All right, we can, we can look to get started. Thanks everyone for being here. I'm Patrick Donnelly, the tools and diagnostics analyst here at Citi. Happy to have Gerald Herman, CFO of Bruker, with us for this session.
Hello.
Gerald, thanks for being here. Maybe we can start, you know, you guys reported the quarter pretty recently here. Strong results, really nice guide for 2023. Maybe just talk through the quarter quickly, kind of the moving pieces, and then we can kind of get into orders and 2023 and kind of move on from there.
Sure. Well, thanks for inviting us. Happy to be here. It's always a pleasure to be in New York. I guess I'd say relative to the fourth quarter, a pretty solid performance, across almost all of our end markets. We put up quite strong order bookings performance, in particular in our, you know, some of our typically strong areas. I'd say microelectronics and semi-metrology space was quite solid. Also, we saw pretty good growth in a number of our other areas that are, you know, building some strength for us in the long term.
I think for the full year, we were quite pleased. I mean, you know, we have a little bit of up and down by quarter, but fundamentally, it looked very strong for us, I think, as we finished the year, both at the, at the organic revenue growth line as well as through the margin performance. You know, we put up 150 basis points of improvement on gross margin, and we put up almost 60 basis points of improvement on operating margin. Performance came in at $2.34 on the EPS, which beat consensus and certainly, you know, was strong kind of mid-teens growth from an EPS perspective on a year-over-year basis. Pretty pleased with how it all performed.
Yeah. Yeah, maybe on kind of that, it used to be a lot more volatile in terms of the quarter to quarter. You guys have done a nice job of smoothing results out. I mean, was there anything from 4Q you guys have put up a nice beat? Any orders, revenue kind of push out into 1Q to kind of smooth that typical cadence? Maybe just talk a little bit about.
Sure. Well, one of the big challenges for 2022, and the fourth quarter was really no exception to that, was the supply chain constraints. We still have issues from a supply chain perspective. It did improve, I would say, in the fourth quarter, but certainly not to where we would like to see it. We're still building backlog, as I think.
Yeah.
-you likely know. We're at record backlog levels, which gives us a little better visibility into what we see for the 2023 guide. Fundamentally, you know, I think the quarter did pretty well. I think the year, we tried to do as much steering as we can, but I think fundamentally it was a good solid performance. We do see, and we can talk more about that if you'd like, relative to the 2023 period, a, you know, probably some lumpiness, again, largely due to our supply chain constraints.
This is a situation where we see improvement, but it's not over yet. It looks like for us, we'll still see supply chain constraints through, at least through the part of the second half of 2023.
Yeah. Yeah, maybe kind of touching on the order piece you touched on there. I mean, I know a lot of people put, instrument companies in a bucket, right? You kind of all look the same, but you guys are pretty unique in the way that orders continue to grow. I think they even outpaced revenue in 4Q.
Yeah.
That backlog continues to build. Maybe talk about the order growth you've seen in 4Q and what makes you guys unique versus other instrument players who are seeing instruments decline year-over-year in terms of orders. You guys are a little bit different.
Yeah. First of all, I think we have a unique play in terms of our innovation. The way our instruments and our solutions are developed are really, you know, at cutting edge technology. I think that's helping together with our Project Accelerate 2.0 strategic planning program to really help to fuel demand for those products. We see it at a very significant level in the order bookings performance. It's been multi-quarter, actually multi-year bookings performance. I think that speaks largely to the strategic confirmation of the strategic plan, as well as, you know, just our ability to execute. We have clearly built some backlog up, actually more backlog than we would like to see at this stage. We're at record backlog levels, and we'd like to bring that down a little bit.
At the moment, you know, we're at a book-to-bill over one, and we've been at those levels for quite some time. Fundamentally, we wanna bring it down. It's gonna be largely driven by how the supply chain, you know, works its way through over 2023. We think it's gonna be a multi-year exercise of bringing that backlog down over time.
In terms of our competitive position relative to the marketplace, I mean, you already know we have two areas that we focus on, really specifically around proteomics and spatial biology. We think those are enormous opportunities for us from a growth perspective. At the same time, we have very strong core growth activities going on. Our core, this is academic government, industrial, a number of our other areas are performing extremely well. This, I think, has to do with the differentiated products. To a certain extent, you know, even in industrial markets that may be seeing some softening, you know, we're performing better in those markets because we tend to be focused in more niche markets, I think, today than we were even, you know, several years back.
Yeah. To your point on the order growth, I mean, it's been, you know, it got past multiple quarters, now it's multiple years.
Yeah.
You've seen this kind of double-digit-
Yeah.
consistent order growth. I mean, are you seeing change in appetite from customers, the demand seems like it remained obviously to your point, the 1.1-?
Yeah.
plus book-to-bill in 4Q. I mean, any changes in the demand or conversation or does it remain quite robust for you?
It seems quite... I mean, we have seen continuing strength even into the first quarter. You likely know there's good strength for sure in the proteomics space. We continue to have good solid revenue performance, you know, in the semi-metrology and the microelectronics area, on our side as a supplier of those products. We just have seen almost broad-based order growth across almost all the geographies as well. A very good strength in the North American markets. Europe, which gets a lot of conversation about how challenging it is, we have not seen that. We saw very strong order bookings performance in the fourth quarter in Europe and continue to see that in the first quarter so far.
I would say even China, we can talk more about China if you like, but you know, the China experience, we saw mid-teens growth both in revenue and order bookings performance in 2022 off some very challenging comps.
We are pretty bullish on China as well at this stage based on what we've seen from the order books.
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like near term, it sounds like 1 Q is tracking pretty well on the order side. I mean, is that double-digit type growth in orders sustainable as well, at least in the near term?
Well, I guess, again, I think it depends largely on some of the macroeconomic conditions. We know that there are some supply chain constraints that are still holding people back in some respects. I think, you know, we've seen really good order bookings performance across almost all the geographies. At this stage, we're pretty optimistic.
Okay. You mentioned China. It's always a big focus area for people.
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, we had kind of COVID, Lunar New Year. Everyone's kind of wondering, how do we come out of that? You know, maybe talk about you guys have put up, you know, pretty good performance there, obviously.
Yeah.
I guess what are you seeing there? Again, with you guys, typically, when things reopen, you're able to place a bunch of instruments. Maybe just talk about the demand environment there and what you're seeing in terms of lab activity kind of beyond the kind of shutdown between COVID and Lunar New Year.
Yeah. Yeah, I'd say, I mean, we did have some challenges, particularly in the COVID lockdowns in China. You know, as that got lifted, I think the overall performance of the Chinese business has performed extremely well. Order bookings, I think, has got a little bit of boost from the release of that COVID lockdown. In addition, as probably most know, there's clearly some China stimulus in the mix. I think from my perspective, that seems very focused largely in some of the sweet spots that we operate in, both the microelectronics areas, the academic and government funding areas, and in particular, some of our more niche markets that we play in in China.
We are expecting a good solid year in 2023 relative to the Chinese markets. It is always obvious, I guess, that the Chinese can dial up or dial down what they want to do. At this point, with the stimulus that we've seen, you know, put up in China, particularly in the academic government space, I think there's a really good tailwind there for companies like ours that are focused on, you know, specialty, I would call it specialty areas in China. Those of you that may not be familiar, we do not have R&D activities or production activities in China. This is largely just commercial activities, very focused on, you know, research and discovery related, equipment and also some industrial equipment that, that got very good take up.
Yeah. Maybe we can pick up on that stimulus piece. Obviously, some pretty big numbers thrown around, particularly what's targeted for life sciences. You know, it seems like you guys are already seeing some activity. I guess first, maybe what are you contemplating in terms of, you know, how you think about China growth this year? Is stimulus part of that? Secondarily, obviously, it feels like it should be a pretty durable growth, maybe just talk about what you're seeing.
Yeah. I think what we're seeing so far is I think we perhaps even saw some benefit on the order booking side in China from some of the stimulus. I think more of that's going to fall into 2023.
It appears as if, you know, this order bookings momentum that's going on there.
Yeah.
-is more durable, certainly into 2023. The question is going to be how fast can we actually meet some of that demand? That's what's going to be more supply chain driven again.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, our teams are indicating to us that they expect to see, you know, good solid order bookings growth and some execution as we move through 2023. I would think it's going to be a tailwind in 2023 and 2024.
Okay.
-based on that.
Yep.
You know, there's a number of different parts to those programs in China. I think we hit more particularly in some of the favorable interest loan structures.
Yeah.
for funding in research areas. I think that that's historically been very durable for us, even without the stimulus.
Mm-hmm. To your point, you know, not the biggest kind of production infrastructure over there. I know there's always this focus on in China, for China. I mean, have you heard any pushback on that or anything like that?
Well, there's going to be that. There's no question about that. We do have some products that face that sort of in China...
Mm-hmm.
Competition. The great thing I think about our portfolio more broadly is that it's driven largely by innovation.
Yeah.
If you're looking to do cutting-edge research, and that's where a lot of the academic and government research activity is going on in China, you need the big tools, and those tools are coming from a handful of players, and we happen to be one of them. The Chinese research tools are not, you know, developed tools in China are not at the level of some of the other Western-based tool manufacturers, including us.
Yep, that's fair. Then just maybe refresh people just in terms of the China exposure.
Yeah.
You know, what it is for the company, and then also anything different in terms of the corporate portfolio versus what, you know, where the exposures are in China in terms of what you're selling there.
Yeah. I'd say just generally, China's a major market for us. It's about a 17% picture for Bruker, so not inconsequential and growing at these, you know, double-digit rates as you've seen. I think, we play very strongly in some of the core markets. I guess I would say everything from life science, mass spec to specialty equipment, including in the industrial space. We have tools that are, you know, in NMR space particularly, that are very unique. I'd say generally speaking, you know, our BioSpin, CALID, and even our NANO group see, you know, particular strength in China and expect to see it going forward. That's how it feels, at least at this stage. It's early in the year, you know, it's encouraging for us, I think.
Yep. Gotcha. Okay. Then, maybe just kind of shifting over. You mentioned Europe, obviously a big focus. Actually, maybe quick last one on China, actually.
Sure.
The semi piece.
Yep.
You know, that's the one, everything's great in China, but maybe that one piece.
Yeah. Well.
I think you guys, you know, almost de-risked the backlog. At the same time, you know, orders were able to grow double, but you pulled out almost some of the China semi stuff.
We did. Because of some of the export restrictions, some of our instruments, even though they're not targeted particularly to defense or, that area specifically, we do have, in some cases, dual use equipment or equipment that's perceived as that from the Chinese authorities and from the U.S. government. We did pull out, it's a very relatively small number in our backlog. It's about less than 1%. But we moved that out of the backlog just sort of as an out of an abundance of caution. We are working through an application process with the U.S. and European governments to qualify our instruments to go back in on the basis that they're discovery-related, that they're not defense-related.
Mm-hmm.
I think that's a process. We'll see how that all goes. You know, we removed that from the backlog. We've also removed any orders that we thought would be sensitive in that space out of our guide. Whatever we have in the guide that we put out for 2023 is already baked that in.
Yep.
I think we're pretty comfortable with where that is. There actually may be some upside if things work out.
Right. It was almost kind of de-risking the backlog.
Yep.
Still went up in 4 Q, and then there's potential for it to possibly come back. What would the timing possibly be?
Well, I think it's really government-driven. I'm sorry to say.
Yeah.
It's not Bruker-driven. It's, it's gonna be about what, you know, how fast we can move through some of the government agencies. We're determined. We've got a good, strong team focused on it. Of course, that's gonna be upside-
Yeah
from the guide. That's the goal.
Okay. Yeah. Maybe over to Europe, always a focus for you guys.
Yeah.
Just given the exposure, you always have a pretty good feel for the trends there. I think there was some caution kind of pre 4Q. The general feel is the milder winters kind of helped everybody.
Yeah.
Maybe talk through what you're seeing.
Sure. Maybe just to clarify, historically, legacy-wise, Bruker's had, you know, a very large profile in Europe. That's really moved pretty dramatically to be a more balanced profile. It's basically a third, a third, a third for each of the major geographies, including Europe now. It's not quite the exposure that we had, you know, many years back, but still we are a strong player. We have research facilities, production facilities, and so on in Europe. It's an important market for us. What I would say is that, fortunately, I think the winter in Europe was relatively mild. It's fun to see on video conferences or when we travel, people in the middle of January in short sleeves.
It's turned out to be a relatively mild winter, so I think the energy-related concerns that we had probably back in the third quarter of 2022 have seemed to really dissipated. There's large gas supply availability in places like Germany and others in Europe at this stage, so we don't appear to have any expectations now for, you know, production disruptions or anything else that was giving us a little concern initially. I think overall, Europe has tended to be a strong market for us. We had a really good order bookings performance in the fourth quarter coming out of Europe. We still continue to see that as it's moved forward into the first quarter.
It's a big important market for us, and we're optimistic or more positive about the outlook there than we were, I'd say, even a few months back.
Yeah. Just the general funding environment there.
Yeah
It seems stable again. I know there were worries with the whole, you know, geopolitical tensions, that there would be some shifting of the budget.
Yeah.
It doesn't sound like you've seen much.
We haven't seen much. I have to say, if you add up the geographies with CHIPS and Science Act in the U.S., the Chinese stimulus, plus what we continue to see in terms of strength in academic funding in Europe, these are all pretty solid tailwinds, I think-
Yeah
to the overall instrument portfolio. Then, of course, we have other elements that we're pushing hard on, particularly in the higher opportunities around proteomics and spatial. Those are hot areas, and for sure, the Europeans are not gonna be behind on funding opportunities from a research perspective in those categories.
Yeah. Okay. Maybe we can move to kind of the 2023 guide. You know, one question I got certainly after the quarter, I think you guys at JPM gave the mid to high single.
Yeah.
A few weeks later, we're up to 8%-10% for the year. A good change, which is always received well. I guess what gave you the confidence over that? A few week period to kind of shift things up. You mentioned, obviously, 1Q seems like it's coming in well in orders.
Yeah.
Was that kind of the big catalyst?
Part of it is some improvement in the supply chain element.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, clearly, for Bruker to put up 8%-10% organic revenue on a guide is significant, I think, for us. You know, we tend to be quite conservative about our approach going forward. I think the three factors, some improvement in the supply chain. I think the second important factor is the backlog level gave us pretty good visibility into what we see going forward. I think, as I said before, it's record backlog, and we now know the composition of that more visibly, so it gives us more confidence there.
I think, you know, it is a fact that the, when we studied more closely the fourth quarter performance on an order bookings perspective, and then as we moved into the first quarter, seeing strength going on there, as well helped us to be more confident going forward with the 8%-10% on the organic revenue base.
Yeah. Would you still frame it, I know we were chatting a little bit before about you and Frank's philosophy, it's always, you know, pretty conservative. Again, I think when people saw 8%-10%, wow, they're obviously feeling pretty good. I mean, do you still feel like that 8%-10% has the typical Bruker conservatism in there?
Well, I'd say the business is quite comfortable with putting those numbers out-
Mm-hmm.
or we wouldn't be putting them out. I think we, I've said this to you and I've said it to others, I think the company's pivoted to a different place. I mean, three or four years ago, you know, the order bookings demand was not what we see today. We've got tailwinds in some other areas. I've talked about some of those already. We've got, you know, funding environments that seem very favorable. There's a bunch of factors, I think, at this stage that give us more confidence to be more optimistic about that order book.
Sure. Yeah. Another one we get, not only for you guys, but for the rest of the group is kind of this cadence for the year, right?
Yeah.
Most tools companies are seeing this softer Q. You guys seem to be bucking the trend there a little bit as well.
Yeah. A little bit. Yeah.
Maybe talk about, you know, it sounds like 1 Q could be around that full year.
Yeah.
How should we think about that?
We have a slightly different dynamic perhaps than some others. First of all, I've just mentioned we seem to be encouraged by some of the order bookings that we've seen both in the fourth quarter and so far in the first. You know, fundamentally, I think that the environment is a little bit different for us. First of all, if you look at the first half of 2023, we had a relatively weak second quarter of 2022.
Mm-hmm.
That was driven largely by supply chain constraints, and that squeezed our performance in the second quarter down, and I think that means that if we deliver well in the second quarter of 2023, we'll have an easier comp. Moreover, you know, because of supply chain issues, we did see some spillover of transaction activity into the first quarter. I do think we're gonna be at the high range of that 8%-10% in the first quarter, and we'll have easier comps in that second quarter. I think that sets up a different dynamic for the first half. Likely, the second half will be, you know, somewhat, I would say lower comparisons.
Mm-hmm.
maybe at the lower end of our 8%-10%-
Okay.
-range of growth. Still very solid.
Mm-hmm.
I think the expectation is it'll be kind of reverse of what you might otherwise see.
In terms of cadence, 1 Q, maybe at the top end of the full year.
Yeah.
2Q, the high, high mark for the year, and then the second half, kind of cross that bridge when we get there.
Yeah. I mean, we'll see what it all brings. If we have good execution, I still think we'll be able to deliver, you know, that maybe the low end of that 8%-10%-
Yeah. Okay.
on our guide.
Yeah, no. Front, front half guide is always preferred.
Well, it's good for us because we get to, you know, essentially put those quarters in the bank.
Sure.
That allows us to have more flexibility for the second half.
Yeah. maybe again on the backlog, as you work your way through the year, I think you guys are around nine months right now.
Yeah.
Is there a view in terms of how you're gonna work that down again? A good problem to have is that-
Mm.
orders continue to come in really strong.
Yeah.
The backlog holds pretty steady here. What's your perspective on, I know Frank has talked about it's gonna take years to work this down, but.
Yeah, it does appear, even with the supply chain easing, or some improvement in that, you know, our expectation is that it's gonna take multi-year effort to bring that down, especially given the scale of our order bookings performance thus far and sort of historically. Yeah, I think it's a longer term or maybe a medium term.
Mm-hmm.
You know, challenge for us to get that book-to-bill down below one. We absolutely wanna do that, honestly, because our backlog period's a little longer than we would like it to be. You know, at the moment, especially in some sectors where we have very strong demand, you know, we talk about biopharma or in some of our life science instruments, for example, we clearly wanna be moving through that backlog faster than we are.
Okay. Maybe just kind of moving on to the margins for the year.
Mm-hmm.
You know, another area of kind of upside from what people were expecting. How do you think about, you know, the margin piece? Maybe talk through kind of the guidance, the levers you have this year.
Sure.
Talk a little bit about how that works for you.
Yeah. In the guide, we pointed out for 2023 that we expect to see organic growth in both the gross margin and the operating margin levels. The gross margin is being driven largely by our ability to continue to push for higher price realization.
Mm-hmm.
Not only active pricing action, but also, you know, the differentiation in our products allow us to price accordingly. We are pushing very hard on the second pillar of our strategy, which is around our process excellence activities.
Mm-hmm.
Operational excellence is important for us. We're putting, you probably have seen, you know, significant capital into CapEx.
Mm-hmm.
Our capital expenditures, which are really designed to help bring our overall, you know, production costs down over time as we lift volume. Gross margin performance, we expect to continue to improve in 2023 and hopefully beyond with some of the investments we're making. Actually, I clarified this with a couple of investors a few weeks back that we are expecting actually organic operating margin improvements.
Yes. Yeah.
We have some headwinds. We have some foreign exchange headwinds combined with some acquisition drag at the moment. We can talk about that if you'd like.
Mm-hmm.
Combined with some inflation headwinds. We still have got some net inflation headwinds in 2023. All that's putting pressure downward on the operating margin. So we guided to a decrease in operating margin, but still strength across operating profit performance and EBIT growth based on the volume activities. You know, the other important piece to point out in the margin story is that we are bumping up our R&D funding.
Yes.
You know, we're moving from about 9.3% in 2022 to 10% in 2023. You know, that's gonna be focused largely on these high impact areas. We can talk more about that if you'd like.
Mm-hmm.
This is gonna be driven around, you know, enormous opportunities we see in some of the strategic acquisitions we did, where we're gonna fund R&D activities in the more commercial space there, and also, our proteomics and spatial biology investments.
Sure.
When you wrap all that together-
Mm-hmm.
still looks like a pretty good story, especially down at the EPS line.
Mm-hmm.
We are still predicting this 8%- 10% growth in EPS on a 2023, even with a slight, you know, you know, deceleration, I guess I'd say.
Yeah.
-at operating margin.
Yeah. Lot to go through there, which we'll jump into. Maybe a quick one, just in terms of, you know, if there were to be, you know, upside on the revenue, how do you think about, you know, letting that flow through to the bottom line versus I know Frank always, you know, the investment piece you mentioned, particularly on R&D. What's the philosophy there?
Well, generally speaking, we, you know, we're very focused on operating profits. I'd say, you know, the company, this is not a story of just organic revenue growth. It's really a combined story of strong organic revenue growth combined with profitability. We're very committed to that. I think we've proven that, I think quarter after quarter or at least year after year.
Mm-hmm.
Some bumpiness along the quarters, certainly on an annual basis, we've been delivering, you know, essentially mid-teens growth on an EPS line. We're very committed to it. I don't see 2023 as an exception to that.
Yeah.
We'll talk more. I would invite many of you to our investor day at some in mid-June in the Boston area. Hopefully, you'll all be able to join. We'll talk a little bit more about medium-term outlook there.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, we're quite committed to the overall, you know, story of profitability combined with organic revenue growth.
Yeah. To your point, I mean, you remove FX, excuse me, FX and some of the M&A piece, that organic margin is still going up.
It is.
50 basis points or so. I mean-
Yeah.
is the right way to think about, you know, particularly now that you're a bit higher growth than you have been historically-
Mm-hmm.
You know, what does that algorithm look like in terms of the margin?
Well, historically, we've been tracking this 75 basis points- 100 basis points of operating margin expansion. Clearly, as you continue to fund further in these acquisition opportunities, as well as in these sort of breakout opportunities on proteomics and spatial biology, you know, we wanna be able to contribute. When we talk to our investor base, they want us to continue to contribute further on that innovation cycle. That's the goal, and as long as, you know, we tend to, and you, I think you know this, Patrick, is when we see very significant volume, we get good volume leverage-
Mm-hmm.
to the profitability line, and, you know, it allows us to have some flexibility on where we wanna put that.
Mm-hmm.
Whether it's commercial infrastructure in some of the more burgeoning markets that we see, particularly in spatial, or whether it's expanding market share in a way that we hadn't initially planned. We're much more agile, I guess I'd say about that, especially if we get the organic volume at the revenue line. We have more flexibility to play with it.
Yeah. You touched on the R&D piece, you know, Frank talked a little bit about that on the call, just moving that number up. Again, I think given, you know, the ROI on some of the earlier investments and what they're doing to growth.
Yeah.
You guys have some room to do that.
Mm-hmm.
Where do you think about the priorities there? We've talked Project Accelerate-
Yeah.
spatial, proteomics, some of those areas. Maybe just talk through kind of what that pipeline looks like and where the focus is.
Yeah. The primary focus are in what we describe as the breakout opportunities, which are in proteomics and spatial. I think, you know, these are hot areas, particularly in the proteomics space. The goal there is not just to, you know, increase our overall organic revenue growth, although clearly that's a target. It's also to increase market share, and maybe more importantly, with some of the instruments we're putting out there in the marketplace, it's to expand the market. Our objective is to really be a substantial proteomics player going forward in all elements of it. It's a growing field. It's still fairly emerging, even though, you know, we've talked, some people have talked about this for decades.
We're starting to see insights in a way with some of our instruments around sensitivity, throughput, you know, capabilities of those instruments. They're launching a whole different set of, you know, discovery opportunities, and we wanna be a part of that. Clearly, that's one area of major focus for us. I think the other is around spatial biology. We made some very interesting investments, I would say, including the Inscopix investment, which we did at the end of 2022, which is around brain circuitry and neuroscience and the concept of, you know, being able to look at spatial biology in neuroscience in a way that hasn't been done before. We're moving our way more directly into those markets. We launched in 2022 the CellScape system from our Canopy acquisition.
It's just a cutting-edge tool that allows for, you know, capabilities and looking at dynamic, you know, range within cell structures at a level that, you know, just hasn't been there in the marketplace before. We're a little bit late to that party initially, but we're catching up fast in terms of our technology. We think we're, we've got to build some more commercial capabilities there, and we are absolutely doing that with some of these investments. More to come, I think you may know, Patrick, we, you know, we still have some launches going on in the Canopy space. Our fluorescence microscopy instruments are being developed further. We have Acuity Genomics, which is another element or dimension that we have yet to launch.
There's a bunch of elements in the pipeline that we are funding. I didn't mention, you know, Biognosys acquisition, which we completed in early January, but that's yet another dimension around the proteomics space that gives us complete access to specialty CRO capabilities in the proteomics space that we never had before. I think those are the investments.
Mm.
Fundamentally, we're pretty comfortable with making those investments now with the goal of driving, you know, greater organic revenue growth over time.
When you think of some of those high-growth verticals, again, spatial proteomics-
Yeah.
These areas seems like early innings, a lot of opportunities.
Yeah.
I guess, how do you think about, you know, when you look out a little bit midterm, longer term in terms of portfolio, where do you think that exposure could go for you guys in terms of some of those high growth?
Well, I think it's pretty significant. I mean, I haven't talked about some of the other areas in Project Accelerate 2.0 in our initiatives, but we have, y ou know, Frank mentioned clean tech or green tech. You know, we're starting to make some interesting investments in that space. We clearly have some really exciting nanotechnology tools, including in our microelectronics space, which has driven really significant growth for us over the last couple of years. There are other opportunities outside of the proteomics and the spatial areas. I would tell you that the big breakout opportunities are those two areas.
Mm.
You know, we're better positioned in those areas today than we were even a year ago. I do think you'll see more opportunities, from, you know, not only tuck-in acquisitions that give us some other dimensions that we, need in the portfolio, but also, you know, maybe even more substantial acquisitions that fit into that mix.
Mm-hmm.
It's a different. I mentioned this to Patrick earlier. It's a different environment today for Bruker with the order bookings perfomance, with our profitability levels, you know, with the backlog levels that we have, with the breakout opportunities we have. We've really pivoted, I think, over the last couple years to a different, to a different place.
Yeah. No, absolutely. Maybe just on kind of the core instrument portfolio.
Yeah.
You have kind of MALDI Biotyper, you have timsTOF.
Yeah.
Maybe just kind of an update on what you're seeing there. Clearly, the demand is healthy, the backdrop is kind of coming your way. Maybe just kind of talk through those quickly.
Yeah. Well, certainly, on the MALDI Biotyper, we've seen, you know, we saw significant growth historically. I think our view at the moment is we had a couple of headwinds. One of them was clearly, you know, when we stepped out of the, our Russian operation-
Mm-hmm.
Where we did have, clearly have some hospital clinical activities there that dampened it. In the, on the MALDI Biotyper, you know, we have over 5,000 instruments out there and very healthy. It's kind of the gold standard on microbial identification. Very strong consumables growth continues there. Good replacement instrument opportunities. And then in the life science space, particularly in the timsTOF portfolio, Most of you already know that, this is one of the hot, you know, products out there. We've expanded the portfolio, so it's not one product, it's multiple products.
Mm.
We're looking at single-cell capabilities. We're looking at high throughput. We've got flex instruments now that combine mass spec with other elements of our portfolio. It's really a very broad-based portfolio now. I think the point that I really haven't stressed, at least here today, but talk about a lot with other investors, is our focus on biopharma. You know, we had historically been relatively underrepresented in biopharma as a company. Now the stretch into proteomics, especially with the timsTOF portfolio, which we would normally have expected that to be more of a research instrument, but has now really moved, you know, almost mainstream into biopharma, especially with the discovery of protein elements and the dynamics associated with them.
Biopharma we've seen significant growth in 2022, and we're expecting continued significant growth in 2023 in that space, largely driven by the proteomics area as well now in the spatial area.
Yeah.
You know, the dynamics of spatial biology and being able to see that, you know, real life, what's going on in terms of, you know, cell activity at the cellular level, it's remarkable what we're gonna see, I think, going forward. That is truly in very early innings relative to the S-curve, I think, from a, from a spatial perspective.
Yeah. You mentioned the consumable pull-through.
Yeah.
You know, aftermarket revenue's never been the biggest for you guys.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a big focus, right?
It is.
Maybe talk about where you are in that evolution, what the strategy is, maybe some attach rates, if you have, things like that-
Yeah
metrics you look at.
What I can tell you is that, we did highlight it a little bit on the earnings call. First of all, the Project Accelerate 2.0 mix in the overall revenue has moved from in the 40s, a couple of years back to in the 56% of our overall mix. The expectation is that aftermarket, which is what we describe as service, software, consumables, assays, other elements, have started really to make a difference there.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, we have some instruments that have higher consumable product elements that are associated with it, but we've moved into a whole different markets. For example, our PreOmics sample prep kits, assays that come out of some of our other acquisitions, the consumables associated with MALDI Biotyper, our focus on service, our movement. You may have seen we did an acquisition called Optimal, you know, a UK-based software company. We're driving more towards those aftermarket elements, and I think that's a really strong strategy for a company. It's not so much anymore about the instruments, although it's clearly we're being disruptive with some of our instruments in the marketplace as a result of that innovative technology.
Now it's more about the solution set that we can offer, the front end and the back end, whether it's sample pre-prep or kits or whether it's software and technology on the back end of instrument systems as we start to move through those. I think that's the strategy, and I think you'll see more of that in some of our medium-term discussions-
Yeah
as we get into June.
Just a couple of minutes left, maybe two more. Maybe on the capital allocation side.
Sure
you know, a few times some of the smaller deals you've done.
Yeah. Yeah.
Maybe just talk about the preference internally, buybacks, deals, what the appetite is, in terms of. You guys have typically been bolt-ons. Yeah, go ahead.
Well, first of all, on our capital deployment strategy has been pretty established over time, and I've executed to it for quite some time here now and as sitting in the CFO seat. It's primarily, it's funding the business and the growth of the business. It's about R&D activities. It's about, you know, putting commercial operations in place, especially for new markets. It's clearly about capital expenditures to support our production and capacity expansion and productivity improvements. Very clearly, we do also make some investments relative to, you know, strategic investments if they support the business.
Mm-hmm.
We've done some tuck-ins, that are in some cases more technology-focused, where we have a gap, we fill it in. But we have more recently done, these have been more smaller deals, but actually, over the last six months, we've done some fairly substantial acquisitions. You know, the Inscopix deal over $100 million, you know, the Biognosys deal over $80 million. These are substantial deals that we think are very strategic to the overall picture.
Mm-hmm.
I think we'll continue to do that. Buybacks are sort of, and dividends are dividends occur every quarter, but buybacks occur whenever we have leftover capital, and that's essentially the framework we use.
Yeah. Maybe last quick one, just in terms of, you know, if you think about upside levers this year, you know, it sounds like obviously the year started pretty well. What do you kind of look at in terms of, you know, some upside could come from one or two things?
Well, I think certainly, China is a possible bet with respect to, some stimulus funding there. Just, more uptake on some of our more, dramatic opportunities both in the proteomics and the spatial side.
Mm-hmm.
I think there's some, still some opportunity there.
Okay. We'll stop there, Gerald. Thanks so much.
Yeah. Pleasure.
Thanks.
Thanks very much.
Mm.