demonstrating our commitment to sustainability and our unwavering dedication to becoming a reliable partner for global clients. Leading to slide five. Before we dive into the business part, I'd like to share our recent progress on sustainability. Guided by our corporate mission, "Make people and nature healthier through biotechnology," we integrate sustainability into our long-term growth strategy. This commitment has led to significant achievements. As a member of the United Nations Global Compact, we align our environmental, social, and governance initiatives with global standards. Our dedication to sustainability has been recognized with the Bronze Medal from EcoVadis, the world's largest business sustainability rating platform.
This rating positions us among the top 35% of all companies evaluated by EcoVadis, affirming GenScript as a trusted partner for our global clients. This year, we took a major step to address climate change and support our customers' environmental goals by committing to the science-based target initiative. After completing a comprehensive greenhouse gas inventory and verification, we are on track to submit our near-term and long-term targets for validation by the end of August. In our operations, we focus on reducing energy consumption through various energy efficiency programs, technological upgrades, innovations, and increased use of renewable energy. Additionally, we work to lower carbon emissions across our value chain by engaging suppliers on environmental issues. Together with our global business partners, we are dedicated to shaping a sustainable future for all. Next page. Turning to our first-half business highlights, let's start with the Life Science Group .
In the first half, despite the geopolitical turbulences, we maintained a robust growth momentum. Our customer base remains healthy. In the first half of the year, our customer base consisted of 20% nonprofit organizations and 80% industrial customers. Our customer base continues to grow. During the first half, we had over 39,000 active customers, representing a 5.4% year-over-year growth. We are committed to setting industry-leading timelines and delivering unmatched results. In the first half, we further accelerated our turnaround time in business lines. To strengthen our core competencies in the gene synthesis market, we launched the 4-business-day FlashGene synthesis service. This service features both the fastest turnaround time and the most affordable price in the industry. Thanks to our efforts to integrate our gene synthesis and protein services, we now provide the fastest antibody expression in the market, delivering results as fast as five business days.
We've also introduced our 10-Business Days Rush mRNA facility, further setting the industry standards for mRNA synthesis . We are also pushing the boundaries of innovation by continually introducing new platforms to meet our customers' emerging needs. In our protein line, we have launched a comprehensive protein production platform for novel modalities, such as a variety of different bispecific antibody designs. We are continuously enabling novel CRISPR technologies by launching Prime Editing pegRNA and GenCircle double-strand DNA facilities. Additionally, we introduced self-amplifying RNA to meet emerging demands from customers, staying ahead of the curve in biotechnology advancements. Our life science business offers a wide range of services and products, with gene synthesis being a key starting point for most of them. Since the second half of last year, we have been directing resources towards gene-to-protein business integration.
Through automation, gene production, and internal collaboration between protein and gene synthesis, our protein business line has achieved a 30% year-over-year revenue growth. The percentage of monthly gene items dedicated for protein segments has also increased by approximately 9% since the beginning of this year. We believe this growth momentum in the protein business to continue, and we will continue to leverage cross-portfolio capabilities to unlock higher customer value in the future. Next page. Turning to life science capacity expansion, we provide top-tier capacity for our global clients. In the first half, our focus is on improving our U.S. and Singapore sites. At our New Jersey site, we have shortened automated gene synthesis delivery time by over 25%. Revenue from the New Jersey site has seen a 30% year-over-year growth, and our site utilization rate continues to improve.
In Seattle, both mRNA and gene synthesis services have grown over 100% in terms of revenue. At our Singapore site, we successfully launched our automated gene service, and we are able to provide 8 business days gene-to-protein services at this site. All those result in a revenue increase of over 100%. As shown on our slide, we are now in phase III of our modular capacity expansion approach from 2024 to 2026. Our focus will be on strengthening our global production capabilities to address customer needs in different markets. Slide 9. Turning to ProBio, our biologics CDMO segment, we have further enhanced our capabilities in both the protein and antibody drug and cell and gene therapy platforms. Starting with discovery, we have upgraded the single B-cell antibody discovery platform, leveraging our proprietary cross-species expression platform to deliver functional antibody leads in just 1 month.
We have also upgraded our developability assessment offerings to deliver high-quality candidates to the CDMO business. In terms of the development and manufacturing platform, we launched the PowerCHO media system. This system is ProBio's proprietary medium system designed for ProBio cell line CHOK1 GenS and has been proven to significantly optimize productivity and product quality in fed-batch, intensified fed-batch, and perfusion processes. We have also further enhanced our antibodies average titer, which now stands at 6 grams per liter, with a maximum titer of 15 grams per liter. This will further help our customers to reduce future drug manufacturing costs. Additionally, we have shortened cell line development turnaround time to an industry-leading 10 weeks, facilitating customer project development time. Turning to plasmids, we have continued to enhance our turnaround time and improve our titer for plasmid manufacturing.
We launched the protein cell-free linearized DNA technology, and with the help of this platform, ProBio can accelerate various customer projects. We are now also able to offer a 4-month FDA-rated R&D CMC service, and our crude titer for plasmid is now around 2 grams per liter. For our viral vector line, we are now able to deliver AAV CMC projects with 200-liter GMP manufacturing capacity. Additionally, we have opened a commercial GMP viral vector facility in China and launched PC, PV, PPQ, and GMP manufacturing services. Turning to slide 10. For the biotech and the CDMO industry, we believe there are emerging signs of positive turnarounds. We have observed that our cell orders are gaining renewed momentum, and our short-cycle discovery business has outperformed the rest of the portfolio, indicating a healthy recovery trend for the business.
In terms of our track record, we secured 13 CMC projects in protein and antibody drugs, and about 40% is ex-China projects. We gained 24 CMC projects in CGT. In terms of R&D approvals, ProBio helped our customers earn three new R&D approvals in protein and antibody drugs and 16 new R&D approvals in CGT. We received our first 2,000-liter CMO order in the first half, which marks a significant milestone for our CDMO business. The experience we gained from this project will enhance our commercial manufacturing capabilities and strengthen our commercial quality systems, paving the way for us to become a more competitive global CDMO. Next page. In terms of ProBio's capacity, we launched a commercial biologic manufacturing facility in April. ProBio also expanded its plasmid DNA and viral vector production capabilities in New Jersey.
We acquired the Hopewell site, which now features a complete process development and manufacturing team focused on CGT CDMO. This cutting-edge facility will serve as a hub for our North American operations. We are seeing an increase in inbound customer interest for the services we plan to deliver from this site. Next page. Moving to our industrial synthetic biology product segment, Bestzyme. With an over 40% top-line increase, Bestzyme's growth significantly outpaces that of other companies in the market. By collaborating with local distributors and international partners, we have been able to accelerate our international expansion. Compared to last year, our ex-China revenue increased by about 60%, and the ex-China revenue now accounts for about 21% of our total revenue. We are also strengthening our IP position by securing more patents. Two of our core products, Thermostable Phytase and Laundry Protease, have been recently granted patents.
Additionally, we are enhancing our internal capabilities in IP protection and regulatory compliance. We are committed to providing our customers with high-quality products with integrity and our long track record of R&D investment supports that commitment. We also expanded our product portfolio by launching products with new features and upgraded microorganism strength to increase production efficiency. The next stage for Bestzyme, we will focus on R&D. We are also expanding our R&D staff for Bestzyme, and the R&D focus will be on synthetic enzyme business. Turning to slide 13. As for our synthetic biology pipeline updates, we are focusing on regulatory approval and pilot production for natural sweet protein and lactoferrin. For natural sweet protein, we have completed industrial-scale trial production. We have obtained self-affirmed GRAS status and submitted a GRAS notice to the U.S. FDA. We launched our natural sweet protein in the U.S. market last month.
Regarding Lactoferrin, we are collaborating with universities and clients on functional studies. In 2024, we aim to set growth certification and initiate industrial-grade trial production. We plan to commercially launch this product candidate in the U.S. in 2025. Bestzyme has established a solid position in the enzyme market, and our future growth will be driven by both organic growth in enzymes and breakthrough in synthetic biology products. Slide 14. Turning to our cell therapy segment, our leading product, Carvykti, outperformed historical CAR-T launch, setting a new standard for CAR-T launch. In the first half, Legend achieved net revenues of $343 million on Carvykti. In terms of ongoing clinical trials, we captured five enrollments in July and announced positive overall survival results in the second interim analysis of the CARTITUDE-4 trial. We also launched Carvykti in early lines of therapy study from the second quarter of 2024.
Turning to manufacturing, Legend initiated clinical production at the Novartis facility in July 2024 and made meaningful progress on the Raritan site expansion, with expected approval of the new Raritan section in the second half of 2025. We continue to advance early-stage pipeline candidates across hematological and solid tumor indications. We broke ground on a new state-of-the-art research center in Philadelphia and began preclinical development in the autoimmune field. Legend has a solid financial position to fund sustainable growth. By the end of the first half, Legend had a cash position of $1.3 billion, and its revenue continues to grow at a fast pace. With this cash position and revenue growth, Legend could fund operating and capital expenditures into 2026, when Legend anticipates achieving an operating profit.
Importantly, we continue to see growth in patient demand, and we are reiterating our expectation for pronounced growth for Carvykti in the second half of the year as we continue to add more slots and expand our capacity. Slide 15. The U.S. and EU markets contributed the majority of the net trade sales of Carvykti. Therefore, addressing market demand in this region plays a critical role in Carvykti's future sales growth. In Europe, we have started the clinical production of cilta-cel in Ghent. In the U.S., we initiated clinical production at the Novartis facility in July 2024, and we signed a commercial CMO agreement with Novartis during the first quarter of 2024. We also received FDA and EMA approval to expand the lentivirus capacity from 20 liters to 50-liter batch size, more than doubling our capacity. Next page.
Turning to our pipeline, I'm pleased to share that we recently completed CARTITUDE-5 enrollment. As you might recall, this randomized phase III study evaluates patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma for whom stem cell transplant is not planned as initial therapy. If we were to receive approvals based on CARTITUDE-5 and CARTITUDE-6, it would translate into an additional 52,000 patients annually. That concludes the update on business highlights. Next, I would like to invite Shiniu to share the company's financials.
Thank you, Sherry. Next, I will share the financial results. For those of you following us on webcast, please turn to page 18 of the slide deck. Overall, GenScript delivered solid top and bottom-line results in the first half of 2024. The group's revenue increased by 43.5% year over year to about $561.4 million. Adjusted net loss of the group was significantly narrowed to about $69 million.
The life science group achieved external revenue of $217.7 million, maintaining a healthy growth rate of 9.5%. Due to the headwind in biotech funding environment, external revenue of ProBio declined to $37.1 million. Bestzyme made great progress in the first half, beating our internal estimate by about 10 points. Its first-half external revenue grew about 44% to $26.1 million. Driven by continued capacity expansion, manufacturing efficiencies, and strong demand of Carvykti, Legend achieved a strong 156% year-over-year revenue growth. In the meanwhile, life science group's improved profitability with adjusted operating profit increased by about 24% to $47.8 million. ProBio had an adjusted operating loss of about $18.9 million, and Bestzyme's adjusted operating profit was about $2.3 million. Last, Legend's adjusted net loss was narrowed to $119.4 million.
Turning to specific business units, for life science, despite geopolitical tensions we have observed, the life science group continued to maintain stable growth with improved profitability. External revenue was nearly $217.7 million, representing 9.5% growth. Among different service lines, the growth of protein business outperformed others and achieved a 30% year-over-year growth. The growth was mainly due to the enhanced synergy between gene synthesis and protein and antibody services, as well as our continued improvement in turnaround time and platform innovations. The adjusted gross profit for life science group increased by about 8.5% year-over-year to approximately $120 million. Our effort in automation, lean projects, and labor efficiency have resulted in an adjusted 54% gross profit margin. I'm also glad to report that the adjusted operating profit margin has continued its healthy growth trend over the last two years.
Thanks to our SG&A leverage, adjusted operating profit grew almost 24% year-over-year in this business. Turning to ProBio, external revenue decreased to about $37.1 million. As you may recall, the biotech funding environment was extremely difficult in the second half of last year, resulting in low order intake for ProBio. That translated into lower revenue in the first half of this year. As we are seeing a recovery in new orders for ProBio first half this year, we expect ProBio revenue to recover in the second half. The adjusted gross profit was about $5.9 million. The drop in gross profit was due to lower capacity utilization and price competition. The SG&A and R&D expense decreased mainly due to our lean management team optimization in Q4 2023, and we are also more focused on high-value-added R&D projects with more discipline. ProBio's Adjusted EBITDA was -$3.1 million.
With a cash position of over $194 million, ProBio has ample resources to carry out our business plan. As you may have noticed, we took a $37 million impairment of ProBio's long-term assets. This is based on our thorough evaluation of the market conditions and price trends, as well as our own cash flow forecast of the business. We also had a $113 million fair value loss from ProBio's preferred shares. Again, this is based on our assessment of the market condition. We now believe the preferred shares to be more like debt that has to be guaranteed by the group, other than just a part of ProBio's standalone enterprise value. While we believe it is prudent to do so to reflect the market condition and current business trend, we begin to observe signs of potential recovery. In the first half, we noticed new orders have regained its gross momentum.
We believe this trend will continue, and we remain optimistic about the second half. Turning to Bestzyme, external revenue was about $26.1 million, representing an accelerated 44.2% growth, which was above our internal expectation. Due to our continued execution of our key account strategy and our years of innovation in enzyme portfolio, Bestzyme successfully delivered industry-leading results. Revenue from the feed enzyme business grew about 42%, while the industrial enzyme portfolio grew about 39%. Both portfolios' top three leading products have seen healthy growth trends, and our key accounts continue to increase their purchases from Bestzyme overall. The adjusted gross profit increased by about 42% to $11 million. As we guided, we have seen a hand-in-hand increase in both revenue and profitability for ProBio's enzyme business. For Bestzyme's enzyme business, the adjusted operating profit rate has now hit 8.8%. Other expenses have also increased, but without significant impact to profitability.
Last but not least, turning to Legend, first half, Legend generated $280.3 million in external revenue, representing an increase of 156%, mainly due to the uptake of Carvykti, as well as milestone payments and revenue from collaborations. Expense-wise, the increase in research and development spending is mainly due to continuous R&D activities for CAR-T cell, including startup costs for clinical productions in Belgium and continued investment in solid tumor programs. Selling and distribution spending increased to $54.3 million to support commercial activities for CAR-T cell, including the expansion of the sales force and preparation for second-line indication launch. Administrative expense increased to $67.3 million due to expansion of administrative functions and infrastructure to increase manufacturing capacity. Legend has a solid balance sheet with cash position of approximately $1.3 billion. Legend is expected to fund operation and capital expenditures into 2026. Now, turning to our guidance on slide 24.
For life science business, we expect the full-year revenue growth to be between 10%-15% and gross profit margin to remain around 55% ±1%. We anticipate operating profit to grow faster than revenue. The reason for the adjustment in guidance is mainly to reflect the geopolitical impact on our business from June and March. In July, we noticed that the business has recovered a healthy growth trajectory. Due to industry headwinds and market conditions, ProBio's revenue for the full year 2024 is projected to experience a decline of 10%-15%. But we also noticed that the sales order is recovering, so we expect the second-half revenue to improve sequentially from the first-half level. For Bestzyme, due to Bestzyme's strong performance, we expect the revenue to have a 25%-35% growth, an increase versus previous guidance.
The gross profit margin to be around 40%. We anticipate adjusted operating profit margin to be close to 5%. For Legend, we expect initial commercial production at new Obelisc facility in second half 2024 and complete physical expansion of Raritan site by the end of 2024. Our long-term goal for facility expansion is to support production capacity of 10,000 annual doses by the year-end of 2025. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, let's open the line for questions.
Thank you. Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please ask two questions with one follow-up question per person. If you have more questions, please re-queue. Please stand by as we compile the Q&A roster. Just a moment for our first question, please.
Our first question comes from the line of Linhai from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Good morning.
Thanks for taking my question. This is Linhai from Goldman Sachs. I have two questions. The first one is about the updates on the briefing request by the Select Committee back in May. And can you share any updates on that and maybe elaborate what have we done on the mitigations? And to further on this topic, can you also comment on the potential changes of shareholding of Legend as part of the evolving geopolitical tension environment? Thanks for that.
Thank you, Linhai , for the questions. For your first question about the briefing request by the Select Committee, we'll have Sherry address that. And your second question about our shareholding in Legend, Robin, our chairman of the board, will address that.
Thank you, Linhai .
For the first question, our company has engaged external resources in legal, government affairs, and public relations. We have conducted extensive reviews together with our advisors on our company's operations, particularly supply chain and data protection. We do not believe we pose any concern to any country's national security. We have also reached out to U.S. administrative agencies to offer our facts. To date, we have not received any further requests from any administrative agencies asking for the information. We also have done extensive reviews of the proposed BIOSECURE Act. We do not believe we are a company of concern to the U.S. or any other countries. We will remain focused on delivering the fast, high-quality, and most cost-efficient solutions to our customers and patients to save lives and create positive social impacts. That's all.
Thank you, Sherry. Robin. Okay.
Sorry, I was muted.
Thanks for the question. We are very proud that we have successfully invested in Legend. And we do believe that Legend is a highly valuable asset because it has successfully developed the best-in-class product that has created significant patient benefits as well as promising growth and promising investment return as well. The board and management will always have the shareholders' best interests in mind and make the appropriate decision accordingly. So thanks for the question, and I hope that I have answered the part of this question.
Thank you, Robin. Thank you.
Just quickly as a follow-up on the first question, have we tried or have we considered any proactive mitigation strategies in terms of trying to increase our external communications in terms of lobbying and legal? It seems that based on what you have elaborated, we have engaged a lot of legal resources for internal reviews.
I'm just curious about if there's any external mitigation strategies that you might be willing to share?
Exactly. Yes. After the internal reviewing, just as I mentioned, we also offer our facts to the U.S. administrative agencies. And we also have the positive and timely and transparent communication with all the shareholders. And especially, we continue to communicate with our customers to let the customer understand the whole picture.
Got it. Thanks. Appreciate the time.
Thank you. Just a moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from Yang Huang from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks. This is Yang from J.P. Morgan. Can you hear me?
Yes. Yang, we can hear you clearly.
Thanks. I have two quick questions. First one is on top-line growth.
So in the first half this year, we saw kind of most top-line growth of the company come from cell therapy, which is Legend, where non-cell therapy business offered almost like no growth, mainly driven by our CDMO business. So can management talk about any plan to turn around of non-cell therapy business? And is there a timeline we can expect when we'll see growth again for non-cell therapy, especially for ProBio business?
Yang, thank you for the question. I will take this one. I think as you pointed out, if we peel the onion a little bit more, we can see within the non-cell therapy business, Life Science and Bestzyme both had very good growth, particularly for Bestzyme. We now expect this business to continue to compound and drive growth and value for our shareholders.
ProBio did offset the growth from other segments within non-cell therapy this first half. However, as we had explained, this was mainly due to poor order intake from second half last year. Now, we have observed a turnaround in new order trend first half this year, and we do expect meaningful sequential improvement in ProBio revenue in second half compared to first half this year. So overall, we think we have very bright prospects for all three of these non-cell therapy businesses, and we do expect 2025 non-cell therapy business to continue to grow.
Okay. Thanks. My second question is, can management remind us of the revenue and the cost synergy between cell therapy business and the non-cell therapy business? And given we see some pressure on non-cell therapy business, is there any plan that the company might start some new line of business different from existing ones?
So yes, that's my second question.
Okay. So again, I'll take this one. So speaking of the numbers, there's not much cross-selling between GenScript's non-cell therapy business and Legend at this moment. And we're intentionally making Legend operations more independent from the rest of GenScript in this environment for better safeguarding of all shareholder values. However, from the past experience of incubating Legend, we do have a lot of know-hows and expertise, and we are leveraging those to service a lot of our other cell and gene therapy customers, especially for Life Science and ProBio businesses. And as I mentioned earlier, we see very bright prospects for all three of our existing non-cell therapy businesses. Therefore, we do not intend to start any meaningfully different business segments within non-cell therapy at this moment. Each one of our existing businesses has tremendous potential and huge markets.
It is up to us to become more competitive and take share in these markets, and thus creating shareholder value.
Thank you. Got it. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Just a moment for our next question, please. Next question comes from Daisy Chen from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thanks, management, for taking my question. I have two questions here. The first one is, for the industrial synthetic segments, revenue was up over 40%. Do you see that trend going to the second half 2024 and even the next year? For the second question is regarding the ProBio segments. Segment's gross profit margin dropped nearly 19 percentage points to 5% for non-adjusted scope. Can we just explain more what's the driver behind and what's the pricing trend of the CDMO segments in last year?
Thank you. Daisy, you're breaking up a little bit, but I think I got your questions.
So first question with regard to Bestzyme's performance. We'll have Dr. Aixi Bai to take that.
Okay. Thank you, Daisy. So I think there are three main reasons for the growth of Bestzyme in the first half of the year. So the first reason is we focus on our key account strategy. So we have invested in more resources and technical services to our key accounts, and this resulted in 48% increase in revenue growth for our top 10 customers. And the second reason is to invest in more sales and marketing expenses into the international market since last year, and resulting in a growth rate of over 60% for our international business. So the first reason is that the base was relatively small in the first half over last year.
So in the second half of the year, we will continue with our strategy and expect the 25%-35% growth rate. Thank you, Daisy.
And your second question on ProBio's performance, we have Dr. Li Chen.
Thanks, Shiniu. Hi, Daisy. Thank you for your question. In terms of ProBio CDMO gross profit margin question, the gross profit margin dropped mainly due to the price erosion and also the low capacity utilization. We also write down contract costs associated with projects that customers won't pursue them anymore due to whichever reason, including the lack of funding. With the first order of our 2,000 liters in execution mode, and we are working on more 2,000 liters orders in the forthcoming second half of 2024, we expect that the gross profit margin in the second half, 2024 and 2025, will be similar as the first half of 2024.
We do forecast our revenue will exceed that of first half, as Shiniu commented earlier. However, with the new capacity in place, including 2,000-liter viral vector commercial production and also the US GMP facility in operation and to be in operation, the depreciation and operating costs will also put pressure to our overall gross profit. Having said that, we have a strong focus on the market outside of China, building a strong commercial team in the U.S., building the manufacturing footprint in the U.S., and especially in viral vectors to serve customers in cell and gene therapy segments globally. So that is our overall projection about ProBio.
Thank you, .Aixi and Li.
Just a moment for our next question, please. Next, we have Yuhang Wu from CICC. Please go ahead. Okay.
Thanks for taking my questions. I have two.
The first one is, what's the demand and order situation of Life Science and CDMO overseas customers? And what's the impact of geopolitical concerns? And what strategies does the company have to alleviate customers' concerns and cope with possible future changes? That's my first question. And for the second, for cell therapy, Novartis plants have started production in July, and the PPQ plans will be approved in the second half of 2025. And how much production capacity will be released for each of them? And looking forward to the future, how do we expect the pace of capacity release? Thank you so much. Okay.
Thank you, Yuhang Wu. For your first question, we'll have Sherry addressing that.
Thank you, Yuhang Wu. Yes, regarding your first question, we definitely saw a drop in June, particularly for U.S. markets.
As I mentioned, it took time and effort to clarify the issue with our customers. Now that the misunderstanding is clear, we are seeing stronger growth momentum in July. We can see a quick recovery of the growth momentum for Life Science in July. Similarly, in ProBio, a few orders slipped for a month or two, but we are closing them now. We have the confidence the stronger momentum will continue.
Thank you, Sherry. Yuhang Wu, for your second question about Novartis production contribution, our agreement with Novartis actually prohibits us from disclosing the exact capacity and contribution. It's unfortunate that we cannot share the number with you. However, both Novartis plant, as well as Raritan expansion, as well as our Belgium facilities, are integral parts of our plan to achieve the 10,000 doses annual capacity by year-end 2025.
We are very confident that this is a very solid plan, and we are executing against that, and we will be able to deliver that capacity by year-end 2025. I think that's all we can say at this moment. We did share in our slide deck a timeline for each facility to come online, and you can also take a look at that.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. Just a moment for our next question, please. Next, we have Wilfred Yuen from Daiwa. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. Just got some quick ones on Life Science. Can you give us more color on the profitability improvement in the first half? I saw the segment administration cost down 19%. What is the driver?
Second is, on various production sites in China, Singapore, and the U.S., can you give us some updates on their status in terms of the utilization and profit margin? And lastly, on the segment top line, we revise our full-year top line guidance from 15%-20% to 10%-15% growth. You also mentioned about the impact from the BioSecure. So just can you give us more color on the impact? Thanks.
Thank you. For this question, we'll have Dr. Rui Chen to take that.
Sure. Thank you for your question. First is about the profitability. And the driver for us to improve our profit is due to our long-term investment in terms of our platform improvement, not only from automation, the management, but also from the innovations of the platform itself. And also that we reduced quite significantly for our administrative cost. And that makes our profitability even better.
This is our commitment for long-term as well to improve the profitability. The second question is about the production site status globally. We have been effectively expanding our capable gap capacities around the globe and fulfilling them based on the global demand in a localized way. I think at the beginning, we introduced a little bit about the productivity improvement and the fulfillment improvement in our Singapore site, as well as the New Jersey site, as well as Seattle site as well. In the future, we will keep expanding our global capacities in such an effective way. Your third question is about the color of the top line guidance revision. Yes. As Sherry just mentioned, we had a little explanation work to do in the past several months. It took some time and effort to clarify the issues to our customers externally.
With the misunderstanding clearer and clearer, we start seeing things back to normal. For the first half of the year, I wanted to update with everyone that we have been increasing our customer numbers that we served, which means received our products and services with 5% increase for the first half of the year. So again, it's our commitment into the markets that we will deliver more reagents and the tools to life science researchers in a better, quicker, easier, and more affordable, and more accessible way. And thank you for your question.
Thank you, Ray. And just to add a little bit more color in terms of the SG&A leverage. As you may recall, last year's first half, we were in preparation to start up our life science building in Zhenjiang. A lot of the associated costs went into SG&A.
This year, as that building is in production, we are absorbing that cost in our cost of goods sold. We have good leverage in the production side. Therefore, we did not see meaningful impact to our gross margin. There's a reduction in G&A as well. So thank you for the question.
Thank you. This concludes the Q&A session. I see no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to our CEO, Sherry.
Thank you, Maggie. Thanks to everyone for your questions and your interest in our company. We apologize to those that we couldn't get to because of time, but don't hesitate to reach out to the investor relations team with any remaining questions you may have. We will see you on our next call. Thanks.