Good morning. My name is Katie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Avantor's first quarter 2022 earnings results conference call. If you would like to ask a question during the presentation, you may do so by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. I'd now like to hand the call over to Tommy Thomas, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Thomas, you may begin the conference.
Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. Our speakers today are Michael Stubblefield, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Tom Szlosek, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The press release and a presentation accompanying this call are available on our investor relations website at ir.avantorsciences.com. A replay of this webcast will also be made available on our website after the call. Following our prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. During this call, we will be making some forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in our SEC filings. Actual results might differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make today.
These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made. We do not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events and developments or otherwise. This call will include a discussion of non-GAAP measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures can be found in the appendix to the presentation. With that, I will now turn the call over to Michael. Michael.
Thanks, Tommy, and good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today. I'm starting on Slide three. As you have hopefully seen in the press release we issued last night with our first quarter results, we started the year with another outstanding quarter. Our strong results across all key financial metrics, including revenue growth, margin expansion, earnings growth, and free cash flow generation, highlight our premium position in attractive end markets, our compelling product and service offerings, the resiliency of our business model in a dynamic macro environment, and our continued track record of execution. In the first quarter, we achieved 7.3% core organic revenue growth, driven by continued momentum across our life sciences platform as well as in our applied end markets.
We expanded EBITDA margins by approximately 140 basis points, including the favorable impact of our 2021 acquisitions and expansion in our core business despite intensifying inflationary pressures. We increased adjusted net income by approximately 15% and generated approximately $128 million of free cash flow. We also made significant progress in executing our long-term growth strategy. We continue to invest in capacity and infrastructure to support our growth and currently have more than 24 manufacturing expansion projects in flight, 5 of which were completed in the first quarter. Our 2021 acquisitions delivered strong core growth and margins ahead of our internal operating plan, and we are pleased with our progress on integration, including commercial synergies. Tom will provide additional M&A color later in the presentation.
We remain focused on helping scientists realize the potential of new breakthroughs and introduce several new proprietary products in the first quarter. We launched multiple offerings targeting the cell and gene therapy market, including our proprietary cell lysis solution for use in adeno-associated viral vector production and a reagent used to remove host cell DNA and RNA impurities. We also executed a partnership agreement that will enable us to offer custom cGMP plasmid DNA for viral vector, mRNA, and nucleic acid workflows. To expand our offering in the LC-MS analytical workflow, we also launched a new line of J.T.Baker analytical syringe filters. Additionally, we introduced new products in our formulated silicone platform, including a proprietary formulation for novel in situ surgical applications and a thermal management solution for electronic applications. Looking ahead, we have good momentum in our end markets.
Our order book is growing, and we continue to leverage the Avantor Business System to drive execution in a challenging operating environment. We will continue to progress the integration of our recent acquisitions and are actively working our M&A pipeline. We remain confident in delivering another great year with strong growth and robust margin expansion, enabling us to raise our EPS guidance for the full year. Moving on to Slide four. I'd like to touch on some macro factors impacting our space. I'm starting on the left with concerns regarding the strength of the global economy. Encouragingly, the vast majority of the end markets we serve are growing mid- to high-single digits. Fueled by continued strength of the core monoclonal antibody workflow and the emerging modalities of cell and gene therapy and mRNA, biopharma activity in both R&D and production remains high.
Core healthcare continues to expand, and growth in our Advanced Technologies & Applied Materials business accelerated quarter-over-quarter. Within our applied platforms, we have exposure to many different end markets, including semiconductors, chemicals, energy, and food and beverage, and we are not seeing any signs of slowdown. Demand patterns in each of the three regions we serve are also holding up well, and we continue to benefit from our unparalleled customer access and a resilient, highly recurring revenue model. The geopolitical situation in Russia and Ukraine remains volatile, and our hearts are with those affected by this tragic conflict. We have ceased all sales to Russia, which historically have averaged about $5 million per year and do not have any cash or working capital exposure.
In keeping with our values, we donated nearly $1.2 million in gloves and masks, and we are working with our associates throughout Europe to collect critical items such as food, blankets, and clothing to donate to Ukraine refugees. Moving to COVID, the situation continues to evolve, and we are encouraged to see sustained declines in severe infections and deaths. Our COVID-related offerings, including personal protective equipment, diagnostic testing kits, and vaccine content, represent less than 3% of our total revenue, and the strength of our core business will more than offset the 2%-3% headwinds we anticipate in 2022. Additionally, the fungibility of our bioproduction capacity to support both COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, as well as our core business, give us flexibility to offset any incremental headwinds created from a transition to an endemic phase.
Also, the ongoing lockdowns in Shanghai have had limited impact on our business, given our relatively modest exposure to the region. Not surprisingly, we are facing historically high levels of inflation in virtually all of our cost categories. Nevertheless, our organic margin expansion in the first quarter is a proof point of our ability to manage through this cycle, leveraging the Avantor Business System to drive commercial excellence and productivity initiatives. Industry-wide supply constraints, including the supply of raw materials and ongoing transportation delays, have been part of our reality since the onset of the pandemic. Consistent execution and managing a complex supply chain are part of our DNA, and we are confident in our ability to mitigate further challenges. In addition to leveraging the ongoing benefits associated with our global footprint, we have undertaken several initiatives to ensure that we can continue to meet our customers' expectations.
We are increasing our manufacturing and distribution capacity throughout our network. We recently approved additional investments on our Phillipsburg site that will nearly double our global capacity for salts, and we are adding cGMP manufacturing capacity in Singapore to serve biopharma customers in the EMEA region. We are expanding supply chain operations headcount globally and increasing recruiting and retention activities accordingly. Finally, we continue to fortify our inventory levels, broaden our supplier partnerships, and optimize our transportation network to ensure that we can supply the products our customers need to continue their scientific work. A final point to mention is the rising interest rate environment. Despite the expectation of rising rates, our debt financing strategy has enabled us to confirm our original 2022 interest expense estimate, and we are well positioned against future rate increases given limited maturities over the next five years and the expectation of ongoing deleveraging.
Tom will take you through the details in a few minutes. We acknowledge that the macroeconomic situation is challenging in a number of ways. However, the resiliency of our business model and our track record of execution make us confident in our ability to continue to serve our customers and deliver our 2022 financial guidance. Moving to Q1 performance on page five. Q1 organic revenue increased 5.1%, and core revenue increased 7.3%. Total revenue grew 9.2% on a reported basis, including revenue contributions from Masterflex, Ritter, and RIM Bio, offsetting the impact of foreign exchange headwinds. Revenues within approximately 90% of our end markets grew mid to high single digits, including biopharma, where we realized more than 20% organic growth in our bioproduction platform.
Advanced Technologies & Applied Materials also grew high single digits, driven by notable strength in our proprietary offerings into the semiconductor market and healthy growth across most other customer groups. Adjusted EBIT on the quarter was up 16.5%, reflecting approximately 140 basis points of margin expansion resulting from the impact of our 2021 acquisitions, strong proprietary materials growth, and commercial excellence and productivity efforts to offset inflation. Our strong operating results drove adjusted net income growth of about 15%, in line with adjusted EBITDA growth. We generated free cash flow of about $128 million in the quarter, up about 14% from Q1 2021, despite increased investments to support our growth. We remain on track to achieve approximately 100% free cash flow conversion for the year.
Our adjusted net leverage ended at 4x adjusted EBITDA, down from 4.2x in December and in line with our 2x-4x target leverage. With that, let me turn it over to Tom to walk you through our financial results in more detail.
Thank you, Michael, and good morning, everyone. I'm starting on Slide six. We generated total revenue of $1.95 billion in Q1, representing a 9.2% reported growth rate. Our underlying core organic growth rate was 7.3%. As you can see on the right-hand side of this page, this continues a multi-year trend of accelerating core organic growth. Our COVID-related headwinds in the quarter were 2.2% in line with our expectations. As Michael mentioned, our COVID-related revenues are less than 3% of our total revenue and will represent a 2%-3% headwind to our organic growth in 2022. The play within this range will be largely driven by global vaccine demand, which continues to be deliberated globally.
To the extent that vaccine demand changes over the course of the year as booster requirements and other factors become clearer, we are confident that our aggregate revenues will remain intact given the fungibility of our bioproduction capacity to support both COVID and non-COVID demand. Revenues from 2021 acquisitions increased our revenues by 6.6%. More to come on this in a minute. The stronger U.S. dollar created FX translation headwinds of roughly 2.5%. On to page seven. From a regional perspective, Americas, which represents approximately 60% of annual global sales, achieved 6% organic revenue growth and 7.8% core organic growth, driven by high single-digit organic growth in biopharma, healthcare, and Advanced Technologies & Applied Materials.
Within biopharma, our bioproduction business grew more than 20%, with strong growth across process ingredients, excipients, single-use, and serum. In healthcare, we saw strong demand for our medical-grade silicone formulations as elective procedures continued to rebound. Within Advanced Technologies & Applied Materials, sales were driven by our proprietary offerings for semiconductor manufacturing. Europe, which represents approximately 35% of annual global sales, achieved 2.6% organic revenue growth in the first quarter and 6.3% core organic growth. Bioproduction grew almost 30% in the region, driven by demand for single-use offerings, process ingredients, and excipients. Advanced technologies and applied materials grew mid-single digits on an organic basis as a result of broad strength across all customers and product groups. Within healthcare, sales were relatively flat as double-digit growth from our medical implant platform was offset by headwinds in COVID diagnostic testing offerings.
That also impacted our European education and government business, which declined mid-single digits%. EMEA, representing approximately 5% of annual global sales, achieved 11.7% organic revenue growth and 8.6% core organic growth in the first quarter, driven by strong demand for our proprietary offerings in bioproduction and Advanced Technologies & Applied Materials. COVID-related sales delivered a modest tailwind due to ongoing sales of PPE and vaccine-related products in the region. Slide eight shows our organic revenue growth for the quarter by end market and product group. Biopharma, representing more than 50% of our annual revenue, experienced high single-digit % organic growth in the first quarter, including more than 20% organic growth in bioproduction, driven by strong demand across all of our offerings, including single-use, process ingredients, excipients, and serum.
Our bioproduction open order book continues to grow, with non-COVID orders now comprising approximately 85% of the total. We see strong underlying industry fundamentals in bioproduction, including a healthy development pipeline across mAbs, cell and gene therapy, and mRNA. There has been some noise regarding the health of funding in the biotech space, particularly for early-stage enterprises. These customers comprise a small percentage of our overall sales, and we remain positive on the biotech fundamentals, given strong private funding sources, multi-year cash reserves, robust NIH outlays, and high levels of clinical trials and pending approvals. We expect biotech customers to continue to play an important strategic role for Avantor by providing early access to the biopharma pipeline and see limited risk to the near-term R&D activity levels.
Healthcare, which represents approximately 10% of our annual revenue, experienced mid-single-digit organic growth in the first quarter, driven by continued double-digit growth in our medical-grade silicone offerings, partially offset by a decline in demand for COVID-19-related diagnostic offerings. Education and government, representing approximately 15% of our annual revenue, experienced a mid-single-digit organic revenue decline in the first quarter, driven by a roughly 10% decline in our government customer base as COVID-related demand, particularly for diagnostic testing and PPE offerings, moderated as expected. In the education market, sales were down modestly, with growth in our university and K through 12 segment offset by global COVID-related headwinds in diagnostics and PPE and supply chain constraints in our third-party instrumentation offerings. The funding outlook for universities remains strong. We expect improving results as supply chains stabilize and research activities return to normal levels.
Advanced Technologies & Applied Materials, representing approximately 25% of our annual revenue, achieved high single-digit % organic revenue growth in the first quarter, driven by growth to proprietary materials to semiconductor and electronic device customers, as well as broad strength across all customers and product groups in Europe and EMEA. Many of our semiconductor customers are currently undertaking significant expansions, and we are well-positioned to increase our sales as they ramp up capacity to meet growing global demand. By product group, proprietary materials and consumables offerings achieved double-digit % organic revenue growth, driven by strong demand for our process ingredients, chromatography resins, excipients, single-use solutions, and serum, as well as for our biomaterials and electronic chemicals platforms. Sales of third-party materials and consumables declined low single-digit %, reflecting year-over-year declines in the COVID-related testing and PPE offerings previously mentioned.
Let me turn to Slide nine to offer some perspective regarding our key financial performance metrics. In the first quarter, we achieved 16.5% growth in adjusted EBITDA and approximately 140 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion to 21.7%, reflecting the contributions from our 2021 acquisitions and in our core business, volume growth, favorable mix, including double-digit growth in sales of proprietary materials and consumables, inflation management through commercial excellence, and productivity enabled by our Avantor Business System. These positive factors were partially offset by increased cost of raw materials and freight, as well as investments in our workforce made over the course of 2021 and into 2022.
Adjusted earnings per share in the first quarter was $0.38, and adjusted net income was up approximately 15%, driven by higher operating income, partially offset by higher interest expense as a result of debt issued to finance the 2021 acquisitions and increased income tax expense as a result of higher pre-tax income. Free cash flow in the first quarter was $128 million compared to $112 million in the prior period. The increase was driven by higher operating cash flow and lower working capital investments than 2021, offset by an increase in capital spending to support our growth, principally capacity additions in our global supply chain. Turning to Slide 10, we have an update on the progress of our 2021 acquisitions.
You will recall that we deployed approximately $4 billion for M&A in 2021, principally for the acquisitions of Ritter and Masterflex, which collectively have expanded our addressable market by approximately $12 billion in 2025. These businesses have a highly recurring, specification-driven revenue profile and expand our proprietary offering to the biopharma and healthcare end markets. Masterflex is a leading global manufacturer of peristaltic pumps and aseptic single-use fluid transfer technologies that are used across all bioproduction platforms, including monoclonal antibodies, cell and gene therapy, and mRNA, and support both therapy and vaccine manufacturing, as well as critical research activities. Ritter is a global technology leader in robotic liquid handling consumables, including conductive tips, plates, and other consumables, and has significantly enhanced our proprietary offerings for critical lab automation workflows.
Collectively, we expect the acquisitions to generate around $ half billion of revenue in 2022 at EBITDA margin rates nearly double that of the core Avantor business. In Q1, the businesses generated $117 million of revenue, $45 million of EBITDA, and north of $0.02 in earnings per share. In terms of top-line performance, Masterflex grew in line with our broader bioproduction portfolio, benefiting from the same healthy demand patterns across mAbs, cell and gene therapy, and other emerging modalities. EBITDA contribution was ahead of our internal operating plan due to favorable mix and commercial excellence. The carve-out and integration process is progressing as planned, and we expect to transition the business onto our ERP and business platforms by the end of the third quarter.
Ritter grew high single digits on a core organic basis when comparing the first quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of 2021, and EBITDA came in ahead of our internal operating plan. Although the business has faced more significant COVID headwinds than originally anticipated, the fundamental growth drivers remain intact, and we expect Ritter to continue growing high single digits on a core organic basis. As a standalone business, the integration of Ritter is nearly complete. We are now focused on executing our commercial integration plan, which principally consists of driving the existing offerings through our commercial platforms into the aftermarket and leveraging a technology platform to develop new offerings. We have ongoing conviction in the strategic and financial rationale for these acquisitions and are confident we will achieve attractive returns on the capital deployed.
Moving to Slide 11, I wanted to give you an update on the expected impact from the rising interest rate environment on Avantor, both in 2022 and in future years. This is a good news story as the actions we have taken in the past, and more recently, will enable us to maintain 2022 interest expense at our original guidance of approximately $260 million. For starters, if you look at the debt schedule in the appendix to the presentation, you will see that roughly half of our roughly $7 billion in debt is fixed rate denominated. Further, most of this fixed rate debt does not mature until 2028 or later. Good protection there.
That leaves $3.3 billion of floating rate debt, of which $2.2 billion is US dollar LIBOR-based, the remainder euro-based. All of this floating rate debt is freely repayable with no penalty. As you can see on the left of Slide 11, the US dollar LIBOR forward curve has steepened since we issued our original guidance in January, creating upward pressure on future LIBOR-based borrowing costs. We have three levels of protection to offset the increases anticipated in 2022. First, our US dollar LIBOR-based loans have a floor of 0.5%. When the LIBOR rate is below the floor, which was indeed the case for most of the first quarter, then our floating rate is set at 50 basis points plus the spread of 200-225 basis points.
All interest rate increases up to the 50 basis points floor have had no impact on our interest expense. Second, in April, we executed a three-year $750 million interest rate and cross-currency swap that converted LIBOR-based floating rate interest to lower cost euro fixed rate interest. Third, we have ample capacity under our lower cost accounts receivable securitization facility, LIBOR plus 90 basis points, to continue to manage down our outstanding LIBOR-based floating rate debt, again, with no repayment penalty. As a result of these company actions, our 2022 estimated interest expense remains $260 million despite the rising rate environment. Looking beyond 2022, the Avantor debt maturity schedule calls for minimal mandatory debt repayments through 2024.
With free cash flow north of $1 billion per year, we are in a strong position to continue to handle the 2025 required repayment and pay down some or all, depending on alternative opportunities for cash deployment of the 2026 and 2027 floating rate debt on an accelerated basis without penalty. Our strong free cash flow model and strategic debt profile have enabled us to reduce our leverage by approximately 1x adjusted EBITDA each year and leave us confident in our ability to continue creating significant value for our shareholders. On Slide 12, we provide an update on our full year financial guidance. Our 4%-6% organic growth sales guidance is not changing.
We are encouraged by our momentum and remain confident in our ability to offset expected COVID-related headwinds by strong growth in our core business. On adjusted EBITDA margin rates, we do anticipate continued strong margin expansion for the full year. However, we are exercising prudence giving the dynamic macroeconomic environment and holding firm on the original margin guidance for now. Given the strength of our first quarter results and strong momentum, we are raising our adjusted earnings per share guidance to $1.48 per share-$1.54 per share, approximately $0.02 at the midpoint. We also remain confident on free cash flow and fully expect to achieve more than $1 billion for the full year. For the second quarter, a quick reminder that we are up against the 20% growth comp, our toughest of the year.
With that said, we expect year-over-year Q2 growth and margin expansion to be similar to Q1, with continued strong performance in biopharma and Advanced Technologies & Applied Materials, including full phase-in of 2022 pricing, offset by higher COVID and FX headwinds than Q1. This concludes my prepared remarks. I will now hand the call back to Michael.
Thanks, Tom. I'm now on Slide 13. Despite the dynamic operating environment, we started the year off by delivering another outstanding quarter. I remain encouraged by the strong fundamentals in our end markets and by our traction with commercial excellence and productivity initiatives that will enable continued growth and margin expansion. The integration of our 2021 acquisitions is going well, and their first quarter financial performance has been well positioned to achieve their full year operating plan. Given the continued momentum of our business and ongoing deleveraging, we have the flexibility to consider additional capital deployment opportunities and remain active in building a strong M&A pipeline. We will continue to invest in our long-term growth strategy. You learned about our progress expanding manufacturing capacity earlier. I'm especially excited to add cGMP manufacturing capacity in Singapore for processed chemicals, raw materials, and excipients.
As I mentioned earlier, the facility is designed to bring innovative solutions closer to biopharma customers in the region and boost supply chain capabilities, keeping breakthrough science moving forward. As I've mentioned before, we are committed to advancing sustainability through our Science for Goodness platform. With that in mind, we will be releasing our second sustainability report next month, which will include a Sustainability Accounting Standards Board index. I hope you will read it and see for yourself the progress we are making in the areas of people and culture, community engagement, innovation and environment, and governance and integrity. I want to thank you for your interest in Avantor and for your ongoing support. I will now turn it over to the operator to begin the question and answer portion of our call.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you'd like to remove your question, please press star followed by two. Please limit your questions to one question with one follow-up and ensure your phone is unmuted locally. We take our first question from Derik De Bruin from Bank of America. Please go ahead, Derik.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Can we talk a little bit about the pricing environment? There was some concern during the quarter about chasing. You did call out that you expect full implementation. Can you just give us some perspective on what you're seeing in terms of realized price increases this year? How does it compare to the past? In the full year. What sort of is like the pushback from your customers or at all, and sort of like how are your customers, your suppliers pushing that forward? Thanks.
Good morning, Derik. Thanks for the questions, Michael. A couple of things to keep in mind here around, you know, pricing. Historically, as we've talked about, roughly 1/3 of our growth would come from pricing and roughly 2/3 of our growth would come from volume expansion. As we entered the year in line with the inflationary environment that we're facing, you know, we anticipated that algorithm flipping, meaning roughly 2/3 of our growth would come from pricing. When we look at our results for Q1, we definitely see that coming into play.
Now, having said that, you know, the way that our contracts and interactions with our customers play out, you know, for all the new business that we earn in this year, obviously is priced at this year's pricing. We do carry forward, you know, some of the orders from 2021 that were in backlog into the new year that were priced at 2021 pricing. You know, that's pretty well worked its way out as we move through the quarter. As Tom indicated in his remarks, at this stage in the second quarter, basically all of our 2022 initial pricing is in play.
Now having said that, you know, we have, you know, implemented additional increases, and imagine that throughout the year as inflation plays out, that we may need to go back to the market in the future, but certainly have the flexibility to do that. Given the macro environment, you know, we're certainly not doing anything that's unusual here. You know, the conversations with our customers will probably be more around just security of supply and leveraging our supply chain to keep, you know, volume flowing into their facilities.
Great. Thanks. Can we get a little bit more clarity on some of the performance of your deals? Specifically, I mean, $117 million for each or for the in total. Can we get some specifics on what that breakout was and how big of headwind is COVID in those businesses this year versus your original expectations? Basically, what's the, you know, what's the core base for last year ex-COVID on these businesses, and thinking about that? Because it looks like you're doing your growth rates on an ex-COVID basis. Thanks.
Yeah, thanks for calling out the value we're creating here through these acquisitions we completed last year. We remain very excited about all three of them. As we indicated in the remarks as well as in the presentation, the three deals are running ahead of our internal operating plan in the quarter. We're well on schedule to achieve our full year plan. You know, Masterflex obviously being the biggest of the three, having the most impact on the numbers, running in line with our own, you know, vinyl production businesses and is on track to, you know, achieve the $300 million that we disclosed at the time of the deal for this year.
You know, Ritter is the one where we've had a little bit of noise. We knew that about 15%-20% of the revenue was COVID related, and had that coming out of our deal model, just not as quickly as it has come out. It obviously came out relatively quickly in Q3 and Q4. You know, we're at this point, you know, we're probably ±, you know, worked our way out, you know, from that. The underlying core business then, which is obviously what we acquired, you know, growing very much in line with our expectations here of high single digits. We are quite excited about the traction we have with the existing portfolio, moving that through our channel into the end customers.
We're also very excited about the investments that we're making in leveraging the asset as a center of excellence for high precision consumables manufacturing. We're getting great traction on a series of new product launches that expand our portfolio there. We're super excited about the contributions from all three of these deals and, you know, very confident that we'll achieve the returns that we would anticipate in how we deploy capital.
Derik, just to add to your question on the split. I mean, you'll see it in our 10-Q, you know, for the quarter, roughly $70 million for Masterflex, roughly $50 million for Ritter. The other thing I wanna point out on Ritter is, at the time we did the deal, it was about euro was about $1.20. It's now in the $1.05 range. That is contributing to, at least on a U.S. dollar basis, headwinds, in addition to, you know, what Michael mentioned. The underlying core organic growth continues to be in line with our expectation.
The next question comes from Vijay Kumar from Evercore. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Congrats on the print. Thanks for all the details there. Just given the questions investors have had heading into Q1. Maybe one on the guidance here. Big picture, when you look at Q1, you guys beat handily. Like Tom mentioned, 20% comp for Q2, and you're still expecting to do something similar to Q1. As you think about the back half, is there upside here as you think about some of the moving parts here, whether it's pricing, supply chain, or perhaps the macro and lockdown fears? Maybe just talk about when we stated that 4%-6%, should we be looking towards the upper half?
Yeah, thanks for the support, Vijay. A couple ways to think about the 4%-6%. Firstly, we have a high conviction around being able to deliver on that guidance on a full year basis. You obviously noticed that we increased our outlook on EPS, which really is a reflection of you know, our conviction around not only you know, trending towards the upper end of our organic guide, but also you know, confidence in being able to deliver on our margin expansion guidance as well. You know, we called out in the quarter here you know, expectation that COVID headwinds on the year will likely fall in this 2%-3% range.
You know, modestly higher than maybe where we were thinking about coming into the year. Despite that, you know, the strength of our core growth is obviously able to absorb that. You know, we're pleased with the momentum that we do have. One note about those COVID headwinds, as Tom indicated in his note, kind of the play in that range is likely gonna be driven by, you know, where vaccine demand ultimately lands this year. You know, we think we're well positioned there with and have, you know, well bracketed any potential downside there in how we've accounted for our outlook here through a couple of factors.
You know, firstly, we obviously have an order book that's non-cancelable that we have good line of sight to. You know, to the extent that additional demand doesn't materialize, we obviously have an order book for our core business that continues to expand and over time has more prominently shifted towards our core business and now stands at roughly 85% of our open order book in bioproduction is our core business. The capacity is fungible, and so any potential vaccine headwinds that materialize, we're gonna be more than able to offset through our redeploying that capacity to satisfy the bulging order book for our core business.
We're well positioned to continue to drive ahead here and certainly have a high confidence in delivering, you know, that range, if not the upper end of that range.
That's helpful, Michael. Maybe one on perhaps for Tom. The Q1 M&A contribution that's annualizing. Again, I'm nitpicking, which is given the amount of focus that we've had on these issues, I think it's helpful to be clear. The 117 annualizes to something like 470-ish. When you say we're still on track for 500, is there a timing element here, a cadence issue, a comp issue? Just talk about the confidence in that 500. When you think about the free cash flow, free cash flow growth of 20% year-on-year, how much of this is timing, Tom, versus underlying, you know, improvements?
Thanks, Vijay. Yeah, first on the M&A. I would say, I mean, your math is. I don't disagree with your math. But the incremental growth that we've seen in both the businesses, you know, quarter- to- quarter to quarter, you know, does support our view on that $500 million. You know, for example, if you looked at Q4, you know, I think our revenues were $90-ish or so. Now that was missing a third month for Masterflex. But when you put that in, you know, you're around $108, $110 in revenue in Q4 going to $117 in Q1. The incremental sequential growth is what's giving us confidence.
If you can see, you know, adding $5 million or so to the quarterly performance sheet, you can easily get to the 500, which is our expectation. On free cash flow, 20% growth. I think a little bit more modest, but I would say that it is really operational. In fact, if you compared first quarter of 2021 to 2022, you'd see that we actually had favorable, you know, working capital experience in terms of dollars. You know, the growth from the acquisitions is obviously helping us as well, in addition to the underlying growth of business.
There's nothing unusual, you know, except I think healthy conversion of our profits. Q1 is typically our low point of the year for free cash flow, given you know various you know one-time payouts, whether it's tax or employee bonus, et cetera. Fully confident in the $1 billion for the full year, which will be a nice increment from 2021. Vijay, I know you're one of our bigger free cash flow fans. I remember we were you know less than $200 million when we started three years ago. To be 5 times that, I think is you know speaks to the performance of the model.
We take our next question from Dan Brennan from Cowen. Please go ahead, Dan.
Great. Thanks for taking the questions, and congrats on the quarter. Maybe the first question, just on the pacing, if you don't mind. You're basically, I just wanna be understanding it clearly. You're saying basically Q2, despite the tougher comps, you're gonna achieve similar growth rate as you saw in Q1?
Basically, you would have somewhere in the zip code of, you know, 5% organic, 7% X code organic. That would imply a pretty decent step up on a stack basis. I just want to ensure I'm understanding the messaging about pacing in Q2.
Yeah, I think you've got it right. Remember that the second quarter last year, total organic growth was 20%. Yeah, we're up against, as I said, the toughest comp of the year. Underlying trends, order patterns, and so forth have us confident in the 4%-6% growth rate for the year, including good growth for the second quarter. Yeah, we've mentioned a couple of times that we've got strong order books, particularly for our proprietary businesses. Proprietary grew in the teens in the first quarter.
Expect that to continue. We also have good momentum, you know, from a commercial side. You know, pricing as we talked about has, you know, reached its point of full implementation by the end of the quarter. Sequentially Q1 to Q2, you should get a little bit of lift on the top side from that as well. It is well supported. You know, so far what we're seeing, we haven't closed April, but we are confident in the full quarter outlook.
Great. Thanks, Tom. Maybe on COVID, while certainly the contribution to your business is smaller than peers. I just wanted to understand again, like the updated view of the 2%-3%. So on the 3%, that all comes out of the vaccine side. Previously we were assuming, you know, $200 million in vaccine-related revenues this year, $50 million in tests and other. Presumably now with the 2%-3%, it should be something in the zip code of, you know, could be somewhere $125 million on vaccine therapeutic at the lower end, but the testing and other remains $50 million. I guess that's the first part of the question.
The second part would be just given the confidence, and the fungibility of your capacity to meet, you know, any slowdown to kind of meet it with the base business, would you be willing to share additional color on the size of the backlog on the base business and/or, you know, the growth rate you said was 20%+ on the base business? Was the order growth rate at that level? Was it higher or lower? Anything of that would further help instill confidence. Thank you, Tom.
Michael.
Yeah, let me take that question. On the 2%-3% expected headwinds for the year. To get to the 3% range, you're probably also going to need some you know bit of deterioration on the testing side of things as well. You know, in the worst of scenarios, is it you know 50-75 of additional headwinds on the vaccines? Yeah, perhaps in that range. I'm not sure I could quite get to the high end of that, but that would certainly bracket that. On the core side of our order book on bioproduction, as we've said in previous calls, you know it continues to trend you know at roughly a full year's worth of demand.
As we say here today, perhaps even a bit ahead of that at this stage. Clearly more than enough demand to be able to soak up any of the additional capacity that we might not need to support the vaccine outlook. We've done an order book for the vaccines, as I said before, that's certainly supportive of our views here. A lot of uncertainty around, you know, is there going to be additional demand that comes through associated with any, you know, fall, you know, booster, you know, season or not. We're not needing that or counting on that in any way to be able to deliver on the guidance that we've got here.
We're very confident we can offset anything that comes there through our, you know, through our core business.
Next, we have a question from Jack Meehan from Nephron Research. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to ask again about just the cadence of the margin expansion, specific as it relates to the first quarter. You know, I think originally entering the year, the model assumed, you know, the first quarter was going to come in, you know, lower given some of the factors you've laid out. Now, you ultimately delivered 140 BPS of expansion. I was just curious if you could kind of articulate, you know, where the upside came from in the quarter. And just maybe, you know, how much of that might have been related to how you exited the quarter, you know, toward the end of March.
Yeah. Thanks, Jack. Yeah. So just to reiterate, the original guide was 125 basis points of margin expansion over the course of the year. You know, 140 was what we delivered in the first quarter. When we talked about the 175, you know, we said that, you know, 50-75 of it would come from the core organic business and, you know, call it 50-75 from M&A. We're probably in the first quarter a little bit higher, you know, on the M&A contribution than, you know, on the organic contribution. That was as anticipated, you know, given the dynamics we talked about around the timing of pricing and inflation.
you know, as we look forward, I think that balances out a little bit more, as you see, you know, our expansion, you know, going forward. I do fully expect that
You know, the core business, the organic business pre-acquisition, is gonna be, you know, contributing, as much as, the M&A loan.
Great. In the prepared remarks, you called out kind of the potential for increased demand on the semiconductor side, with reinvestment there. Can you just remind us what percentage of sales comes from that area, what products you serve the market with, and just talk about what you're seeing on the ground in terms of demand today?
Jack, our exposure to the semiconductor space gets reported in our Advanced Technologies & Applied Materials end market, which collectively is around 25% of our overall revenues. Within that, semi is, you know, probably a couple of percentage points somewhere in that range, 2-3 points. We have a pretty comprehensive solution into that space, including, you know, a lot of supplies to help manage their clean room environment, a number of services that we supply. Perhaps most importantly, though, we supply a set of proprietary formulations that are used in the actual manufacturing of the wafers themselves, that provide etching and cleaning functionality in most of the process steps that are, you know, required to produce a wafer.
Which, you know, in today's technology, to produce a wafer, you're talking, you know, more than a couple of thousand process steps to make that happen, and our materials are gonna be used as a function of a number of steps. Clearly demand for semiconductors is, you know, very, very strong. We're growing double digits in that space. There's been some pretty high profile announcements of expansions around the world, including here in the United States, and we're well positioned in that space with the technologies that we supply on a proprietary basis to continue to be an important supplier into that space. Clearly, a lot of momentum, and we're well positioned to continue to benefit from that.
The next question comes from Tejas Savant from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Good morning, and thanks for the time here. Tom, maybe just a quick housekeeping one for you to kick things off. What exactly is the FX headwind? I'm not sure you mentioned it in your prepared remarks, or maybe I missed it.
For the core, it was roughly two percentage points. You know, it is what you'd call $40 million or so on the top line. You know, for the full year, we now expect that to be in the range of a couple hundred million, $200 million or so. Yeah, is what I'd say.
Got it. Makes sense. Thanks. Michael, one.
The 2%, I should have said it's closer to 2.5%, so somewhere in that range. It is the $40 million I'm talking about.
Got it. That's helpful. Michael, one for you on the geos. Obviously, China is relatively small for you here. Any thoughts on when things normalize there? More importantly on Europe, which is a significant, you know, region for you. In light of the energy dependence there on Russian natural gas and some of these payment deadlines approaching and Russia threatening to turn off the supplies here, what exactly are you contemplating in your guide in terms of the macro backdrop in the back half of the year? Do you expect to be sort of essentially recession-proof given your, you know, proprietary product and consumables mix even under that scenario?
Yeah, a couple of things. Firstly, on China, your read is correct. We have very limited exposure there, although we remain, you know, bullish on the long-term outlook there, and we continue to invest. No meaningful impacts to date. Clearly, no real insights as to when things might improve or how they might, you know, evolve as we move forward. Obviously, it's a tough situation that they're dealing with. As we sit here today, limited to no impacts on the business.
In thinking about, you know, Europe, we obviously just come off a pretty strong quarter here, where it's important, you know, to recognize that as we've said from the beginning of the pandemic, our testing exposure was disproportionately centered in Europe. Naturally, as the testing comes down, the headwinds are gonna be a bit stronger in Europe than in other regions. You know, organic growth of a couple of hundred basis points. On a core basis, you know, we grew that business in Europe at north of 6%. Really strong performance in Europe in the quarter with strength really across each of our end markets, including, you know, some of the industrial areas.
We do have, you know, assets and facilities that are important to our supply chain throughout the region there. As we look at the situation today, including our facilities in Poland, you know, everything continues to run normally. We'll continue to watch the situation unfold. It's obviously pretty dynamic. You know, we're confident in that we do have a large global footprint that gives us a lot of optionality.
Certainly as we look at the things we've been able to do to keep our customers served throughout the pandemic, leveraging this optionality, you know, we're kind of confident in our ability to continue to do that and, you know, take some solace in the momentum that we've got exiting, you know, for the first quarter.
We take our next question from Matt Sykes from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, Matt.
Thanks for taking my questions. Good morning. Just my first one, just on sort of the M&A plus the interest rate mitigation that you did. It's good to see that the floating rate risk has been mitigated for this year. As you think about M&A and where your leverage ratio is now, is paying down debt still a priority just given that longer term there still is that interest rate risk on the floating rate side? Or are you kind of doubling down on the M&A for this year in terms of the pipeline, the valuations, and everything that's compressed over the past six months?
When I think about our capital allocation priorities, I think you hit the two elements here of you know continuing to you know to be focused on M&A and deleveraging. I think we have a pretty clear algorithm on you know what it would take for us to do a deal. We've I think showed great discipline to date, and you should expect you know similar discipline going forward. We do have a you know a strong pipeline that we continue to execute, and if you know the right deal comes through that, we would you know be thrilled to be able to get something done this year.
You know, if not, clearly there's a lot of value that can be created by you know, continuing to deleverage the business.
Great. Then just on the education and government segment, you called out a number of COVID headwinds. Anything else in that end market that you would call out in terms of contributing to that mid-single-digit decline, or is it mostly COVID, and we expect that to alleviate over time?
Yeah, exactly. You've got it right. Particularly on the government side, where, you know, we participated in a number of, you know, government-sponsored COVID relief efforts around the world, really in all three regions that, you know, whether it be PPE or testing support, that, you know, diminish over time. So as we work our way out of that, you know, you should expect that space, particularly the education piece, to return to more normal, normalized growth levels.
We take our next question from Patrick Donnelly from Citi. Please go ahead, Patrick.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Just another one on the deal side. For Ritter, I just wanted to see the visibility into orders. I mean, is it fully transparent from customers if they're using the product for COVID versus not? Just trying to get a sense for confidence on that high single digit underlying number, given the revenue over the past few quarters. Similarly, Masterflex, just how should we think about COVID exposure there? It sounds like, again, you're kind of thinking, you know, anything that comes out is gonna remain fungible on kind of the bioprocessing side. I would assume it's the same there, but just wanted to talk through that as well.
Yeah. Let me take those, Patrick. On the Ritter side, you know, the customer base that we had for that business at the time of the acquisition was primarily an OEM, you know, driven model. You know, given that this business, you know, follows the same business model as our other proprietary businesses and technologies that we have, meaning the product is actually specified into our customer's workflow by the customer, we do actually have pretty good line of sight to, you know, how the product is being used. In this case, you know, we were aided a bit in fact in that the customer base was relatively limited at the time of the acquisition.
The benefit that we get now obviously is being able to translate, you know, these technologies across now, the you know, several hundred thousand customer locations around the world that are engaged in life science research and diagnostic testing, where we can now reach these the end markets, you know, on a direct basis. We're certainly excited about the translation in being able to do that. You had a second part to your question?
Yeah, just on Masterflex in terms of how to think about the COVID exposure there. Is it fungible, kind of similar to what you were talking about with the other bioprocessing?
Yeah. It's very similar in how we think about our own, you know, bioproduction, you know, business. There clearly is, you know, a bit of, you know, COVID exposure there for, you know, as it relates to, you know, supporting some of the vaccines. Very strong order book, similar mix as what we have in our, in our legacy bioproduction business, and I think we think about it exactly the same way.
Next, we have a question from Paul Knight from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. On the bioprocess order book, could you talk about, you know, you're seeing accelerating demand. That's obviously in spite of COVID. Is it? Are companies taking up product as they kinda get off of vaccine programs and back to traditional monoclonal cell and gene and other programs? You know, what are the dynamics you're seeing on this growth, I guess is the broad question?
You know, as we've indicated throughout the pandemic, the underlying core business that we're supporting, which we're agnostic to, you know, therapeutic area, we're agnostic to modality, we're gonna have broad exposure across all. The demand for those products has not waned, you know, throughout the pandemic and, you know, continues to, you know, to grow at pretty aggressive levels. The demand has been there. You know, we've had to manage through some, you know, raw material and other capacity constraints as we, you know, balance, you know, supporting, you know, both vaccines as well as the broad therapeutic base. The demand has been there and has been, you know, been very strong.
Our order book has, you know, continued to build throughout the pandemic with a lean towards the core business. You know, as, you know, incremental, you know, capacity and raw material availability through the value chain, you know, is made available as we transition away from the vaccine. You know, that just allows us to satisfy and pull forward, you know, some of the orders that we have on the books for our core business.
Are you able to see if the hope for pickup in cell therapy and mRNA is happening in the market?
As we've experienced, you know, demand and growth in the market and as we anticipate growth over the next couple of years, it's still gonna be largely driven by the monoclonal antibody workflow. You know, that's the lion's share of the commercialized platforms, continued great momentum, continued build of the pipeline, and you know that's gonna be the core driver. Certainly the two modalities that you mentioned are starting to gain traction. You know, cell and gene therapy is obviously a bit ahead, and you know has a pretty exciting platform.
You know, as you heard in some of my prepared remarks, you know, we've launched some products specifically targeting that cell and gene therapy market and put in place some partnerships to help us expand our offering there. We continue to be bullish and well positioned to service what we do think is gonna be a pretty exciting growth opportunity. COVID has accelerated the mRNA market dramatically. For both vaccine development beyond COVID is probably gonna front run the near term opportunities there, which you know, we should be able to participate in, as well as the therapeutic area.
That, you know, will certainly be a helpful tailwind for all of us in the biologic space, you know, in the years to come. I wouldn't discount the importance of monoclonals. That still drives the lion's share of the revenue for our end customers.
This now concludes our Q&A session, so I'll hand it back to Michael for any closing remarks.
Yeah. Thank you all for participating in our call today. As we close, I would certainly be remiss if I didn't express my continued gratitude for the ongoing efforts of all of our associates around the world, who are living our values every day and setting science in motion to create a better world. Hopefully you sense our confidence and excitement about what lies ahead for Avantor, and we look forward to updating you when we meet next. Until then, take care and be safe everyone.
Thank you all for joining today's call. This now concludes the call. Please disconnect your lines.