Good day. My name is Leo, and I'll be your conference facilitator this morning. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Danaher Corporation's first quarter 2022 earnings results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the pound key on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the call over to Mr. John Bedford, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Bedford, you may begin your conference.
Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on the call. With us today are Rainer Blair, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matt McGrew, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to point out that our earnings release, the slide presentation supplementing today's call, and the reconciliations and other information required by SEC Regulation G relating to any non-GAAP financial measures provided during the call are all available on the Investors section of our website, www.danaher.com, under the heading Quarterly Earnings. The audio portion of this call will be archived on the Investors section of our website later today under the heading Events and Presentations and will remain archived until our next quarterly call. A replay of this call will also be available until May 5th, 2022 .
During the presentation, we will describe certain of the more significant factors that impacted year-over-year performance. Supplemental materials describe additional factors that impacted year-over-year performance. Unless otherwise noted, all references in these remarks and supplemental materials to company specific financial metrics relate to the first quarter of 2022, and all references to period-to-period increases or decreases in financial metrics are year-over-year. We may also describe certain products and devices which have applications submitted and pending for certain regulatory approvals or are available only in certain markets. During the call, we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate will or 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, and our 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, and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Rainer.
Well, thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us on the call today. We're off to a good start in 2022, with the first quarter coming in ahead of our initial expectation. The team navigated a challenging operating environment to deliver strong revenue, earnings, and cash flow growth. Our performance was broad-based with high single-digit or better core revenue growth in each of our three segments. Now during the first quarter, we continued to strengthen our competitive advantage through high-impact growth investments in innovation and bioprocessing production capacity, both of which we believe are contributing to market share gain. Now clearly, our well-rounded results are really a testament to our team's commitment to continuous improvement and to the unique positioning of our portfolio.
We just have an exceptional collection of businesses, all powered by the Danaher Business System that serve attractive end markets with durable, secular growth drivers. It's this combination that differentiates Danaher today and provides a strong foundation for the future. With that, let's turn to our first quarter results. Sales were $7.7 billion in the first quarter, and we delivered 12% core revenue growth. Our base business was up 8% with broad-based strength across the portfolio and COVID-19 testing contributing 4%. Geographically, revenue in both the U.S. and Western Europe grew mid-teens, while high-growth markets were up low single digits. China declined low single digits, but was up high single digits, excluding the impact of a previously called out significant bioprocessing project delivered in the prior year.
The COVID-19 driven lockdowns that began in late March had a very modest impact on our first quarter results in China. However, as these lockdowns extend further into April, we're seeing more of an impact in our businesses, and we anticipate the situation will begin to ease in the coming weeks with an eventual return to normalized activity levels by the end of June. Our gross profit margin for the first quarter was 61.2%. The operating margin decline of 80 basis points to 28.3% is largely due to year-over-year changes in foreign currency exchange rates and product mix primarily within our Life Sciences segment. Now, adjusted diluted net earnings per common share of $2.76. We're up 9.5% versus last year, and we generated $1.7 billion of free cash flow in the quarter.
Now let's take a look at our results across the portfolio and give you some color on what we're seeing in our end market today. Let's start with Life Sciences, where reported revenue grew 9.5% and core revenue was up 7.5% with broad-based strength across the segment. In Bioprocessing, we're seeing very robust activity levels. Customers are accelerating their investments in research and production across all major therapeutic modalities. Core revenue in our Bioprocessing business at Cytiva and Pall Biotech grew high single digits and was up low double digits, excluding the impact of that significant one-time project in China last year. Orders remained very healthy, and we continued to build backlog across both businesses during the quarter. Now, over the last two years, our customers prioritized the development of COVID-19 vaccines and therapies to rapidly accelerate their time to market.
Today, these programs require less investment in manufacturing capacity as they mature and become a part of our customers' core business. As a result, our customers are starting to reallocate resources back to previously paused and new programs for other modalities. Notably, monoclonal antibody-based therapies or mAb, cell and gene therapies, and mRNA-based technologies. In Bioprocessing today, monoclonal antibodies are the largest investment area for our customers as they're becoming the standard of care in the treatment of many diseases. Customers are adding manufacturing capacity to support both novel mAb in clinical trials and the rapid growth of approved treatments. Biosimilar development and production are also increasing as patents on higher volume therapies expire. This trend is making life-saving treatments more accessible and helping to accelerate adoption in underserved markets. Now, we continue to make substantial investments in manufacturing capacity to help meet our customers' accelerating demand in bioprocessing.
An important focus area of our expansion has been with single-use technology, which are key enablers to scale the development and manufacturing of biologic and genomic-based medicines. In this first quarter, our newest plant dedicated to the manufacturing of single-use technology came online in Cardiff, Wales. Now this plant, along with recently opened facilities in South Carolina and Beijing, are critical to support our customers' demand today. Long term, they provide additional capacity for one of the fastest-growing product categories within Bioprocessing. Turning to our Life Sciences instrument businesses, we're seeing strong levels of activity in all major end markets. Demand is particularly robust at our pharmaceutical, CRO, and academic research customers, where a healthy funding environment is accelerating the initiation of new projects. In the first quarter, Leica Microsystems, IDT, and SCIEX each grew over 10%.
At SCIEX, the ZenoTOF 7600 and Triple Quad 7500 continue to perform well and are great examples of how our investments in innovation are driving market share gain and enhancing our growth trajectory. At Leica Microsystems, Mica is another example of impactful innovation for our customers. Mica integrates widefield and confocal imaging in a single instrument while leveraging machine learning and automation to dramatically simplify the imaging workflow for our researchers. Clearly, across the Life Sciences portfolio, we're investing in innovation to bring meaningful solutions to our customers and to strengthen our competitive position. Aldevron continued its great start as a part of Danaher, delivering over 40% growth in the first quarter. Since joining Danaher in late August, the team has embraced the Danaher Business System and is putting DBS tools to work.
Recently completed Kaizen events, which focused on increasing throughput and further reducing lead times, are already generating terrific results. We're excited about the early progress at Aldevron and thrilled with the great work the team is doing. Now let's move to Diagnostics, where reported revenue was up 21.5% and core revenue grew 22.5%, led by over 50% growth at Cepheid. Our non-COVID clinical diagnostic businesses collectively grew mid-single digits. Notably, Leica Biosystems delivered their seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit order growth, driven by strength in core histology, advanced staining, and digital pathology. In clinical diagnostic markets, volumes remain at healthy levels in most geographies as patients are returning for wellness checks, routine screenings, and other elective procedures. Our customers are effectively managing through periodic outbreaks by adapting their protocols and procedures, allowing them to continue providing critical healthcare services.
Now in China, we're currently seeing regional lockdowns impact patient volumes, and we expect our diagnostics business to be the most affected in the second quarter. In molecular diagnostics, respiratory testing volumes have moderated globally as the Omicron outbreak has subsided in most regions. However, demand for Cepheid's testing at the point of care remains very strong, and we believe we're taking market share. Our continued growth and share gains are a testament to the significant value, the unique combination of fast, accurate lab results, and a best-in-class workflow is providing to clinicians at the point of care. As COVID-19 moves towards an endemic disease state, we're seeing increased demand for Cepheid's broader test menu. In the first quarter, non-respiratory testing revenue grew double digits, led by hospital-acquired infection, virology, and infectious disease testing.
Customers, including several who initially purchased our GeneXpert system for COVID-19 testing, are expressing increased interest in expanding their menu utilization. As our customers free capacity from respiratory testing, we believe there are significant opportunities to leverage our market-leading installed base and testing menu to drive broader utilization and demand for Cepheid's point-of-care molecular testing solutions. Respiratory testing revenue of $900 million in the quarter exceeded our expectations as customers showed an increased preference for Cepheid's four-in-one combination tests during the respiratory season. Our combination tests for COVID-19, flu A, flu B, and RSV represented approximately 65% of the 17 million respiratory cartridges shipped in the quarter, with COVID-only tests accounting for approximately 35%.
Now let's move to our Environmental & Applied Solutions segment, where reported revenue grew 2.5%, with core revenue up 6.5%, including high [audio distortion] at Water Quality and mid-single-digit growth at Product Identification. At Water Quality, ChemTreat delivered its fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit core growth. Accelerating demand for our analytical chemistries and consumables was driven by activity across municipal, chemical, food, and beverage end markets. Equipment order rates also remain strong as customers are continuing to invest in larger municipal projects. Now at Product Identification, our marking and coding business was up high single digits, partially offset by slight decline in our packaging and color management business. Videojet was up high single digits with strong demand in food, beverage, and industrial end markets.
Stepping back, our water quality and product identification platforms have done an exceptional job of leveraging the Danaher Business System to improve their positioning, both from a cost and growth perspective. While supply chain pressures have been modestly more pronounced in EAS, our teams are using DBS tools such as daily management to work with suppliers and ensure production component availability. We're also using visual project management to help us re-engineer our products faster, with a focus on moving from difficult-to-source electronic components to newer, more cost-effective next-generation chip, chipsets. Now, we believe DBS enables us to deliver faster and more reliably than many of our competitors. Now, our teams are also using DBS growth tools to accelerate innovation and deliver more impactful solutions to the market.
Innovations such as Videojet CIJ 1880 printer and Hach's HQ series portable meters are helping our customers solve the many challenges they face, from increasing regulatory requirements to skilled labor shortages. We're seeing the impact in our core growth, which has averaged mid-single-digit annually over the past 10 years at EAS. We believe this combination of the rigorous application of DBS tools paired with our proactive growth investments is driving meaningful market share gains and enhancing our long-term competitive advantage. Now let's briefly look ahead to our expectations for the second quarter and the full year. In the second quarter, we expect to deliver mid-single-digit core revenue growth in our base business, which includes a headwind of approximately 200-300 basis points from the ongoing COVID-19-related shutdowns in China.
For the full year 2022, there is no change to our previous guidance of high single-digit core revenue growth in our base business, as we expect the shutdowns in China to normalize as we move through the remainder of the year. We continue to expect both a low single-digit core growth headwind from COVID-19 testing and overall mid-single-digit core revenue growth. To wrap up, we had a good start to the year and look forward to building on this foundation as we move through 2022. Quarter results are a testament to the dedication of our outstanding team and their commitment to executing with the Danaher Business System. These results also reflect the unique positioning of our portfolio and the exceptional collection of high-quality franchises that comprise Danaher today.
We believe the durability of our businesses, where consumables now represent 75% of revenue, positions us exceptionally well in today's dynamic operating environment. This powerful combination of our talented team, the strength of our portfolio, and the Danaher Business System differentiates Danaher and reinforces our sustainable long-term competitive advantage. With that, I'll turn the call back over to you, John.
Thanks, Rainer. That concludes our formal comments. Leo, we're now ready for questions.
At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one now on your telephone keypad. To withdraw yourself from the queue, you may press the pound key. Once again, star one to enter the queue. We'll take our first question from Derik De Bruin of Bank of America.
Hi, Derik. Good morning.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just, I got just a couple of sort of like incoming from clients. I think first of all, just a little bit more on the difference between, I think you mentioned $19 million on the Cepheid guide, and it came in at $17 million. Just a little bit more color on the volume difference there. And I think also a related question, just are you seeing any sort of stockpiling in terms of either, you know, vendors for either Bioprocessing or on the Diagnostic side? Then I've got one more follow-up.
Got it. Thanks, Derik. Well, let's start off with the cartridge shipments here in the first quarter. Early in the quarter, as we suffered from some absenteeism related to the Omicron outbreak in our manufacturing plants, and that affected the production levels on the one hand. On the other hand, the mix shift larger than anticipated towards the four-in-one test, 65% versus our assumption of 50%, ended up resulting in a beat in terms of revenue. Really a short-term contained issue that affected manufacturing volumes. Ultimately, the mix and the strength of the team's recovery ended up resulting in the 17 million cartridges of shipment.
Now, if we switch gears briefly and go to the topic of stockpiling, you know, we are very, very sensitive to this particular topic and stay extremely close with our customers. As an example, in the first quarter, Cepheid continued to be sold out. If you think about Bioprocessing, this is an area where there continue to be in the industry manufacturing constraints. We are very, very close to our customers, working together with them, with their manufacturing schedules, to ensure that we're able to not only meet their needs, but also to ensure that we don't have inventory build-ups in the system. Could there be pockets of that? Perhaps on the margin, but generally speaking, we don't see a significant build-up in the supply chain.
Great. Just can you on the China headwinds in the quarter, that 2-3 basis points, what's supply versus demand?
Well, this is entirely related to supply and accessibility of customers. The demand in China continues to be very robust. As you may have noted, in the first quarter, without this large project in the prior year, China was up high single digits for us, orders very strong. This is really related to customer accessibility in hospitals and labs, and of course, the one or the other manufacturing plant that's affected by these shutdowns. Now, as we sit here today, we're already receiving the news from our team that we're able to open up not just our plants, and so those are starting to open up here as well, slowly but surely, as we would expect throughout the quarter.
I'm sorry, hospital as well as lab accessibility to improve already in May and then get back to more normal levels here by the end of the quarter.
Great. If I can sneak one more in, the 2Q hit, you know, nice to see you reiterating the full year guide with that. Do you expect, you know, all that China business to come back or you think you'll see stronger growth in other regions offsetting it? Thank you. I'm done.
No, this is mostly about China getting back to normal activity levels and both customers as well as our plants having the makeup capacity to make up for what we think are relatively short shutdown periods. You know, having said that, you know, the business is a large one, and there's always pockets that will grow faster. Between the two things, we feel confident that, you know, our guide for the full year holds.
We'll take our next question from Vijay Kumar of Evercore ISI.
Morning, Vijay.
Good morning, Rainer, and congrats on a solid Q1 print. Maybe one on the vaccine side. Rainer, I know it's part of the base, but I guess yesterday, J&J, they pulled out their vaccine guidance. They're not guiding to vaccine revenues anymore. Obviously, there's been a lot of questions on the vaccine side and base bioprocessing. So maybe just talk about your bioprocessing trends in the Q. What were order trends? Were orders above revenues? Are we still confident about the $2 billion vaccine outlook for fiscal 2022?
Sure. Well, thanks, Vijay. Let's just level set on the numbers briefly here. If we think about Bioprocessing Q1, and as I mentioned during my opening commentary, we exclude that very large Q1 shipment last year in China. You know, our bioprocessing business was up low double digits here in Q1. Very strong order activity, and I'll come back to that in a minute. Now, if you look at our first quarter last year, our sales were up over 70%. If you look at the two-year stack for Q1, you know, we're in the 35%-40% growth area, which we think is very robust and more than representative of what is going on in the market.
We think that that compares extremely well. In fact, we still think that we're taking share there. That's sort of one marker that I want you to have. Then the second point is the order activity continues to be very, very strong. You know, last year our orders in the first quarter were up over 90%. We anticipated that our orders in Q1 of this year would be down. Nonetheless, we continue to build backlog here in Q1 as well in the Bioprocessing area. This is why we're so confident in our core growth guide here for the year on Bioprocessing of high single digit, low double digits.
Between, you know, the robust growth that we're seeing, and the backlog that we have, that's really important. Now let's unpack that a little bit and think about what's going on and why, you know, COVID is sort of one variable, but that there are other variables here that are incredibly important and explain why we talk about the bioprocessing business and its growth in aggregate. First of all, if you think about the activity levels outside of COVID in the bioprocessing business, it's important to see what's going on in clinical trials. I've talked about this, but you know that the project pipeline for monoclonal antibodies is 50% larger today than it was five years ago. For cell and gene therapy, it's 10x larger, driving extraordinary activity here in the clinical trials area.
What you see, and as I mentioned in the opening comment, you see customers really starting to focus on these new projects across all modalities, and not just allocating their resources to COVID, but to these new modalities. That's really important to note that customer activity level continues to be very, very high, and that plays through in the clinical trials. Now, another point to take here is monoclonal antibodies are becoming the standard of care and the predominant class of biologic drugs. What's going on in monoclonal antibodies is the primary growth driver in the market and also for our business. Recently launched products that are ramping to new treatments and new indications are driving an exceptional amount of volume here.
You add to that, emerging markets and high-growth markets such as China and India are starting to have access to these monoclonal antibody treatments that provides additional and significant volume leverage. At the same time, you have biosimilar growth, Vijay. These biosimilars are leveraging the fact that some of the biologic drugs, monoclonal antibodies that are higher volume are starting to come off patent, and that's increasing the penetration of those drugs throughout the world where the penetration has been lower. That's providing another growth impetus. Last thing, I'll stop with this now. We've been talking a lot about single-use technology and their adoption as a whole for a while, which is an additional leverage growth vector within the bioprocessing business.
All that healthy activity that we talked about provides for volume, but SUT on top of that is substituting more traditional technologies and is growing even faster. We have well over $1 billion of single-use technologies, and we've just announced, you know, that our third new plant coming on for single-use technologies in Cardiff, Wales. We feel very confident on the basis of what's going on outside of COVID. That's why we look at it together, because it's the aggregate that we look at, and that really ultimately counts. That will drive that high single digit, low double-digit growth here for 2022, and also supports our high single digit perspective beyond that.
That's helpful, Rainer. Maybe one quick one for Matt. I think incremental margins, you know, we were looking at perhaps mid-30s. Q1 came in below. Was this supply chain inflation impacting Q1 or perhaps FX? Or maybe just talk about incrementals and have expectations changed for fiscal 2022?
No, for Q1, I mean, we kind of came through about 25%. I think that was pretty much in line with what we thought, Vijay. So no real difference. I think, you know, from a year-over-year perspective, the difference between that 35%-40% that we normally talk to and this 25%, it was all FX, right? So in the quarter, I mean, you think about it was kind of like a $0.07 headwind here for us. So I don't think we saw anything, you know, obviously supply chain is what it is, but I think we were able to kind of work our way through that. I really think it was all FX here, excuse me, in the quarter, in the first quarter.
As far as, I think it's. You bring up a good point then as far as the full year goes. I would say there's no change to the full year fall-through, you know, other than the FX impact that we're seeing. Just to kind of, you know, lay that out, you know, we continue to expect mid-single-digit core growth, you know, from kind of the core and acquisitions. That will have that 35%-40%, you know, fall-through. You know, in January, we thought that FX was gonna bring that 35%-40% down to, say, 30%-35%.
Given the currency moves we've seen since January, you know, as we sit here today, I think it's gonna be more like 20%-25% fall through for the year versus, you know, the 30%-35% that we sort of guided to the last time. Look, that still leaves us. If we deliver that still leaves us with low single-digit EPS growth for the year, despite, you know, what I think is some pretty significant FX headwinds year-over-year. Maybe just to give you color on the sizing of that headwind. I mean, right now, FX is gonna be a $0.35 EPS headwind year-over-year, and that's a pretty meaningful number for us, you know, here during the year.
It's probably half of what we initially thought. It's a pretty big headwind here for the year, and it was a little bit here in the quarter too.
That's helpful, Matt. Thank you.
We'll take our next question from Scott Davis of Melius Research.
Scott, Good morning.
Good morning, guys. Thanks for all the detail here. The price dynamic, I mean, I know it's FX. FX is FX. Can't do much about that perhaps, but are you still out there capturing additional price to offset the general inflation and general cost and logistics issues that are so prevalent?
Scott, we have been working on price directly and indirectly, and we're seeing very good traction. Let me lay that out for you here. Let me start off with the fact that, you know, there are inflationary pressures out there. We've talked about that in the past, and that's moved from sort of the classic topics of, you know, memory chips and other types of, chipsets, and freight and perhaps labor to seeing more broadly, inflation. Nonetheless, with the Danaher Business System, our teams have been able to do a number of things here in order to contain this. One, of course, is related to ensuring the robustness of the supply.
Many of our businesses today are gaining share because we are able to continue our supply, have shorter lead time because we're able to access and secure the components necessary to drive our manufacturing and our business. It's an important aspect to this entire equation of growth and share gain. Secondly, the DBS tool sets that we have been putting in place are also helping us offset cost in the sense, and as I mentioned in the introductory comments, that look, we are able to now reengineer more quickly to other types of, again, I'll use the example of chipsets, to next gen chipsets, more broadly consolidate those and not only gain supply, but then also reduce our cost. There's an entire DBS machine, if you will, that is driving to secure supply and to offset cost.
At the same time, of course, we're driving price, and we see strong traction there. In fact, we're well over 200 basis points of price here in the first quarter. That's a quarter that still had a fair amount of, if you will, 2021 backlog in it, right? We have now worked through the majority of that backlog and expect to see continued momentum there. Thinking about price at these levels of, you know, 200+ basis points, that's the right way to think about that.
It's just another testament to the strength of our portfolio, the degree of differentiation of our product, and, you know, the leverage that this razor-blade business model provides us with 75% consumable, many of which are specced in or keyed into the equipment or instruments that they supply.
We'll move next to Dan Brennan of Cowen.
Hi, Dan. Good morning.
Hi, Dan.
Good morning. Good morning, Rainer. Thanks for taking the questions here. Congrats on the quarter. So if I could just go back to bioprocess, obviously really nice quarter with the high single-digit growth against an extremely tough comp. You know, I appreciate COVID as part of the base, and it's great about all the, you know, robust demand obviously ex-COVID, which is a big driver long term. Given the interest in kind of dissecting COVID at this point from investors, it would be helpful to learn if the 2022, you know, high single-digit, low double-digit guide continues to incorporate $2 billion from COVID. And if it does, you know, any color you could provide there about, like, how much of that $2 billion is locked in with firm orders?
Thanks, Dan. You know, really the way we're thinking about that business is, again, in aggregate and we do believe that both the underlying strength of the markets, as I just laid out, as well as the strength of our backlog, which continues to grow, support both, you know, the high single-digit, low double-digit Bioprocessing guide for the year. As you think about COVID within that, you know, COVID's gonna do what it does, but there is a larger market that is growing rapidly, and we're gonna continue to see fluctuation as it relates to COVID volumes, whether, you know, there's a decision on booster shots for different age groups, whether it becomes part of an annualized immunization regimen. All of these are open questions.
Our belief is that COVID is a part of our business, but there is another part of this business which is larger, is growing at a faster rate, and we are making investments to ensure that we capture the appropriate shares here. Dan, high single- digits, low double- digits, Bioprocessing growth for 2022.
Terrific. Thanks, Rainer. Aldevron, really strong quarter out of the gate. Maybe can you give us a little color on how that integration is going? In light of the really strong first quarter, how do we think about Aldevron for the full year in 2022 and beyond?
I mean, we couldn't be more pleased with the team. You know, I've been up there several times, working with the team, seeing how they're growing, bringing on capacity. We continue to invest in expansions there. You know, that 40% growth exceeded our expectations and gives you a sense of how quickly the Danaher Business System has gained traction. You know, that's a combination of a couple things. The first thing is the leadership and the team at Aldevron that is pulling and open to applying the Danaher Business System as fast as possible to fortify their competitive advantage and lead times and quality, and to ensure that we drive this business to the growth of its potential.
You know, we think for 2022, we continue to think that the $500 million revenue number is a good number. 40% in Q1, we certainly expect to be, you know, in the first half year, well over our expectation of 20%+ that we previously talked about. $500 million for the year is a good number, and that team is firing on all cylinders.
If I could squeeze one more in. Just on China, obviously good news that you guys are managing through this and the full-year guide is maintained. Maybe could you just give me some update, like in Q2, like what you're actually expecting for China? You know, maybe you said the number, I missed it. Kind of how do you think about China, you know, for the full year since you are expecting a nice rebound exiting Q2. Thank you.
Sure. Just to revisit, we've talked about China here. In the first quarter, you know, it was really the end of March where we started to see the impact of some of these larger scale shutdowns, and we continue to see those here in the first week of April. Although, we've just spoken to the team here yesterday, and they've received approval to start opening up plants, and we also see more activity at our customers. We do expect to work through the shutdowns here in the second quarter. Again, that was the 200-300 basis point headwind that we included in our Q2 guide of mid-single digits.
As we think about the quarter here and for China, remember, we had a very strong activity level in Q1 of high single digit growth minus that large transaction last year. We expect that in China, we'll probably be down in Q2, you know, mid to high single digit percentages for the quarter. Now, once again, we expect that to unwind in Q2 and then continue to catch back up here through the year where we continue to see China as a high single digit market.
Great. Thank you.
We'll take our next question from Jack Meehan of Nephron Research.
Morning, Jack. How are you?
Thank you. Good morning. On Life Sciences, I wanted to turn to some of the capital-heavy businesses, SCIEX, Leica Micro, Pall Industrial. Can you just talk about the durability of the growth you're seeing there? How are order trends, and any change to the growth expectations for the year?
In Life Sciences, if we now pivot from bioprocessing and more to the life science analytical businesses, as you suggest, Jack, we're seeing very strong underlying activity in the various sectors of the business. If you think about the pharmaceutical segment, CROs, academic research customers, our funnels are strong and continue to outpace quarter-over-quarter what we've seen in 2021. I think that's buttressed for us, particularly because of the strong innovation track record and the recent launches that we've had. I've talked to those at SCIEX, the ZenoTOF, the accurate mass instrument, as well as the 7500 Triple Quad. Those are class-leading innovations that are growing exceptionally well and driving market share gains.
Beckman Life Sciences with their CytoFLEX benchtop cell sorter, the most recent launch. Then, of course, we talked about Mica, which is that combination of widefield and confocal, leveraging machine learning. We're firing on all cylinders here in a strong investment environment. We think that that's sustainable here for the foreseeable future as we continue to see investment from both the biotech sector, but also academic sectors as well as institutions that are very bullish on the innovations and the science that they wanna drive forward.
Great. Just a broader question on M&A. You know, it's been obviously a very choppy macro environment. You look at the cash flow statement, it was a light quarter for you on M&A. Just curious how you're seeing assets in the market. Do you feel like expectations have changed at all from sellers and just your own willingness to do M&A kind of in a choppy environment? Thanks.
Well, Jack, I'll tell you, we've excelled in these kind of environments historically from an M&A perspective. You know, these environments of dislocation inevitably show opportunities. We feel very good about how we're positioned with our funnels. Now, having said that, you know, the volatility that we're seeing today is, while it might not feel that way, relatively recent, and it's probably a little too early to see the full impact of that volatility. Having said that, you know, we're sitting here at, you know, with 2x turns, very strong free cash flow of over $7 billion, and over $10 billion of EBITDA.
We feel like we're in a very good position both in terms of the strength of our balance sheet as well as the opportunities that lie ahead.
We'll take our next question from Patrick Donnelly of Citi.
Morning, Patrick.
Hey, morning, Rainer. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe one to kind of jump from away from China on the geographic spot. Over in Europe, you know, obviously a lot going on there on the geopolitical side. Can you just talk about if you've seen any change in customer behavior, any change in funding over there? You know, what you guys' perspective is on that region as we work through this.
Western Europe has continued to perform very well for us. As I mentioned in our opening comments here, we had strong growth in the mid-teens in Western Europe here in the first quarter. While we think that moderates a little bit here in Q2, just because of some of the prior year performances, the activity levels remain very strong. Certainly in Western Europe that's the case. As you think about in your reference to the geopolitical side, Eastern Europe just has not been that large of a factor in the life science research and bioprocessing area as an example.
From a Diagnostics perspective, we continue to see very high, let's say, close to normal activity levels as well. Western Europe for us continues to perform as expected.
Okay. That's helpful. Maybe on the diagnostics business, just looking at the core performance there, ex-COVID looks pretty strong. Can you just talk about that? Maybe Matt can talk about the Diagnostics margins, also really strong, just the sustainability there.
Sure. You know, as we think about the business momentum, really in all regions, with the exception of China, which I talked about, you know, we're seeing patient levels, activity levels, really at or very close to pre-pandemic levels. From, you know, a macro perspective and patient volumes, it's a positive environment for us. If you put on the back of that, the recent product launches that we've had, the DxH 900 hematology as well as the DxA 5000 Fit, an automation for small and medium-sized labs. You know, we're also continuing to benefit from that NPI pace that we have invested in here over the past year. For us, Diagnostics continues to be a strong forward momentum. Matt, did you want to take the other one?
Yeah. I mean, on the margin front, I mean, like, I think, you know, you think about that is gonna be a big part of that'll be Cepheid and the volume that we're seeing there. So as long as we've got that volume, and we expect to have, you know, a touch less here into next quarter. But I think those margins are pretty sustainable at that level. You know, we've talked about, and importantly, I think, you know, the margin profile of the Cepheid respiratory is no different than the margin profile of other Cepheid tests, right? It's actually very similar to the flu. So, you know, I think it's a sustainable number here as we look forward.
Thanks, guys.
We'll take our final question from Luke Sergott of Barclays.
Morning, Luke.
Morning. Thanks again for the question here. So I guess I just wanted to kind of dig in on the long-term growth target, the biopharma high single digits, and really trying to figure out, you know, where the offsets are coming from. You talk about the mAbs. I know you're adding new capacity, but as COVID kind of is completely up in the air and that rolls off, give us a sense of, you know, how much that could roll off and you guys continue to maintain that long-term growth target.
Happy to. Luke, the way we're thinking about that is the strength of our underlying business, which I've laid out here in some detail from clinical trials, mAb, biosimilar volumes. Keep in mind, it's the commercialized drugs that really drive volume here in this business. Of course, that additional growth accelerator, the single-use technology adoption. You know, those are really the foundation that are driving the growth of this business. The COVID business, it will do what it does, but that variation is within the realm of what we have been casting as the overall growth rate of the business.
You take the backlog, which continues to grow quarter-over-quarter, and you take the growth drivers that I've laid out, you know, that is what supports the high single-digit, low double-digit growth for 2022, and the high single-digit longer-term growth guide that we've talked about.
Great. Thanks. That's helpful. Back to Aldevron here. I know they're continuing to add capacity. Is that coming in faster than you guys expect, or should we still expect that to pace out through 2023 and 2024?
That's gonna continue to play out as we add line after line after line. I would say that these are programs that are coming on at or better than schedule, as the team continues to gain speed here, not only with their subject matter expertise, which is differentiated, so unique in the marketplace, but also with their adoption of the Danaher Business System. We look for that $500 million here in 2022.
Okay, great. That's all for me. Thank you.
This does conclude our question and answer session. I'd be happy to return the call to our hosts for any concluding remarks.
Thanks, everyone. We'll be around the rest of the week for questions.
This does conclude today's call. You may now disconnect your lines. Everyone, have a great day.