Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the SKAN Group half year 2024 results conference call and live webcast. I am Maria, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Thomas Huber. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, Maria. I would like to welcome you to the presentation of the half year one figures of SKAN Group. My name is Thomas Huber. The agenda today will be that I will give you a quick overview in the beginning, then our CFO, Burim Maraj, will guide you through the detailed figures. Number three, I will give you an outlook into the future, what we are expecting, and then we are happy to answer your questions. If we look at the highlights of the first half year, the order intake at CHF 177 million is stabilized on a good level. Net sales, CHF 163.7 million, we can show a growth of 17.2%, which is absolutely within our guidance.
The EBITDA grew by 15.7% to CHF 21.5 million at the margin of 13.1%. Investments, we invested about CHF 22 million in our ongoing projects, and the order backlog, CHF 328 million, is still at a stable and healthy level. So the book-to-bill ratio is still at 1.1, which gives us a good visibility for the rest of the year. As we are expecting still a significant order intake in the second half year, this visibility is also very good for the future. Solid order intake, it's slightly higher, right, than in the previous half year one. It's very important to understand that the order intake was increasing significantly compared to the second half year of last year.
If we look at the growth at a constant exchange rate, our growth would even exceed the guidance with 20.7%. Also, the EBITDA has increased significantly, with a good EBITDA margin within the guidance. EBIT increased from CHF 12 million to CHF 15.2 million, and as I mentioned, investments are at CHF 22.2 million, mainly in our Pre-Approved Services projects. If we look at the two reporting segments, we can report Equipment and Solutions. Our strategic initiatives are moving forward. We are making, let's say, little but continuous steps into equipment standardization, and once again, we spent about 8% of our sales into such initiatives as well as R&D. Both projects are developing according to plan.
SKAN has set up a dedicated team for the standardization initiative, which is working with our partners to drive standardization process forward. This is on one hand, process on standardization on process side, but also on component side. If we look at Services and Consumables, this segment grows dynamically with increased margins absolutely in line with the strategy. Our stake in Aseptic Technologies, you have read that earlier this year, has now reached 90%. This is what has been agreed with the Walloon Region, who will remain the owner of the remaining 10% for the near future. At least currently, they are not interested to sell any more of their stake. We also make good progress with Pre-Approved Services, but I'll come back to that on a later slide.
If we look at Aseptic Technologies specifically, I think it's important to see that we are slowly but definitely getting more traction with commercial drugs in our vials. Currently, there are seven drugs commercially available in Aseptic Technologies Closed Vial Technology. Important to see here is that also the jurisdictions that are getting approvals is increasing. So we have now 16 jurisdictions where these drugs are approved. As you understand, right, the FDA has to give an approval to sell a drug in North America, for example, or the EMA in Europe, Swissmedic in Switzerland. So every country has their authority, and so to increase our market reach, it's important to see that number growing as well. Important here also as outlook for the future, we have about 450 active ingredients in clinical studies.
Statistically, we know that a certain percentage of those drugs will turn into commercial drugs. Also here, we see that this is working as expected. If we look at the next slide, Pre-Approved Services, I would like to give you a little bit an overview where we stand and what is expecting us here, right? We decided or basically we started with the concept beginning of 2023. We started to build this Pre-Approved Services facility. In the meantime, all the major equipment has been delivered and is being installed. We will start a validation of the complete facility, actually, this in these coming weeks. This validation will probably, or we expect this will take about 12 months to complete.
In the second half of 2025 , we will approach Swissmedic and ask for a regulatory approval and expect to start commercial production in the beginning of 2026. As we stated during the IPO, the whole facility would have, should have a volume to generate a rate about CHF 50 million in return on a-- with an EBITDA margin of up to 50%. Now, it's important to understand that these CHF 50 million will not be generated on day one in 2026, so we expect this ramp up to take a few years as well. Now, I would like to hand over to Burim.
Thank you, Thomas, and also hello from my side. Sorry for this interruption. Thank you, Thomas. Also, hello from my side, and welcome to this presentation of the half year figures 2024. I would like to give you some more color or insights in the financials of the first half year. When we look at the next slide, on the left side, in general, we have another successful half year, as already mentioned from Thomas. We are pleased to report an order intake of CHF 177.2 million, which is a slight increase compared to previous half year of 1.1%.
When we look, or when we compare it with the second half year of 2023, which was a little bit weaker year, so we were able to recover and increase the order intake of about 48% compared to the previous second half year of 2023. On the right side, regionally, we see clearly that Europe remains on a solid ground with a slight increase of 1% compared to the previous year. And also, Americas, we were able to generate CHF 73.6 million, which looks like a slight decline, about 6.5%.
But when we compare it with, again, here, with the second half year of 2023, we were able to catch up here and generate almost five times more orders compared to the previous compared to the second half year of 2023. So the reason there is that we had this strong catch up is that also last second half year or the last the second half year of last year we had also some cancellation there, but now the situation has recovered, and the cautiousness of our customers is again getting back on track as they are buying again what they need.
The Asian market is also here increasing, but there, the portion of the total order intake is about 6.6%, and this fluctuates year -on -year, driven by some several larger individual orders. In summary, we can say here that the order situation has normalized at a stable level, but important is also that the order pipeline has continued to grow over the last six months, and which gives us a very good visibility that the second half year, we are expecting a higher order intake for the second half year.
Also, the book-to-bill ratio has increased to 1.1, which gives us good visibility for the development of the net sales. On the next slide, when we look at our net sales, we can report a solid growth to CHF 163.7 million, which is an increase of 17.2%. And then we look at it at the constant exchange rate, so we were also able to exceed our guidance with 20.7%.
So in this, both segments, as we are reporting, equipment solutions, Service and Consumables, we're contributing to this growth as, but the Service and Consumables is growing more dynamic and contributed a little bit more to this, net sales growth. Here is also from a net sales point of view, it's important to understand that the nature of our project business, which is, how they say?
Lumpiness.
In which drives also the lumpiness of the net sales, is also impacting or the net sales. I will explain this effect in the next slide later on, but looking at the order backlog on the right side, we were able also here to increase it about 5.1% to CHF 328 million, and again, here, this order backlog with CHF 328 million gives us a good visibility in the, especially in the Equipment and Solutions business, for more than one year. Now, coming to the next slide, which I will explain the nature of our project business, so on the left side, the graph shows a typical value creation structure of our project business during the different phases.
We have this blue curve, which is representing the cumulative value creation over the different phases. Then the green line is showing the cash in of the projects with down payments from our customers, and the gray area in behind is showing the EBIT realization in the different phases. As we can see clearly on the left side or at the beginning of a project in the design and engineering phase, we are only creating about fifteen, about 10%, sorry, about 10% of value creation and also about 10% of the EBIT. From a cash-wise point of view, as we are working with down payments, we are generating a higher value, about 30% cash in. That means that our projects are pre-financed.
When we look in the middle phase, which is the value intensive or value creation intensive phase, during our manufacturing and assembly phase, there we have typically the whole material, the whole components, the whole steelwork, but also the majority of hours, which are booked during these phases, is driving the contribution, the majority of the contribution of the net sales generation, but also the EBIT generation. So about 75% of net sales and EBIT generation is done during this phase. And on the completion phase, you see again, it flattens down to about 15%. So when the projects are in the commissioning or completion phase, we generate, or the projects generate a lower level. This is because of our valuation method.
We are using the cost to cost POC method, and this has a big impact on the lumpiness of our project business. So always it's depending in which phase the projects are. And currently, we have a lot of projects in the beginning phase, but also as we had last year, a strong year in the second half year, these projects were last year in a value intensive phase. Now, in the first half year, they are in the kind of completion phase with low contribution to the net sales. But in the second half year, all the projects that have started now will come in the value intensive phase. So we expect a stronger second half year driven by this effect of our project business.
On the next slide, coming to the cost development and the margin. When we look at the EBITDA, we were able to improve our EBITDA from CHF 18.6 million to CHF 21.5 million, which is a growth of 15.7% , representing an EBITDA margin of 13.1%, and is only 0.2 percentage point lower than the margin of previous year. So the main factors, when we look at the main elements or influencing factors of this, is the primary fact is, as I explained before, the lumpiness of our large project business, or let's say, the phases of our project business.
So, in the first half year, we have or we had a lot of projects in the beginning phase, and also a lot of projects in the completion phase, which were not generating or contributing to the stronger net sales and also stronger EBITDA. Yes, that's the main driver here, but also the second effect is also here, that last year we had a significant expansion in employees. So, we have hired 216 employees last year, which was a little bit higher as we planned. So, we had a stronger growth in employees last year compared to what we have planned.
We hired or added another 31 this year to be able to support also the future growth that we are planning. When we look at the ratio of personnel cost in relation to the net sales, there is a slight improvement to 50.5%, but also here, as the top line, as I mentioned, the top line, we are expecting a stronger generation in the second half, that this ratio of 50.5% is improved compared to previous year, but it is still on a higher level and will be also improved with our expectation in the second half year. Then the material cost also, the same effect is also here.
The material costs fluctuate, driven by the nature of our project business. Nevertheless, we were able to improve this, the ratio from 25.7% to 25%, and then the main driver is here, expansion that we did in Görlitz and in Stein with the further insourcing of activities, drives also here the improvement. The other operating costs, also here, we have. The operating expenses, also here, we see a slight increasement from CHF 20.9 million to CHF 22.1 million. And in relation to the net sales, there is an improvement from 15% to 13.5%, but here also, we are expecting as the growing top line, in the second year, that the factor or the ratio will improve.
So we will have a higher cost leverage in the second half year, here also from the operating cost point of view. When we look at the segment details, the Equipment and Solutions segments report an order intake of CHF 124 million for the first half year, which is representing a moderate decline of 2.6% compared to the previous year. This decline is primarily driven by the cautiousness that we have seen on our customers. But when we compare it again with the second half year of 2023, we were able to catch up of about 47% here, which is also indicating that the demand for our solution has stabilized on a healthy level.
This increase in the second half year is also indicated by the general structure or the trend towards more injectable dose forms. But also we have seen the effects or events such as Novo Nordisk acquisition of Catalent, which is driving also here the pipeline for new orders. The net sales increased by 16.6% from CHF 103.1 million to CHF 120.1 million. The EBITDA of the first half year was CHF 8.9 million, corresponding to a EBITDA margin of 7.4%. The decrease of the margin compared to the previous year is again explained with the periodicity, or let's say, the different phases of our projects, as I explained before.
But here we have another effect, which is also that due to the project mix that we have in the first year, so we have more large or high speed lines, and this caused also that our production site in Görlitz had a lower workload, which impacts also the margin in Equipment and Solutions segment. Another effect is also here, that we have invested in research and development, but also in our strategic initiatives, about 8% of our net sales, which is also higher, about 1 percentage point compared to the previous year. So last year, at the same time, the investments in R&D and strategic initiatives were at about 7% and currently at 8%.
This has also an impact, and we directly expand these investments to the P&L of these segment Equipment and Solutions. On the next slide, we have the Service and Consumables. Also here, we have an order intake growth to CHF 52.3 million, which is an increase of 11.1% compared to the previous year. The net sales also increased here more strongly compared to the segment Equipment and Solutions to CHF 43.6 million, and this stronger growth is also aligned with our strategy, and currently it amounts at 27% of the total group level net sales. From an EBITDA perspective, it rose significantly from CHF 9.1 million to CHF 12.6 million, which is an increase of 39.1%.
Also, from an EBITDA point of view, we have been able to increase our margin by 4.2 percentage points to 28.9%. Here, the main driver for this strong improvement is the product mix that we have in the first year. So the key contributors here were the Life cycle Support and the parts business, which is supported by our installed base worldwide. And the second driver is here also the higher sales of AT Closed Vials and filling kits from our Belgium subsidiary, Aseptic Technologies, as we have heard at the beginning.
We have seven products in our Closed Vials, which are consuming Closed Vials, but also other consumables of Aseptic Technologies. Another effect here is also that during the reporting period, we were able also to gain new customers using the Closed Vial technologies for not only the cell and gene therapy, but also for other modalities, which also increased our net sales, but also our margin here. When we look at the cash situation, we have here a decline from CHF 85.1 million to CHF 48.1million, which is a decline of CHF 37.1 million.
So the main driver here for this net cash decline is the investments that we have done in our strategic initiatives in Pre-Approved Services, but also a further purchase of 5% in AT shares, and now or currently we are at 90%, as explained already from Thomas. Also, from an operating cash flow point of view, we are on a, I would say, lower level, and the lower level is also a temporary effect that we have as of end of June. The main driver for this low operating cash flow is that the work in progress has increased due to the timing effect of our project, but also the down payments or the timing of the order intake is impacting.
That means we have orders that we have received in May and June will be cash, will have an impact on our cash situation in the second half of year, due to the long payment terms of our customers. When we look on the next slide, our balance sheet, so we have still a solid financial structure. We have a net cash position of CHF 41.8 million, and as explained before, the decrease in cash and cash equivalent is mainly driven by the growth investments that we did during the first half year, but also the purchase of Aseptic Technologies shares and also the payout of the dividend impacting the whole cash situation.
Nevertheless, also here, the equity, we are a solid financial structure with an equity ratio of almost 51%, which gives us also the flexibility to finance also the future growth. So, next, then I would like to hand over to Thomas to give you an outlook for 2024 .
Thank you, Burim, for the details of the figures. I would like to give you an outlook for the rest of the year, what we are expecting to happen in the second half year of 2024 . I think it's important to see that we are still in the middle of this trend of this century of biology, the trend towards large molecule injectables. Some of you might have seen those slides before, right? In 2005 , just as an example, none of the top 10 drugs on the market were injectables. Today, in 2023, seven out of the top 10 and about 20 out of the top 100 are large molecule injectables. Large molecule injectables means these are sensitive drugs that cannot be terminally sterilized and need to be filled aseptically.
In other words, require isolator technology, and SKAN, being a leader in, on this market, obviously, we profit from that trend. So what we can summarize is that the demand momentum in our market is expected to continue at a very high level. Main drivers are, on one hand, the global biopharmaceutical market that is growing. On top of that, we have actually the reinforcing or the focusing on injectable drugs, right? Still three-quarters of the new drugs being developed are injectable dosage forms, so this trend will continue in the coming years, or I'd say at least the next 10 years. We will see more injectable drugs coming to the market than conventional drugs. The shift from traditional clean rooms into more advanced isolator technology is still happening, right?
There are still old clean room facilities out there in the market. Today, I think at least we see hardly any clean room facility being upgraded with a clean room. They are upgraded with isolators. Also, a nice tailwind is the GLP-1 or obesity drug trend, which obviously requires more aseptic filling production globally, which obviously is good for us because this is raising the bar and basically raising the demand. As a consequence, right, we expect that our system Services and Consumables will be, will continue to be in a high demand, and we have a very well-filled order pipeline. That's not the order backlog. I think it's important to understand the order pipeline is basically the number or the value of the quotes we have out there in the market.
We mentioned when we communicated the full year figures back in April, that just by the fact that Catalent was acquired by Novo Nordisk, we saw an increase of about 30% of this order pipeline to about CHF 1.5 billion at the very moment. We expect this demand to translate into orders over the coming 12 months. Now, it is important to see that that purchase was only about five months ago, so this is going to turn into orders in the coming months and also next year. So all in all, we are very convinced that we can also confirm the 2024 guidance.
So looking at the guidance, we expect equipment solutions and Services and Consumables both to be in the mid to upper teens range on the sales growth side. Midterm outlook will be also mid to upper teens. Here, typically we get the question: and when is this going to improve? I think the answer here is, a significant change here will be the point when our Pre-Approved Services will start to kick in, and will obviously have a positive impact on revenue and margin, and so we expect significant changes to happen after 2026. EBITDA margin between 13% and 15% , also here, we are sure that we can keep this guidance for the rest of the year. Together, always one step ahead.
Our mission statement, I think we are still one step ahead looking at our competition and our partners. I think we are defending our leading position very well, and we are happy to take your questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone wishes to ask a question may press star and one on a touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets when asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from Odysseas Manesiotis, Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, on the backlog, if my math is right, you need to deliver a bit less than two-thirds of your current backlog in H2 2024 to meet your full year targets, which you just reiterated, and I mean, combining this with the comments around normalizing order trends, but also your comments, Thomas, around the order pipeline being strong, would it be fair to expect full year 2025 to be a lower growth year, or do you feel that the order pipeline is strong enough to support another mid to high teens? I mean, I understand you can't talk a lot about 2025, but you probably have some visibility towards that at this point.
Yes. Thank you, Odysseas, for this question. I mean, your assumption would be right if we would not get any more orders as of today, right? But obviously, we're not expecting to get zero orders. We have still a very high activity on the market. So it's correct that about, let's say, 80% of our order backlog will turn into revenue this year, but we are continuously filling this order backlog with new projects. And looking at the pipeline, we are at the moment very optimistic that also 2024, the second half of 2024, will become a stronger order intake year than last year was, right?
You remember the half year two last year was actually quite weak, and on top of that, we had some significant cancellations from a major company involved in COVID. After their share price went down, they canceled some major projects. So there we expect that this is, so at the moment, we have no signs that this should happen in half year two. Looking at the order pipeline, I think it's fair to assume that the second half of this year, but definitely the first half of next year, will be a strong order intake year as well. Sometimes difficult to predict if a customer places an order this week or next week or this month or next month.
Obviously, these are huge investment projects that also need to go through decision steps at our customer site. But looking at the order pipeline, we are very positive that the backlog is still high at this time of the year currently, and we expect that we actually can fill up this backlog faster than we consume the backlog.
Understood. Then a follow-up on your comment around the orders here. So in terms of the order funnel you're seeing for H2, I understand you're expecting an improvement from H2 last year, but would it be fair to also assume that you expect a material sequential improvement from H1 in your H2 order intake? I just wanna get a sense of are you comfortable with where consensus stands for 25 on the mid to high teens?
Yeah. Yes.
Currently, there is no other signs that we cannot expect a stronger half to year.
Okay
From order intake point of view. As mentioned from Thomas, the pipeline is increasing and, the dynamic or the momentum is here, so there is no other signs here.
I think it's important to understand, like, the mechanics behind the orders, right? Normally, if you are a big pharma company and you want to invest into new production capacity, you obviously need more than just a filling machine. You need probably a new building. You need. It's a heavy investment for you, and so typically it takes you about one year to get approval for that investment, within the big pharma company. So to be able to even apply for a budget, right, they need to get quotes, and this is this order pipeline that we're looking at. And by experience, we know that order pipeline turns into order earliest six months and... but typically between around 12 months after, a fter, we send out the first quotes.
So from that point, if you're seeing the order pipeline, with this, let's say, explosion driven by the Catalent, by selling Catalent to Novo, in which was back in March, right? March or April. So this will turn into orders earliest in the second half year of this year, but most likely, the big wave would only come in the first half of next year. So all in all, for us, our order backlog is an important buffer to make sure that the workload in the sites, in the fabrication sites, is less lumpy than actually the order intake is.
Mm-hmm. Thank you. That's very helpful. And just to confirm one of your previous comments there, did you say you have around CHF 1.5 billion of quotes, not backlog, that you would expect at least part of it to turn into orders in the coming 12 months? Did I get that right?
Yeah. It's around CHF 1.5 billion of order pipeline. Now, you have to know, right, that never 100% of this will turn into orders. So from this CHF 1.5 billion, over the next 12 to 18 months, we can expect maybe 30%, maybe 25%, and maybe 30% to turn into orders. Obviously, a big portion of it will not be approved and will simply disappear again, and obviously, we will also lose a certain part to our competition. So it's not that we are the only ones quoting on those jobs. So, but in the end, the CHF 1.2 billion that it was in the beginning of the year was at the lower end. The CHF 1.5 billion, again, now is at the higher end. So from that, we feel comfortable for the future.
Very clear, and may I ask one last follow-up on the Services and Consumables side of the business? So you have previously flagged some expected strength in the Life cycle Support and spare parts for your existing installed base, given a big portion of your isolators will be reaching that 10-year mark soon, and you also said that was strong this half. So could you give us a feeling of what portion of your installed base will be hitting that 10-year mark in the coming two, three years, and how this compares to history?
When you look at the growth curve of SKAN, right, the real hockey stick, if I may call it like that, only kicked in about five years ago. The big number of our isolators are kind of still new and are not yet 10 years old. It's probably about 25%, 20% of our installed base that are probably older than 10 years. Since we have been growing exponentially in the past, right, this number is also growing exponentially, but 10 years back, it's not yet in the rising part of the curve. Yes, it's increasing, but it's not yet the big momentum is not yet there. This is still to come.
On the other hand, you know, maybe to be clear, right, we are also, when we talk about retrofit, it's not only that we are retrofitting old machines because they're old, right? There is also a trend that we are currently retrofitting equipment from an ESG perspective. For example, we sell catalytic converters to our equipment to make sure that the equipment can be in, that the air can be reused, the exhaust air can be reused, and we have a smaller consumption of energy during decontamination and production phases. So from that point of view, we are also upgrading our machines to be more ESG compliant. So that's it. It's not yet a big portion, but this is also a growing portion that is not limited to old machines, right?
That's obviously the latest machine would have that typically as a standard, but five years back, people were not yet as sensitive to ESG as they are today.
That's all very clear. Thank you for the detailed answers. I'll jump back in the queue.
As a reminder-
Thank you.
As a reminder, for questions on the phone, please press star and one. The next question comes from Daniel Jelovcan, ZKB. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning also from my side and good to hear you again. Just one question left for me. I mean, other, let's say, life science tool companies not related to your business, they, a lot of them have warned that, in the biopharma segment, there were orders delayed or canceled because of budget constraints. And I'm not talking about early stage drugs where the problems, you know, we all know with, the difficult situation, but also, let's say, some site restructuring of companies, they closed or that's why they don't need as much equipment and so on. So I guess when you commented how in-depth about your order backlog, you weren't affected, but maybe you were affected, but it was overcompensated by other business. If you can elaborate with, about that, would be nice. Thank you.
Yes, Daniel, thank you very much for your question. And yes, you're right. We were affected by this, and we had this significant cancellation, although it was already end of last year, so it was actually in half year two last year, but that was a significant cancellation from one of the COVID vaccine manufacturers that simply didn't need the demand, or the demand wasn't there anymore, so they canceled several lines that they have ordered. And so that's why our order intake last year was behind target, and that's why, let's say our order backlog today is not as full as it has been two years ago.
So the book-to-bill ratio of 1.1 currently is obviously lower than it was one or two years ago, when we were in the middle of the COVID hype and everybody was placing orders just for the sake of getting into the queue to make sure they get filling machine equipment. Yeah, they get in line to get this. So what we see is that actually a lot of, let's say, the effects that we have seen is that companies that sell consumables during COVID customers were filling up their warehouses, and those companies who were able to increase production quickly profited during that phase, but are now facing the issues that the warehouse is still full and those customers are not continuing to buy at those high levels.
Now, we are not affected by this, because we are on the investment goods side, mainly, right? And, the investments itself take years to happen. And, so from that point of view, we are maybe not as quickly affected as others. We also have to see that when we talk about life science, right, we don't necessarily talk about fill -finish in the aseptic environment. So we are really in a niche, in this niche that we call the biology or century of biology. Or let's say you can also call the niche in the niche is even cell and gene. It's a very small niche. In that niche, we are well positioned and we have been less affected than maybe other companies have in the past few months.
But we also have a good order backlog that allows us to compensate some, let's say, some fluctuations in order intake. Hope that answers your question.
That's great. I was also talking about the equipment, but I guess you're not affected at all by some site closures or whatever, from big pharma.
Yeah.
Okay.
Currently, I mean, as I mentioned, we were affected end of last year.
Yes.
In the first half year of this year, we have not been affected yet.
Mm-hmm.
Or at least those customers who have closed their sites have not yet placed orders. We are affected on the site, but that's not really a negative impact, that we see more and more customers closing a site, but shifting the equipment to another site. So for us, that means they are concentrating their fill -finish at a few sites. For us, that means actually extra business, because we typically have to modify those machines to fit into other buildings, but it's not really a cancellation. I think currently there is a lack of aseptic filling capacity globally, when you look at GLP-1 and so on. So I think that's the reason why nobody thinks there will be overcapacity soon. So that's why fill -finish is still surviving.
Okay, and there may be a follow-up. Aren't you affected at all by the Chinese situation? I mean, China, when you talk to life science companies, I mean, everybody is escaping from China, at least the Western companies and all the these companies in the Western world who did business with the WuXi AppTec, WuXi Biologics or whoever, they suffer dramatically because of the U.S. Biosecurity Act, which is far away, but still, of course, it triggers the Western companies to reshuffle their supply chains. Aren't you affected at all by that?
No, we are not affected by that. I think we are lucky to be in a position where we have not really serious activities in China. We sell one or two projects to China every year, mainly to Western joint ventures in China. WuXi is a customer of ours. They ordered a few lines a few years back, and they are now running those lines because we are not selling them any consumables. We are not involved in any. Let's say, the business for us has been completed there. But yes, I think I'm happy that we did not invest in a Chinese facility 20 years ago, like many of our competitors did. Currently, we profit from the fact that we are only serving the Western world, if I may call it like that.
Very good. And my last question, when you mentioned in the service and consumable segment, you also now have some customers outside cell and gene. Just to understand, in what areas is that exactly? Thank you so much.
Yeah, I mean, we have some confidentiality there with our customers, so we are not allowed to talk about that. But what I can say is that it's not only those drugs that have to be frozen to minus 150 or 180 degrees Celsius. We are now seeing more and more customers that also go into this Closed Vial Technology with drugs that don't have to be frozen that deep. I mean, they still have to be frozen, but not that deep. And that opens the field away from cell and gene, more into big molecule, large molecule biotech.
Okay.
Which is obviously nice to see, but again, that's clinical stage, right? Those drugs are not commercial yet.
Mm-hmm. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Rupen Boyadjian, Finanz und Wirtschaft. Please go ahead.
Hello, thank you for taking my question. It's also about the aseptic filling. You said seven medicaments are now filled on, with your technology and that there's a pipeline. Can you give us some more details about, if the statistics work out, that you mentioned as well, how many medicaments, we can expect to come online per year? And, how could that affect also the use of those consumables? You mentioned that the sale of those vials was also a driver for your revenue.
Yes, absolutely. I mean, in our strategy, we are trying to enforce the, let's say, the Services and Consumables part, to also get further away from the project lumpiness, also to generate more stable numbers. We are currently not yet disclosing any detailed numbers about Aseptic Technologies, but what I can say is, yes, the statistics so far work out. I mean, if you look back, during the IPO, we had one or two drugs approved. Now it is seven, and knowing that the clinical phases typically last up to 10 years, we are absolutely in line with our expectations there. Also, looking at the number of drugs in the vials, which for me is much more, let's say, the more important indicator.
With 450 drugs, knowing that about 10% statistically can reach clinical phases, we have actually 45 more to come, which would be significant if we trust pure statistics.
On the commercial side, there will be one, two, or three per year that we can expect?
Yes. Yes. I mean, You know, what we also forget there are the drug approval in the first country is one thing, and then the rollout to other countries is the other thing, right? It's, for the company, launching these drugs to the market, a rollout in every country is a huge administrative effort. They maybe have to prove stability. They have to show maybe some even different data to different authorities, so that's a process as well. But important, if the drug is approved in the U.S., for example, then the U.S. market can consume it. If it's not approved in Europe, then the Europe market is simply not existing for that drug. So it's important that we do not only count the drugs, we also count the countries and kind of look at both those figures.
But you're correct, we expect a handful of drugs every year to be added to the list.
Okay. And maybe also about the stability testing facility that is going online in 2026. You mentioned a volume of 50 million that will be scheduled over several years. Will that be a linear uptake, or can we expect a fast uptake in the beginning and then a slow expansion, or the other way around?
We discussed that lately. If we would have been ready in March this year, we probably would have filled the facility to full capacity with Novo Nordisk from day one. Right? So, so it really depends on the market situation. Now, we are not calculating with this best-case situation. We are assuming that this is a slow, a slow ramp-up, taking maybe three years, but it really depends on the situation. Currently, the demand for aseptic filling capacity is, is very high, and, so currently we are very optimistic that maybe we can do that, in two, three years. But that really depends on how the situation looks like end of 2025, once we have the Swissmedic approval.
Because this kind of stamp is kind of—if we don't have this stamp, it's hard to even talk to customers or. No, it's, we are talking to customers, but to get any commitments from customers is impossible without this stamp. So from that point of view, it could be faster, but we don't expect it to be faster in our business projections.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
We have a follow-up question from Odysseas Manesiotis. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking the follow-up. I just had a quick one on the Aseptic Technologies point you made about how many processes might come online or on commercial phase in per year, and how we should think about it. Did you say that a reasonable assumption would be assuming sort of two to three drugs that you're involved in coming commercial? I mean, I'm just thinking, is it the, isn't it a bit of a small number compared to the 450 active ingredients you have on the pipeline?
Yes. Now, imagine the 450 is the pipeline that we currently have. 90% of those drugs will fail by statistics, only 10% will survive. And since we know that this clinical phases last from 5 to 10 years in length, it's realistic to assume that every year the list will be added by a handful of drugs. A handful, yeah, it's somewhere between zero and five. So but, I mean, also here, it really depends on how the progress is going on at our customer sites, which is kind of out of our control, right? If their molecule fails in phase III, then the product is typically dead.
So for us, it's important to have a big pipeline to see that statistically we will see some drugs winning the race, reaching a commercial stage. And just from the past, when you followed, let's say, our explanation since the IPO, statistics worked out very well.
Just also to add here, the 450 active ingredients that we have in our pipeline. These are in different phases. So that means clinical phases I, II, and III. So it's not the total that all of these 450 is in the clinical phase III that are expecting to get commercial, and 90% is, how do you say, doesn't make it. So it's divided until between the whole phases, clinical phases there.
Very clear. Thank you.
Gentlemen, there are no more questions on the phone at this time. Mr. Huber?
Yes.
Back to you for the conclusions. Thank you.
Okay. So thank you very much for your questions. I hope, yeah, we could clarify all the open points, and we're looking forward to see you guys again in six months' time, or April, in April, 2025. Thank you very much for your attendance, and goodbye.
Thank you.