Recording in progress.
Back to your results call of Bachem. A few housekeeping rules: before we kick it off, we will have time for questions at the end of the presentation. We aim to wrap this up within about an hour. You can use the Q&A section of Zoom anytime and write questions there. And, of course, you can also use the raise-your-hand function during Q&A time. We'll take your question then verbally. This call is being recorded, and we want to put the playback on Bachem.com as soon as possible following this call. With me today here in this call are Thomas Meier, the CEO of Bachem, and the CFO, Alain Schaffter. My name is Daniel Grotzky, and I will be moderating this session. Thomas will take us through the half-year results of 2024, and then Alain will provide the financial review perspective.
Then Thomas will take over again and speak to the future outlook, and then we will jump into Q&A. With that, I am very happy to hand over to Thomas Meier, CEO of Bachem.
Thank you, Daniel, and a very warm good afternoon to everyone here from Bubendorf. Thanks for joining. It must indeed be a very busy day for you, and I promise to be short. We at Bachem are focused on developing and manufacturing oligonucleotides and peptides, drug substances for pharma and biotechnology companies. As such, we are on a long-term growth and innovation journey. Ultimately, as you know, we are always focused on the numbers set for the full year. And within this context, we could deliver solid results in the first half of 2024. It starts with the top line: sales of CHF 240.3 million, pretty much flat in Swiss francs and 1.3% in local currencies. An increase in EBITDA to CHF 55.5 million, a plus of 5.6% in Swiss francs and 8.7% in local currencies. This brought us to an EBITDA margin of 23.1%.
We invested in the first half year for expansion, the amount CHF 143.9 million. That's a sign for the belief in our future of Bachem, of the company, but also of our customers who helped us with the operating cash flow that came in at CHF 88.4 million. Today, over 2,000 colleagues work every day to make the best peptide and oligonucleotide team of this world. If we look at the product categories, we see that research and specialties came in at CHF 22.8 million, CMC development came in at CHF 90.3 million, and commercial API at CHF 127.3 million. Taking a closer look at those product categories, we see the commercial API sales were lower in the first half year of 2024 compared to the first half of last year. The main reason was lower demand for non-peptides, commercial oligonucleotides, and small molecules. Peptides are a growing modality.
The CMC product development product category includes projects in clinical phase and showed a very strong growth of over 18% in the first half of this year. The growth was mainly driven by late-stage assets. Research and specialties, which had a lower last year, rebound thanks to catalog sales, particularly of starting materials. If we look within the context of long-term growth, you can see the dynamic we have each year of a strong second half year. From this perspective, the first half year is very much as expected for us, and we are now focused on delivering for the second half of the year. With that, I'll pass it over to Alain, who gives us a deeper look into the financials.
Good afternoon also from my side. Let's have a look at the key figures on the next page for the first half of 2024. Thomas already mentioned some of them. I also would like to highlight the net income, where we also had an increase of 5% in Swiss francs compared to the first half of last year. Let's have a look at the EBITDA margin in detail with the next page on a waterfall diagram. What were the main drivers? We start with the margin in the first half of 2023 with 21.9%. We have a positive impact from the overall COGS, which is an outcome of better cost awareness, but also a more favorable product mix in the first half of 2024. Marketing and sales, we kept stable the cost overall. We see a small impact, a positive impact on the margin in the first half.
The R&D, we spent more money again this year on our first half year, as we already communicated in the past. It's very important. We invest there in technology. We invest in more efficient processes, automation, and so on. This is very, very important for the future of the company. The growth of the company, we also see in the Q&A part. We invest also there. We have some new positions in the company, and this will also be aligned with the growth of the company also in the future. We see dilution of the margin by 20 pips. All this together, we end up with a margin of 23.1% in the first half of 2024. Looking to the cash flow, the cash flow, the operating cash flow ended up with CHF 88.4 million. What were the drivers for this?
Let me start with one bar that is not here. We spent about CHF 7 million more for income taxes. That has a result on the operating cash flow before the change in working capital, which was CHF 39.9 million. From there on, we reduced the accounts receivable by CHF 43.5 million in the first half of the year, but we also had a slight increase in other receivables and also in other accruals. In the inventory, we have an increase of CHF 59.3 million. And this is very important for the future to have the material on stock to deliver the quality and on time to our customers.
On the change in payables and accruals, this is mainly driven by prepayments from customers, but also CHF 12 million is coming from a higher balance by the end of June for trade payables. All this ended up with CHF 88.4 million. This includes a net inflow of prepayments from customers of CHF 50.8 million in the first half year.
And this, as Thomas also mentioned, is very important, and it shows the commitment also from customers to support in our CapEx projects. We have spent this operating cash flow on one hand on the CapEx, which was CHF 154.9 million as a cash out. And to cover this, we had also sold securities in the amount of CHF 29.2 million in the first half. The financing cash flow was driven by the dividend, which was paid out in April 2024 related to the financial year 2023. This all ended up in a negative cash flow of CHF 95 million for the first half. Looking at the balance sheet, we see here the reduction in working capital. We have cash and securities in the amount of CHF 173 million by the end of June.
This is a reduction of CHF 125 million in the first half year, as shown in the cash flow slide before. On the net working capital, this is also a decrease by CHF 43 million, 23, sorry, CHF 23 million. This is mainly driven by the account receivable, as mentioned, but also offset on the other hand with a higher inventory balance at the end of June. At the end of June, we still don't have external loans in our book, so we are debt-free. We have an equity, which is around CHF 1.3 billion, and this is equal to a roughly 76% equity ratio.
Talking about the investments where we have spent money, on the next slide, we see the CapEx. We spent 100, or we invested CHF 143.9 million in the first half. This is roughly 60% of our sales. It shows that we invest globally at all sites. 131 million of this 144 is invested in capacity, be it buildings or equipment. With that picture on the future, I'd like to give back to Thomas, who goes to the outlook.
Thank you, Alain. I'm not going to tell you anything new when I state that the market for peptides and oligonucleotides is indeed very promising. From the bird's-eye perspective, we have a drug modality that was niche and that is increasingly becoming mainstream and coming into its own next to the small molecules on one side and to biologics on the other end of the spectrum. Currently, there are 88 approved medicines on the market and a very rich industry pipeline. And no doubt the GLP-1, GLP-GIP drugs used in very large indications like diabetes and obesity have put peptides into the spotlight. And I'm convinced they're going to remain there. In addition, the increasing molecular complexity of those molecules is also leading to advantages for synthetic manufacturing over recombinant methods. In addition, oligonucleotides.
Oligonucleotides are still at an earlier stage of their development, but the pipeline is equally exciting, and we see over the medium to long term the potential for larger volumes. If we look at the markets, we see those dynamics also driving the competitive environment. We estimate the market annual growth rate for peptides of above 10% per year. Of course, it's always difficult to assess market share since not all players are listed. We believe that Bachem still retains a leading position, while we see the competition is not sleeping, especially for large-scale manufacturing. Looking closer at the market dynamics on that slide, how do we see it? In short term, it's absolutely clear that the focus in the market is on capacity. This is something that we can also attract. This is something that can also attract new entrants.
For Bachem, it means we absolutely must execute on the large-scale projects. We have and we focus on operational excellence, that we have a higher efficiency in producing our molecules. But there is also a long-term perspective, and this is very important for Bachem. We believe that the need for more peptides and over time also for oligonucleotides will not be solved by just building new buildings and equipment alone. The industry needs process innovation to increase yields, to use less solvents, and ultimately to comply with tougher regulation. We are working on it, and we need to make the chemistry greener and reduce all the materials that go into the synthesis and the purification. And also, depending on the long-term trajectory of the geopolitics, there's a potential for nearshoring. Shortening the supply chain is a term I hear very often.
Customers are interested to keep supply chains close at home and to have short distance and easy communication. We believe that Bachem has great strength, and we want to keep those. We are probably the world's leading tights expert team. We have a very strong track record for innovation, process technology, and to improve overall manufacturing efficiency. We want to remain a strong but well-selected pipeline going forward. Now on to the capacity expansion. This is key for the future for the next couple of years. We are investing across the global network at Bachem, but two projects are especially close to my heart and very essential for the company. One is our Building K facility in Bubendorf. On May 27, 2024, an exhaust pipe that was not yet in operation burst on the construction site. Nobody got seriously injured, and the damage to the building was localized.
After the incident, access to the construction site was reallowed swiftly. Now we are in the commissioning phase for this building. Commissioning and qualification work has begun. We now expect that gradually we will ramp up operations in the facility in the first half of 2025. Obviously, in such a complex project, not everything can be predicted exactly. The second expansion project is looking beyond Building K, and it's dubbed by us by the name where it's located, that's Sisslerfeld. It's a designated greenfield manufacturing site about 30 minutes from Bubendorf. The interest in large-scale manufacturing in the market is very strong, and there's the potential to build the site or parts of it in the context of further strategic partnerships with customers. We now acquire the third piece of land to continue to envision a startup of that facility at the end of this decade.
As mentioned before, we believe that capacity expansion by facility alone will not solve the industry's constraints. Innovation is needed in the long term, and Bachem is the leader on this frontier. Collaboration with startups and established players plays a key role for our company. We are the first movers in large-scale continuous chromatography, and we see the advantages, the greener processes we can develop based on that technology. This innovation can be used for peptides and oligonucleotides. That's the kind of synergy we want to use in the future, and we see playing out not just in continuous chromatography, but in other angles of the chemistry or technology that can be applied to peptides or oligonucleotides. We think that the innovation piece is currently not as much on the people's radar screen, and this is certainly a place to watch.
With that, we come to the full-year guidance that is unchanged. We see sales, mid-high single-digit growth in local currencies, and a stable EBITDA margin compared to prior year in local currencies. Our targets for 2026 remain unchanged, yet ambitious. We want to achieve over CHF 1 billion revenue and a profitability above 30%. With that, we are in the question and answer session, and I'm looking to Daniel.
Yeah, thank you very much, Thomas. So I am having a look. We have a couple of people who have raised their hand here. I'm trying to see where they are. Why can I? So I see a number of raised hands, but where are they? Otherwise, we quickly check the Q&A if there's something there that we can start off with. So let's take a question from the Q&A. We have one from Vineet from Citi. Question is, can you update us in terms of the revenue potential of Building K given? And then I guess the second question sounds like a second question. Given the Biosecure backdrop, are you seeing any change in customer behavior as WuXi holds about 20% of the market share?
Trust that I got it right. The first question was whether what's the.
Revenue potential of Building K.
Revenue potential of Building K. I think we stated that several times we see the same potential for Building K as we currently have around sales last year. But of course, that depends on the specific projects we have in there at the time. The second one was the Biosecure Act in the U.S. As I mentioned, shortening the supply chain is something people talk about very frequently, and we certainly see a potential there that we would like to harness in some ways.
Thank you very much. Now, I see we got the raised hands here. I was.
Oh, wonderful.
I was too far down on my list. There are so many participants. We have almost 90 people here. So let's take the first question from Barbora Blaha from UBS if we can unmute Barbora. And you'll also have to make sure that you are unmuted yourself on your own device. See if this works.
Okay.
There we go.
Hi everyone. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay. Thanks for taking my question. I have more questions about the opening of the Building K. Can you be a bit more specific how long it takes from the qualification and commissioning to really start producing the test batches that can be sold and where you stand now there in this process of qualification? And then how many lines are you building there? And how many lines will be ready by the end of this year, actually? Yeah. This is my first questions on Building K, and then some questions on small molecules business. Could you please quantify this business? Is this more like CHF 70 million or less or more? And is the biggest part of this propofol? Thank you.
Thank you, Barbora. That's quite a bit to unpack here. Let's start with Building K. I like to start this on a little bit of a high level. I think it's important to realize that expansion projects and new construction of production capacity for oligonucleotides and peptides is by no means a trivial matter. Projects of this kind require high knowledge in different disciplines and are complex. For example, you need the technical knowledge, you need the regulatory knowledge, and you need to fulfill highest compliance for safety and quality. Putting all this together, not everything can be predicted exactly. But one thing is clear. We are working very deliberately to get this building started up as quickly as ever possible. We are now in the commissioning phase, and we will gradually ramp it up in the first half of 2025.
And I think that's where we stand, and we're going to work that this is really what's happening going forward. Then there was a follow-on question on the small molecules. We have never broken that out, and we want to keep it that way. It's included in our forecast that we give to the market, and we foresee to give the first indication earliest in the full year 2024 call. That's in February 2025. We can give you most likely an outlook for 2025.
All right. I'm seeing a hand raised by Charles Pitman-King. If we can have your Charles.
Hi. Can you hear me?
Yes. Yes. Loud and clear.
Thank you so much for my questions. So maybe just for the first one, I was wondering if you could give us a bit more detail on the kind of expected volatility of kind of commercial API recorded sales over the years. To what degree is there any seasonal effect between 1H 2024, given the expected guidance hasn't changed for this year? And to what degree is a lower commercial API mix reflected in your current FY 2024 margin? And then just a second question on CapEx. I was wondering if you could just reconfirm you're expecting FY 2023 CapEx to come in roughly 15% higher than FY 2023. And to what extent do you believe customer prepayments are going to be needed to continue to fund this expansion? Thank you.
Well, thank you, Charles. I'll take the first part of the question. Now we just lost me.
It was expected volatility of commercial API.
Oh, the volatility. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Daniel. I think, as I mentioned in the presentation, we have seen the first half of 2024 pretty much in line with our expectation. We have seen over the last couple of years that the second half was stronger. In that respect, the volatility was pretty much in what we have seen in the past or have expected. So no surprises there. While the business will be growing, we will see. But I think then we have a stronger base business, and volatility between the half years might change slightly, but we will see. The second part was on CapEx, and I passed that on to Alain.
Thank you, Thomas. So on the CapEx, we said roughly 15% more than in the 2023 numbers. I would now maybe go more to 20%. We see that we sometimes have to go faster, and it all depends also when invoices come in. So I would now roughly be more around the 20% compared to the 2023 numbers than with the lower end of 15. And the second one, I was not sure it was about the prepayments of the customers.
Yeah.
Yeah, but exactly what, Charles? Can you please repeat the third question you had on the prepayments?
Yeah. So sorry, my question was just more around kind of to what extent can you guide us that you are expecting to continue to rely on customer prepayments to fund your expansion? Thank you.
Thank you. So you will also see in the second half, most likely prepayments from customers. So we still have contracts there where we should receive prepayments. And we are also, of course, negotiating in every potential contract, potential customer prepayments. It's still available on the market. It's negotiations, but we are confident that we can get also financial participation from our customers in the future.
All right. Then I see Laura Pfeiffer has both raised her hand and written to us in the chat. So maybe let's take Laura on the phone, and then we can also reiterate anything that might be in the Q&A.
Sure. Hello. Good afternoon. So thanks for taking my question. So the first one is actually, I think, rather kind of a clarification on the question. I think Oscar and Barbora are on the gradual ramp-up of the facility that you plan for H1 2025. So is it fair to assume that you only will start production in 2025, or does it mean you will just ramp it up then to a more significant degree? And in other words, maybe I also want to understand when we can expect the first revenues from Building K to be booked.
And then the second question is on the pipeline. Maybe you could comment a little bit on how the pipeline evolved during H1. I think the last time in March, you mentioned 14 projects in phase three. So how is that progressing? And also, should we expect a new contract announcement? Thank you.
Thank you, Laura. Good questions. The first one again on Building K, and maybe I'll try again. So there is high complexity in this project, and it's really hard to predict everything exactly. But we are working there to get it commissioned, and we will start producing with chemistry as quickly as ever possible. And we will have that ramped up in the second half, in the first half, sorry, in the first half of 2025. And I think that's what I can say. And then there was a question on the pipeline. I remember the pipeline. We give you the data on the pipeline always in the call for the full year, if I'm not mistaken. And right now, I don't have an accurate count on the pipeline, and I missed one in between on revenue.
There was a question when we could expect first revenues from Building K.
Oh, yeah, revenues. As I mentioned, we will give you a forecast for 2025 on revenue, most likely in the full year call in February. We reiterated that we stand to our guidance for 2024.
I think there was one more question around, is there a new contract announcement coming?
Yes. We are, of course, talking to many customers at all times, and we cannot comment and, quite frankly, don't want to while negotiations are ongoing.
So next question is from Sibylle Bischofberger. Who has her hand raised? See if the unmute works. Sibylle? You're on mute. You were unmuted, and then you're on mute again.
Thank you very much for taking my question. I have also a question about CapEx. It seems that in the second half, you will have much higher CapEx to be invested. Is the reason the timing of the building? And second question about the CapEx. I mean, your cash position is shrinking. How are you going to finance that in the second half, and especially more in 2025? And does it also mean that we have to increase now depreciation from semester to semester? This is my first question. And the second question would be about oligos. So the trend is still negative with low demand. Could you give us any color about the trends you are going to expect in the second half and then also in next year, please? Thank you very much.
So I can start with the CapEx. Thank you for the question, Sibyl. Yes, there is, when you calculate, there is a higher CapEx in the second half. That's partial also, as I mentioned, with invoice. Some companies invoice by the end of the year. And we sometimes have different plans during the year. There are different CapEx committees during the year. And then it can happen that we decide maybe differently than what we have decided in March. So that's a moving target, if you want to say so. And then how do we finance that? Yes, you're right. The free cash flow is in the negative, and it will stay in the negative. We have our own operating cash that we earn by our business model. We get, as a second source, we try to have the prepayments from our customers.
Could be CapEx investments, but also contribution to the working capital as a prepayment. And then the third option would be external financing, like a bank loan or a bond or whatever is possible on the market. That are the options. In that order, we try to get the money that we need for our CapEx programs in the future. And then maybe Thomas back.
Yeah, I'll take the oligos. Thank you, Sibylle. I like to talk about the oligos. I think the oligo space is a great space. And maybe there's so much limelight on the peptides that we sometimes forget that there's a very nice dynamic in there. We reported lower commercial sales. That's correct. That's kind of like one program. We see good development in the development space, especially for siRNAs and antisense oligonucleotides. We still believe in a very bright future going forward.
All right. Let's now hear from Charles Weston. Charles Weston from RBC.
Hello. Thanks for taking the questions. Just wanted to clarify something again, please, Thomas. You said ramp-up Building K during H1. And then I think you said actually ramped up during H1. So should we expect a fairly full capacity utilization as early as H2, 2025, or certainly into 2026? And then also on Building K, it seems that perhaps things have been pushed a little bit to the right in terms of the timing due to the complexity of that program. But presumably, the moment you open it for commercial production, we start getting all the costs expensed rather than capitalized. So should we be thinking about nudging our EBITDA margins down for next year and then perhaps leaving them for 2026 when you hit that full utilization just because of the timing of the revenues and the costs?
I have a couple more, but I'll leave it there for the moment.
All right. Thank you, Charles. One more time on Building K, and thank you for asking. I wanted to say that we have a gradual ramp-up in 2025. I mentioned that earlier in calls that we will have manufacturing work ongoing in some parts of the building where we still are in construction commissioning phases in other parts of the building. That's how it is. For the EBITDA, I feel Alain is much more competent.
Yeah. Yeah, on the capitalized expenses, you're right. Of course, there is, as soon as this building is up and running, there are freed up some people in our organization. But we have Sisslerfeld, so these people will then work on other projects and will not just stay on our P&L and have nothing to do. I'm not worried about that. And I just realized that Sibylle had another question, depreciation. It's somehow similar to that. And I didn't answer it. Yes, we have higher depreciation this year or end of last year. We started to move in the Building U, which is the office buildings. That has an impact. And the real impact from higher depreciation in the Building K will only happen as soon as this building goes online and start to produce. Then also the depreciation will start.
But yes, of course, in the future, it will be higher depreciation, but also higher sales at the same time.
Thank you. Could I squeeze in one more, please? Just as a higher level question, please. People have talked about oral GLP development programs, but that these might require several hundred times the amount of peptide per dose. Could you perhaps discuss whether that's an approximately right multiple? And also what you might be able to do from an innovation perspective to be able to make such a large amount in an efficient way?
Thank you, Charles. I think you're correct. Those are the numbers for the formulation I have been looking into. Typically, people tell me below a percentage of bioavailability. I said that we continue to innovate how peptides are manufactured. But yeah, ultimately, you probably need to get 100 times cheaper, and that's a real challenge. So far, for Rybelsus, this is recombinantly manufactured. That's all I can say.
Okay. I see Sibylle Bischofberger also has her hand raised, but I also see Daniel Jelovcan. We still have a good amount of time. Maybe let's take Daniel Jelovcan for next round of questions, and then we'll see if anyone else still has any. Daniel Jelovcan.
You hear me?
Yes, we do.
Yep. Great. So the first question would be in your CMC development business, and you talked about primarily late-stage projects, which were the key driver. Do you talk about peptides mainly or also oligonucleotides? That's the first question. I have another one later.
Yeah. In the first half year of 2025, we were mainly excited about peptide projects, but yeah.
2024.
Oh, 2024. Thank you.
You're ahead of the curve.
I don't think that's possible.
Okay. Then the second question is actually, I mean, the guidance 2024, which is not new, but it implies at least 10% or even 15% sales growth in the second half. And so that means sequentially at least CHF 100 million more. And it also means a significant amount more than in the second half, 2023. And I remember in the second half, 2023, you said you were already running at a very, very high capacity. So I kind of struggle a bit how that's possible technically because Building K is not yet up and running. Yeah.
Cool.
Thank you, Daniel. I mentioned a few bits and pieces why we believe this is possible. 1 is operational excellence. It's longer working hours, and we also took some additional capacity into play in 2020. I need to get the numbers right. 3, I would say. That is now fully running and on stream.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. And maybe I can add here, we also increased the stock that we have the material to sell in the second half. That also helps. It's not the capacity needed there. It's already on stock. We just have to sell it.
Okay. Yep. Thanks.
But you're right. It doesn't come for free. It's hard work that everybody puts in. There's over 2,000 associates that are working for Bachem. We are all very grateful for them.
So I see some raised hands, I guess, a re-raised hand, Charles Weston and Sibylle Bischofberger and Barbora Blaha. So maybe let's go to Charles Weston for another round of questions.
Thank you very much. Just on the inventories, which you just touched on actually a couple of times, would that be a combination of inventories of sort of finished goods waiting to be sold, but also in anticipation of the additional work that you need to do in the second half and, I guess, first half next year with Building K? And was that also the reason for some of the step-up in prepayments to pay for those higher raw materials?
Yes. I mentioned some support for working capital with this what we receive as prepayments from customers. That is exactly to buy sometimes expensive raw materials to produce now or in the future. It's a lot of money we receive there. You see a little bit of difference between the current and the non-current prepayments we have in our balance sheet. There you see how the future, especially raw material, will come in. But yes, you're right. That's a part of the inventory. On the other hand, it's what I'm also every month looking at is even maybe sales are not that high maybe as expected. But for me, it's important that we see that the manufacturing is up and running. It's on stock. Manufacturing goes on. The utilization is high. And that's the important thing. As I said, then we have to sell it.
We have to send it to the customer. That's the other part of the inventory. Okay. Do we expect that number to fall by the end of the year or sort of will remain steady as it is?
I assume that it will still increase for supporting then the 25 numbers.
Okay. Thank you.
So let's go to Sibylle Bischofberger. Raise your hand again, Sibylle.
Thank you very much. I have only two small questions for Ola. The first is on tax 2024. You have still a very low tax. Can I expect 10%-12% also in full year? And the second question about financials is the financial result. You had special effects here in the first half. Can I expect the same effect in the full year? Or does it mean these special effects are now over and we can or how much can we expect for the full year in general? Thank you very much.
So on the tax, I would say still the 12%-13%. It also depends in which region we make our profit because we have totally different tax rates in the U.S. and in Switzerland. I would be more like, say, 12% right now until there is the minimum tax rate in the future. On the financial, it's two things. So one was the U.S. dollar, the exchange rate to the Swiss franc, which was very low by the end of the year. We had there the impact because we have to translate this in Swiss francs. That was the positive impact now when the dollar went back to 89 compared to Swiss francs. That was a positive one. If the FX stays where it is, the currency, that was a one-half-year impact. Yes, that's true.
On the other hand, we still have our securities, which is a part shares, a part is funds. And of course, we realize some gains, but we also have some book losses. And this can go in both directions until the end of the year. So I cannot tell you, especially not on those two things, where they will go by the end of the year. But those are the main drivers behind this impact on the financial result. All right. So for a second round of questions from Barbora Blaha. Let's hear from Barbora Blaha.
I have two additional questions. One is on the cost. So you said that you expect disproportionate investment into R&D going forward. And this was now already nearly 3% of revenues, up from 2% last year. Is this the new base? And then a second question, CordenPharma and Lilly are both increasing capacities here in Central Europe. You will also need to hire additional people. Do you expect it will be more challenging to get talent in the future? Thank you.
Should I take the HR first? Okay. Thank you, Barbora. Yes, we're right. I can report that we are very fortunate with the people we have in our team. We have a world-class team. I see a strong interest in working with Bachem. Hiring for us in the past couple of months was really successful in terms of quality and also quantity. We could quickly hire, and we could make some really nice additions to our team. Going forward is kind of hard to predict. We do whatever we can to also help the ecosystem. We have apprenticeships that are going. I think it's around 50-60 people here in Bachem that get education. We collaborate with universities and Fachhochschulen in Switzerland and also globally and in the US.
So we want to make sure that we get the talent, and we believe we have something to offer at Bachem that is attractive now and in the future. The question about I felt that was for our R&D.
R&D cost. Yeah, yeah. That's another question. Yeah. So the R&D, yes, you're right. It's about 2.9% right now, coming from, I think, 1% a few years ago. And we said this is very important. So I guess we will not stop any projects in innovation, which makes sense for us just because maybe of five, 10, 50 basis points. But we are somewhere at the cap right now. So I would say the 3% should be somewhere where we can be in the future, but it will not go year by year in a percentage of sales like it was in the past. We committed to invest there. It's important to invest there. But yeah, I think it's now somewhere on a ceiling now.
So I have one last hand raised. Daniel Jelovcan for a second round of questions.
Daniel, you can hear you.
Yeah.
Just one last. The prepayments are CHF 50 million. I mean, that's about 20% of sales. And of course, that's for the future. But still, if I would speculate, I guess that mainly goes to the big GLP-1 customers, or is that a total wrong assessment? Alan?
Yes, what can I say to that? [crosstalk]
We don't give any details from which customer and for which projects we receive those prepayments. I think we don't change that communication in this sense.
Okay.
Thank you very much. I don't see any more hands raised or questions in the Q&A. I know that there have been a lot of companies reporting results today. So probably all major questions have been asked. If there are any further things, please do shoot us an email and let us know if we missed something that you still have an open question on. With that, I am just sharing the formal disclaimer and also thanking everyone for joining us today on this call and your interest in Bachem. Thank you, Alain and Thomas and the team working in the background. So hear you all then otherwise at our Capital Markets Day on November 21st.
Bye-bye. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Bye.