Time we would like to start the Life Science Business briefing of AGC. I'd like to act as a moderator. My name is Ogawa, Corporate Communications & Investor Relations Division. Let me introduce the participant from AGC. We have Mr. Noriyuki Komuro, the Managing Executive Officer and President of Life Science Company. First, Mr. Komuro will present the business strategy of Life Science Company, and we will have Q&A session. We plan to end at 6:00 P.M. I hope you will cooperate with us. If you have any questions, please use the Q&A function. I'd like to hand the microphone to Mr. Komuro.
Thank you very much for joining us, despite your very busy schedule. Let me get started with the Life Science Business briefing. Please go to the next page.
I'm sure that you have seen this several times, in AGC Group, as you can see here, we have core businesses and strategic businesses. We have what we call ambidextrous management. Life Science Company is one of the three strategic businesses. From the AGC Group, the high growth and high level of the profits are expected from Life Science Company. Let's go to the next slide. Because of that, in 2023, this year in January, as you can see here, the Life Science Company was established. Until last year, it was within the chemicals, and it was one of the divisions, with this year, we have become the Life Science Company.
As you can see at the bottom left, last year, Life Science Company sales was JPY 141.8 billion, it's about JPY 2 trillion as AGC Group, about 7% of the total sales is what we have in Life Science Company. As you can see, the number of employees globally is about 3,200 as a company. The Life Science Company, mainly, as you can see on the right-hand side, have biopharmaceuticals using the biology, and the second is the small molecule pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals CDMO business. Those are the two major businesses that we have. The sales, as you can see, bio is 70%, and the synthetic or small molecule pharmaceuticals and agrochemical is about 30%. Next page. Starting with this year, we became as a Life Science Company.
As you can see on this page, in AGC, the Life Science as a business has a history dating back to 1973. About 50 years ago, we started to focus on Life Science and started our business. On the left-hand side, we have the small molecules, synthetic, and on the right-hand side, we have biopharmaceuticals. On the left-hand side, in the synthetic pharmaceuticals in 1985, the CDMO, the Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization business started. In the biopharmaceutical area in the year 2000, biopharmaceuticals CDMO business started. AGC doing the Life Science business, probably you did not recognize that, but inside the company, we do have a quite a long history. During those years, we have developed and fostered this Life Science business. Next page.
On this slide, this is a new slide, which is not included in your materials. From now on, the strength of AGC and Life Science, I will start talking about that. Before I do that, the Q1 results, which were announced recently, is shown here. There were some many questions on this, so I'd like to briefly explain the Q1 results. After the brief explanation, I'd like to go into the Life Science business itself. That's why I'm showing you this slide. As you can see on this slide, Q1, compared to last year, the sales, it was the same, and operating profit was significantly down, and we received many questions on this point. The reason is that, as you can see, the COVID-related special demand is now gone.
Of course, we are offsetting that with other businesses, so the sales remained at the same level as FY 22. The major growth of the sales came from the U.S. new plant. Because of that, the new plant fixed cost is high, and in terms of sales, it was up or increased, but rather more than that, the fixed cost was higher. That part pushed down our operating income. With the startup of our new plant, there were some glitches or issues, and that was one of the reasons why the profit was down. The new plant starting up, we are struggling with it, but in Q2 and onwards, we expect to make improvements. If the startup goes well from now on, for 1 year, this year, if you look at the full year, probably we would see no major change.
The full year forecast for this year is not changed at this moment. Now let me talk about the strength of AGC Group. Next page, please. The biggest characteristic that we have, or the strength, is, as you can see here, in U.S., Europe, and Japan, in three regions, we have 10 sites, and in those sites, we have high-level services that we are providing at the same time. In those three regions, what we are showing, you see the list of the plants and factories. Originally, in the area of the biopharmaceuticals, the microbial business was what we had, and then the mammalian technology was acquired, and then the gene and cell therapies were acquired. Through those M&As, we gained the technologies and applied those technologies to other areas.
More specifically, in 2017, we acquired CMC, and the mammalian technology that we obtained was applied to Chiba in Japan. In Milan, we have acquired the gene and cell therapy technology, and now this is applied in Longmont, the United States, or in Yokohama, we are planning the next plant. The new modalities, high growth modalities, are the ones that we acquire and quickly deploy that to different regions or different sites in the world. Basically, that is our growth strategy. Next page, please. This is our strategy, and in that, we have a flexible production system. In order for you to understand this, it will require basic explanation. The top, sorry, the bottom right, if you look at the increase of the number of projects, it shows the process of pharmaceutical development.
Starting with the preclinical and going through the phase 1, 2, and 3, and then getting the approval from the regulator and go to the commercial stage. Naturally, as you progress in the process, the required volume of pharmaceuticals would increase, and also the quality management level would also get higher. As it says here, at the top point, the synthetic pharmaceuticals, at the beginning, early stage, the volume of manufacturing is at the low level, so we focus on that. Small scale bio facilities is necessary. After the approval, this would be delivered to the patients in the world. For that, we need a bigger facility. From the small scale to the large scale reactors, we have all of them. It's the same for biopharmaceuticals as well.
Initial phase, towards the middle, we have a schematic. For a small lot, if you single-use that are very empty, those will be small bioreactor. Before we had single-use lab, we only had large scale single-use bioreactor, and that means after each use, we need to clean and reuse, but now the single-use lab are only once only, so it allows for a lot of small batch production. We have a great capacity. We are the second largest provider of single-use lab-based biopharmaceuticals. The largest is in China, if you look at the clear in Europe, we are good. We have our new facility in Japan. That would mean we are by far the largest in that area. We are still number two, we'll be much ahead of number three.
If you look at the middle chart at the bottom, you can see that now we can start with this early phase development and then after late stage, and then phase, they would need larger production batches, and we have not helped us. We are able to meet those different needs and different scales of production, and that's our advantage. Next, please. Particularly, we are building up our track record with the commercial sector. On the left, you can see that here. For each drug, with and the duration is limited, to the market for a larger. Chart, there are trends that are required in the quality. Once you are at that, better and that's why many are trying to data as CDMOs. Short comparison, we are seeing globally.
We tell us to a commercial phase among here in the world, it just point the level of trust and confidence our customers are. That also leads to more contracts given to us, so there is this virtuous circle running. On the right-hand side, because of that, as I said earlier, once we go to a later phase and go to commercial. Initially, this business with data that we are now having a larger percentage of commercial phase production during commercial phases, and they deliver, and to be delivered. Every year. It's different from because in early stage, to clear a certain percentage would not, and that means we have more certainty and more duration of eternity contracts as we have more from a later stage or commercial phase. Another opportunity, particularly with macros.
focus on very with an environmental consideration, very high rating. that's as an environmental friendly supplier. Next slide, please. we have a flexible production system, and with our good track record, we are getting additional orders. also, as a CDMO, we are focused on the sustainable business as well. let's look at the business environment. Earlier, I touched upon this, but once again, I'd like to talk about the recent business environment briefly. What you see on this slide, the COVID-related special demand is now gone, and bottom right, our Life Science sales trend is shown, showing the non-COVID and COVID breakdown. until last year, as you can see here, the COVID-related special demand was what we had.
This year, there are some remaining, but it's almost gone, and we are offsetting this with the non-COVID growth. What we expect here is as follows, as you can see on the left-hand side. What we do is the synthetic pharmaceutical and the biopharmaceutical and the gene and cell therapies, so those are three areas that we focus upon. With or without the COVID-19, in coming years, we expect all three to continue to grow. As you can see, that is our expectation. In order to win, we take measures, as I explained. We have been taking measures, so the capacity that we have right now and track record, and with those, we'd like to continue to expand our businesses.
However, having said that, in the long run or medium term, that is what we expect, but in the short term, currently, the biotech investment inflow has been slowing down. As you can see at the bottom on the left, shown in red, the stock prices has been at low level. From the customers, the funding difficulties are mentioned. In comparison to the plan that they had, there have been some delays or adjustments. For example, out of 5 projects, they're reducing it to 3 projects, so we are starting to see such phenomena. As I said, for the, this year, the impact of that is something that we are watching very closely, and we have to be very careful about that. Next page.
Now I'd like to talk about the future business and our growth. As I mentioned earlier, in each business area, we expect a growth in each area, and for that, we are taking those measures. First of all, starting with the synthetic pharmaceuticals. In this area, our position is that rather than market share, we are in the niche area, so we want to make sure that we can utilize our strength to expand our businesses, and that is our basic way of thinking. Still, gradually, the pharmaceuticals are becoming more advanced and structurally complex and difficult. Because of that, as you can see here, in 2020, increasing the expansion in 23, 2020 to about 10 times or 1.3 times in Spain, 1.5 times in Fukui.
Gradually and steadily, we are going into the areas that require the high level of technologies. Next page.
For biopharma, again, as I mentioned, we are focusing on our three regions. We are now trying to expand the biopharmaceutical CDMO capacity in Japan. Particularly, as I showed earlier, we have the CGT, which is large, for gene and cell therapy. After we acquired MolMed, we also have Longmont in the United States. That's one site we have there. We are intending to add another site in Japan, in Yokohama. Currently, we are studying that possibility. Next slide, please. This is just for your information.
As I mentioned earlier, we have CGT, we have that Yokohama site that we are considering for gene and cell therapy, and then for new fields and new technologies. Just as one example, we are focusing on the possibility of exosome CDMO. We are actually beginning this already. Our strategy or with regards to growth, we are trying to introduce new services that have a large growth potential, and that will be rolled out globally. That's our basic strategy. One example is this, using exosome pharmaceuticals. Once the market has a right size, we can roll out that operations globally. Next, please. This is a summary chart of what I've already introduced. I won't be able to go into every detail here on this chart.
For example, if you look at number two, this is about getting JPY 200 billion of sales. The investment necessary has already been decided, and with the existing capacity, we are very well capable of getting to sales of JPY 200 billion. For further growth, we will have to add to this. As you can see, from 2024 and onwards, we are considering further capacity expansion as well as M&A. Next slide, please. This is my final slide. Based on what I've already explained, by 2030, we are trying to achieve sales of JPY 400 billion, and we believe that is very doable. Actually, there was another slide. I'm sorry.
We talked about this JPY 400 billion in sales, and that really based on the blue part of this pyramid, the strengthening and expansion of existing businesses, and that alone should definitely get us there. We are also trying to look at new domains. That's the top part. It's not just pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals CDMO, but some other areas, as I said. Okay, we are currently only in the API part, but we would think about further upstream and downstream for a more actual drugs product. That would be my brief presentation. Thank you very much for your kind attention.
Thank you very much, Komuro-san. We would like to transition into question and answer. If you have questions, please, press the Q&A button.
First question is about your positioning in terms of the market share and strength in comparison to other companies or competitors.
The position of ours in the market, as I mentioned, we have various modalities, and various pharmaceutical businesses are what we have. I'd like to talk about individual business. The biggest sales comes from mammalian cells. About the mammalian cells, our position, going back to page 10, I think. As you can see, we have a good track record of the commercialization, commercial stage. In the world, if you, we are number 5 or number 6 in terms of the number of drug substance contracts. We have a good track record. Also on page 9, I talked about the single-use bags, and the capacity of the single-use bag is number 2 in the world.
As I said, for us, 70,000 liter is our capacity, and Lonza is 290,000, so we are number two. Using this capacity with our track record, we are working on this business, and that, I believe, is our strength. Another is the CGT or gene, cell and gene therapy. MolMed is the company that we acquired, and MolMed was in the drug discovery, and when, then went to CDMO. Because of the history, they have a very high level of technology and development capability. Right now, probably there are about little more than 20 examples which are approved in the commercial examples of the gene and cell, and 3 out of them are by this company.
Last year, they had several PPQ right before the commercialization phase is something that they have. They are the top runners in this industry and is much trusted by their customers, and I think that is the strength. This area, unlike the mammalian, there's no clear number that I can share with you, tens of thousands of liters, and they do not really disclose the cell size. Objective numbers are difficult to provide, but they are one of the top runners. The last is the synthetic pharmaceuticals. As I mentioned in my presentation, in terms of capacity and the ranking of the cells, we are not so strong. China and India, utilizing low cost, compared to those CDMOs, we, ourselves, is much smaller.
The fluorochemical, because using our chemical technology of AGC, we can focus on the area so that we can realize the high profitability and high growth. That's all I can say about this question. Thank you very much.
The next question. Update on the impact of bioventures and biotech having difficult financing, if there is an impact or not, if there's an impact, did you change your strategy? What would trigger a review on your current strategy, please?
Thank you very much for your question. I actually just touched upon that earlier, but if you go to slide 15, please. Actually, slide 10, please.
With regard to biotech and the financing that.
No, I'm asking for slide 10.
Thank you.
That's largely related to the late stage, and you have the commercial phase in view. That's not where you have difficulty. Really, in the early phase, and that phase where those products, projects, and that will have a lot of impact when finance difficulty exists. If you go to the lower right-hand side. In the early stage is one fourth of our overall sales, that part will be impacted significantly. Among our customers, about out of one fourth, the startups, the percentage of the startup is high. As an average of the industry, about 70 to 80% are out of the early stage startups. As we progress in those projects, the major pharma companies would acquire those startups. That is the general trend.
One fourth is the impact that we expect to see. Quantitatively, what would be the impact? That is something that we are watching closely. Another thing is whether we will change the strategy or not. As I said earlier, in the medium to long term, in each modality, we expect a steady growth. In each area, we want to make sure that we focus on the area that we can take advantage of our strength. In a general sense, we are not going to change the strategies, but depending on the economic situation, the timing of the investments might be adjusted. In a general sense, we are not likely to change the strategy. We are not thinking about it right now. That's all I can say about this question.
Thank you. Next question is related to the previous question about the AGC sales. What is the percentage of the biotech startups?
You mean the percentage of biotech ventures out of our overall sales?
Right, life science.
The overall Life Science sales, so including all the synthetic, pharmaceutical, and others. Roughly speaking, about 60%, 60, I would say 60% would be the biotech ventures. No?
Well, on this page, early stage, out of 1/4, you said that the high % is the biotech ventures, including all of them.
Sorry. Early stage, about 80% are biotech ventures. In the area of the commercialization, it's not all big pharma. Even in the commercialization stage, so-called, biotech ventures, it is actually, percentage is higher. In the past, the major pharma used to acquire those biotech ventures. There are more biotech ventures who would go through until the commercialization phase. In looking only at the commercialization phase, we can say that the percentage of the biotech ventures are getting higher.
Next question. Let's go to the next question.
This is the next question, related question. SME biotech, there's a slowdown of the early-stage projects, and so this has a certain impact on your earnings. Vis-a-vis the 2023 and 2024 sales outlook, what level of the impact is expected?
Mr. Komuro, could you answer?
Well, it's not just this year, but next year, if you consider that current monetary market impact, and to what extent it would influence, it is really dependent on that. That is something that I would like to ask the investors. Right now, the impact on our business is something that we are watching very carefully, and that's all I can say at this moment.
Let's go to the next question. What about the slowdown in the market growth, because of the flow slowing down into biotech? Would you review the CapEx going forward?
Well, that's also related to the earlier slide 10.
I keep going back to this, but it's this one quarter or in the early phase that is really hit by that phenomenon. Revenue-wise, we have three quarters of the sales in the late phase and commercial phase of drugs, but that's very different. The investment timing will be decided watching the late phase and commercial phase drugs. Obviously, there will be some temporary ups and downs with regards to capacity utilization, but with regards to large CapEx, that's part of early phase. Market slowing down does not have a material impact. It may delay things slightly, but that's the extent.
Next question, about the SUS, the difficulty of startup. What are the difficulties, and when do you think that you can collect on the upfront investments?
Mr. Komuro?
The single use and SS, SUS, each one of them have different difficulties. In the case of SUS or SS, one of the difficulties is that, how can I say this? Single use is disposable. In the case of bags or tubes, they are all disposable. On top of that, there is a reactor, and we connect the tubes, and we would move some things into the tank. It's easy to understand. It is connected. How is this tank connected to another tank? It's very difficult to see. The facilities, unless you have a full understanding, you cannot operate the facility. In order to operate the facility, the machines are used. You have to also understand that.
If it is automatically done, of course, you can just look at the screen and to operate it, but unless you understand what goes on, it cannot be utilized correctly. The facilities need to be maintained, and we have to take care of the contamination. In the case of single use, it's much easier. Those are some of the difficulties that we face. Thank you. As for the collection of the upfront investment, how long does it take before collection? Well, collecting the investment in terms of the profitability, how long the lack of profitability would continue, that is the question, right? Yes. I think that the upfront investment is placing a lot of pressure on the profitability. Right.
It's dragging us, and next year, probably, it would break even, probably, and in 2 years and onwards, it would start to contribute to the profit. That is what we expect. Thank you very much.
We'll go to the next question.
What about your capacity utilization?
Understand that you have some difficulty in Q1. That's because you have new SUS, but if you just look at SUB, I don't think your utilization was that different from last year average. Can you give us a quarter-to-quarter development and change breakdown?
Thank you for your question. You're asking for capacity utilization just for single-use bags. Well, as I said earlier, the special demand related to COVID, let's see what slide we have. Yes, slide 14. The COVID-related demand was not SUS or it was rather single-use bags. From last year and this year as well, I don't think there's much year-on-year difference. This year is actually a little higher.
Thank you very much. Let's go to the next question. Gene therapy and cell therapy, and comparing that against the mammalian therapy, how, what is the difference of the profitability? It's a very good question. Very generally speaking, or based on the numbers that the other CDMOs disclose, if you compare the profitability, the mammalian is higher compared to synthetic. The CGT, the gene therapy players are struggling as an average of the industry. That's what I can say. In our case, the small molecule. We are not in the generic area or volume zone, so we are in the niche area. In that sense, we probably our profitability is a bit different from that general area.
Thank you. Let's go to the next question.
This says, question says, from the financial experience, it's difficult to manage global locations when things are developing so quickly. How do you actually manage all that? Given the nature of your business for AGC corporate, is there not a risk that your business will actually become a black box? Could you take that question, please? Thank you very much for your question. With regard to the way we manage and the structure or formulation we have, as you rightly mentioned, yes, things are developing very quickly. Particularly with the bio world, the technology is advancing. I mean, given the number of ventures, and there are so many in the United States, they have a largest market, and they have so many biotech, and they have new technologies coming out.
We have our headquarters in Seattle to manage the bio-related businesses. That's biopharmaceuticals, where small molecules are based on mostly in Japan and managed from Japan. The black boxing to the AGC Corporate, well, yes, that's exactly what we are trying to avoid. In Seattle, we have people stationed, they are dispatched from Japan. At this point in time, the different function like HR, accounting, finance, those different functions are actually making sure that day-to-day governance is working across the organizational line. Yes, there is certainly that risk of the biopharmaceutical operations becoming a black box, that's why we are trying to manage not to become a black box. Next question. Different CDMOs are expanding their facilities.
When you look at the industry as a whole, are there any concerns about the excessive supply? It is true that according to the newspaper articles, including us, Fujifilm, Samsung or Asahi Kasei, and Korean Lotte, and the new entrants are coming into this area, and they are expanding their capacities. We hear about that as a news, probably that's the impression that you have. On page 14, for example, if you go back, when you look at the whole picture on the left-hand side, at the bottom, you have a growth of the pharmaceutical market. Conventional biopharmaceuticals, at the 9% CAGR, is expected. For the full year, 400,000 to 500,000 liter of capacity would be necessary.
What is being announced at the CDMOs of the different countries and the capacity expansions, in comparison, still, the, in comparison to the demand growth, still, the growth of the CDMO is not sufficient. That means that pharmaceutical companies need to increase their capacities to catch up with the demand. Right now, we hear about the various market reports, and, the supply is very tight, we hear. The demand and the supply, the supply is very tight, and the situation is likely to continue for some time to come, especially the mammalian cells.
Thank you very much. Let's go to the next question.
With regard to the MolMed, the gene therapy, I think it's focused on lentivectors, but do they also have technology such as AAV?
This is a quite technical question.
Oh, thank you. Suddenly, it gets very technical.
Yes, well, thank you for knowing so much. Yes, the lentivirus used to be the focus, more recently, there is AAV technology as well. Actually, with regard to AAV, you know, the suspension and adhesion type, there are a number of types there, for large batch bioreactors that use suspension technology, we have that technology established, and we are actually supplying products now.
Next question. In the early stage development, it's not the concern, have you seen any projects disappearing or being pushed out? What is the impact of that? Well, as I said earlier-...
In conversations with customers, in the case of biotech ventures, they have their own technologies, in the area of oncology and others, they want to apply their technologies. They talk to us, we talk about various projects. Lack of cash and giving up some of the projects or delaying some of the projects are something that we are hearing. Once again, what is the level of the impact? That is something that we are watching closely, and that's all I can say about that.
Thank you very much. There's a request for confirmation of the number. You said that about 60% of the lifelines through sales comes from bioventure, bio ventures, biotech. That would be about JPY 85 billion, given that last year you had JPY 141 billion?
Yes, I have to correct that. I said 60%, that's among the biopharma. About JPY 171 billion, and 60% of that is with ventures or biotech. The definition is tricky. In our case, we say that if the market cap is less than 500 million, we will refer to them as venture or startup.
That's what I meant when I said 60%. I should have actually clarified the definition of what I meant by bioventure or biotech.
Thank you. Let's move on to the next question. In the global website, Horizon and Provention, those are mentioned as your customers, and those are in the commercial stage or getting into the commercial stage.
Through the major pharma acquiring those companies, is there a positive impact? Horizon acquired by Amgen, Provention acquired by Sanofi. Please answer this question. Well, specifically, how much cannot be mentioned here. Generally speaking, as you mentioned correctly, what we call bio ventures, the new companies are being acquired by the big pharmas. Naturally, they used to just depend on their own sales active abilities, but now, after the acquisition, they can take advantage of the network of the bio big pharma sales network. Generally speaking, of course, the acquirer, of course, can sell more and by acquisition, and that's why they acquire. Generally speaking, when the bio ventures are acquired by the big pharma, we can expect a higher sales. Yes, that's what we expect.
Specifically, how much is not something that we can say. Thank you.
Let's go to the next question. With regard to tafluprost, there is a generic that may be launched in Japan this year. Would there be an impact on AGC business? Thank you for the question. Everyone knows so much about the very details of developments in the industry. Yes, we expect that to happen. The regulatory filing has been made for the generic version. We are aware of that. How much impact that would have, we are watching the situation. It would probably be in the latter half of this year or next year that the approval would come through.
With regard to volume, what we recognize at this point in time is that that's only 1 generic drug that is expected, so the impact should not be that large.
Thank you. Next question. You are planning to expand the facilities in Japan. Can you secure enough talent? Also, the number of the headcount outside of Japan, do you have a sufficient number of workers? This is the question I get quite often. As you said, in Japan and also globally, the bio talent, how to acquire it's very competitive. It is very high demand and high market for the talent. Globally, I'd like to answer first about the global market. Globally, we want to enhance our attractiveness of AGC so that we can reduce the turnover rate.
Employee satisfaction improvement is important, and for that, I think that the most important thing is communication, so we're very much focused on that so that we can retain employees globally. As for Japan, as you know, we always have a shortage of the bio talent, especially the quality management area or quality control area. It's very difficult to find a good talent, frankly speaking. What we are thinking is that bringing talent from other companies and also new graduates, young people, to educate and foster them so that they can be a very good talent. That is something that we are working on right now to make sure that we have sufficient talents. Thank you.
Let's go to the next question. The bio CDMO, we hear that labor costs are going up in this industry. With the AGC Life Science business, do you have a mechanism to pass on the additional labor costs to the pricing? How do you make sure that you secure enough margin, given that costs are rising overall? Thank you for your question.
Well, earlier, we talked about the difficulty of getting the right human resources or hiring, and there's a competition, obviously. That is having an impact, and that is pushing up labor expenses. That's also true. With regards to how to translate that into the sales pricing, basically, it's really based on the contract that we have with our customers. Particularly recently, the energy prices are soaring, and the situation is quite irregular.
There is some review on existing contracts, and for new contracts, new clauses are being added so that the extra costs can be covered. That's how we do that. You know, it was about 2 years ago that energy prices started to soar, and so it's not just personnel expenses, but in general, utility costs are up, power costs are up. With regard to generally cost increases, we are negotiating with our customers so that we can pass them on at a fair level. Thank you.
We are running out of time, so the next question will be the last question. From the US,
we are seeing as a stagnant performance, and why, what is the reason? Do you have the same problem in Europe and Japan?
Well, yes, the person who asked the question is correct. U.S. performance has been stagnant. That is correct.
Why is that?
The biggest reason is that, well, in Europe and Japan, the operation in each site has been going on with the same people for more than 10 years, so especially the leadership teams are fixed, unchanged, so there's a good teamwork there. That leads to the stable production and stable quality, I think. As I said, in the case of new plant, a new site in the United States, naturally, the people have a different expertise and background, and of course, we have a great talent there. There are newly, new people and the teamwork that is necessary for a startup. In order to establish it will take time. The people with the different background are there.
Unlike Europe and in Japan, those are the old organizations, and in the case of a new organization, depending on the individuals, depending on where they come from, their background, there could be some differences. It is taking time for the operation to stabilize. That is what I think is happening in the United States.
Thank you very much. With this, we have arrived at the scheduled time, thank you very much. With regard to the questions, we did not have time to answer, the relevant investor relations officer would contact you. Once again, thank you very much for joining us despite your busy schedule. With this, we would like to conclude today's meeting. If you close the Zoom screen, there will be a feedback sheet. We will appreciate your feedback, please kindly fill in the questionnaire. If you have further questions, please contact us at Investor Relations. The number is 0332185096. That's the Japanese Tokyo number, 0332185096. Once again, thank you very much for joining us this afternoon.