Great. Thanks, everyone, for joining us this afternoon. I'm Vijay Kumar, the Life Science Device Analyst at Evercore. A pleasure to have with us the team from Danaher. We have CEO Rainer Blair, and we have, I think, Travis. I think I saw Travis and John. Oh, there they are. So Rainer, thank you for taking the time this afternoon.
Thank you for having us. Pleasure to be here.
I have to tell you, I've been excited to have this conversation. So yeah, I have all my questions lined up.
Outstanding.
Maybe starting with Q3 , if you could just review at a high level. It looks like numbers came in slightly better, particularly biotech came in better, bioprocessing a little bit better. Any surprises? How did the quarter play out for you?
We were pleased with Q3 . As you said, we saw both Cepheid and bioprocessing outperform our expectations with our life science businesses and our other diagnostics businesses coming in as expected. So we had a solid top and bottom beat there. And we're seeing that the underlying drivers in the Q3 are playing out here in the Q4 as well.
Great. And given the macro here, elections, I think is topical. Any implications from China tariffs? What, if any, products are you importing from China, and what could be the impact?
Certainly it's very early days to be discussing the impact or to be projecting what the impact of the election results are. But what I will say is this, generally speaking, our manufacturing capacities in China supply China. And we have a region for a region supply chain in general terms. Having said that, independent of what comes, we believe both with the Danaher Business System as well as our price-cost playbook that we're well prepared to outperform independent of how things develop here.
Fantastic, and curious, do you have manufacturing facilities in Mexico, Canada? Is that something we need to think about?
We don't.
Fantastic. I like the short and clean answers, and does Danaher have exposure to NIH? I think that's been another topical question.
Generally speaking, our businesses globally, for all of Danaher, academic and research represents less than 5% of our business. As it relates to the NIH, less than 1% of our business is related to that.
Fantastic. And I think the other related sort of question has been, I think we were set up for this theme of gradual improvement for biopharma. And there's been some nervousness with some of the leadership changes at HHS and FDA, CMS, et cetera. Any early customer feedback on how they're thinking about the macro landscape and these changes and their thoughts on budgets?
Well, we're certainly not seeing any impact here in the short term, and I believe in the discussions that I've been involved with that the pharma companies are confident that they're going to continue to deliver pharmaceutical solutions, not just in the U.S. and around the world, and that's what they're focused on, so we don't see any short-term impact to that, and as I said, we believe that we're set up incredibly well with our end markets as well as the Danaher Business System and our balance sheet, not to mention our talent in order to be able to address whatever's ahead of us.
Since you brought up balance sheet, I'm going to switch up my questions here. Do you think the new regime will be more conducive to M&A? It's been a while since we've seen any large transactions in the life science space. How do you look at the M&A landscape under the new regime?
It's hard to tell. As you may have noted, there's been some conflicting communication there with some of the nominees. Independent of that, we feel we're very well positioned, once again, not only in our end markets, but the strength of our balance sheet. We expect that change, whatever that change is, comes perhaps with some risk, but we view a lot of that as opportunity. We're well positioned to take advantage of that.
I think in the past, in Danaher, I think one of the issues Danaher has brought up is the bid-ask spread in the market. How is that funnel looking, and has that bid-ask spread narrowed?
So first of all, our funnel is always active. We're constantly working that. And we're pleased with the activity levels that we see there. So that's the first thing. Second thing, we would tell you, I would tell you that the multiple levels are still fairly high. And if that's the case, we'll likely concentrate more on smaller, medium-sized bolt-on deals just because we see the return characteristics to be more attractive there.
Fantastic. And I'll save the rest of my cap deployment questions toward the end. But maybe getting back to bioprocessing, I think the guidance had called for a gradual improvement exiting the year at high single digits. So what are you seeing in the environment right now when you look at biopharma?
As we think about our discussions here, we've been talking about a gradual recovery for many quarters. We see that playing out. Frankly, here in Q3, we're pleased to see now the Q5 in a row of sequential orders growth. It was high single-digit orders growth in Q3. Our book-to-bill has been near one for several quarters here as well. We view all of that as a confirmation that our perspective and visibility to the market is playing out, including what we talked about here for the Q4 as well.
And I think one of the terms you did bring up on 3Q was this early customers. And I think that caused some confusion. So maybe if you could just expound on it, on this large versus early and any change in sentiment.
Sure. So what we saw in the Q3 , and that is part of the trend that we have been seeing all year, is that larger customers essentially have used the inventories that they've had and were back to their normal ordering patterns. And that is driven a great deal by monoclonal antibodies that are commercialized and where we, of course, have a very strong position. As we think about smaller customers, so again, customers who don't have commercial programs or even some small CDMO that don't have any commercial work, what we see there is increased funding, but also far more discipline in how those funds are expended. And as such, while there has been improvement, let's say from Q2 to Q3, it has not been the same level of improvement that we saw in Q3.
I think some of the misunderstanding was that perhaps Q3 was weaker in that smaller customer segment. And that's not the case. There was improvement there versus Q2, just not at the same level that we saw with those large customers.
That's extremely helpful, and when you look at those two different buckets, large versus earlier or small, if you will, is that a 75-25 split?
It's about 75% large customers on market commercial programs, which really drive the business, and then 20%-25% in that smaller customer segment.
Gotcha. And right now, I think when you look at the environment, at some point, we do need to see book-to-bill well north of one to support the high single-digit outlook. And I think my understanding is right now there's a lot of backlog to support the growth, even though book-to-bill has been hovering around 1x. At what point do we need to start seeing book-to-bill close to that 1.1s to support the longer-term outlook for the business?
As you know, we're not fans of the book-to-bill metric. It comes with all kinds of complexities, so I'll reframe it this way. We like to see both order backlog and order velocity to be supportive of the growth rates that we ultimately guide to, and as we've said, for 2025, we'll come back to you in January and talk about that, but the Q4 is very important for that. Q4 is the largest quarter. December is the largest month, and that allows us to get more visibility deeper into 2025 based on some of the lead times for some of those orders.
Gotcha. And current macro environment, would you say it's supportive of this narrative of improvement, the assumptions you've had when you looked at the biopharma end market?
We see that the end markets and the drivers of those can be supportive of that. Remember, this is a lot about on-market drugs, monoclonal antibodies, and those have been growing here for the duration of the pandemic post-pandemic period at the high single-digit, low double-digit level, and so we believe since, especially for large customers, the inventory situation is behind us, the order rates have been back to normal in that segment. We believe that we'll continue that gradual improvement.
And when you look at the pipeline, I think that brings us to an important question. I think some of the questions sometimes they get asked is, the industry has said, look, this is a high single double-digit growth, but we haven't seen it. And it's hard for us to understand when there is a destocking or other issues, funding issues. So what evidence do you have to support the industry is still high singles or doubles? So maybe if you could just extrapolate. And when you look at the pipeline and molecules coming, what would support this longer-term outlook?
We have a couple of data points, many of which are public data points that can be validated as well. First, let's start with the topic of prescriptions. The prescriptions of the drugs, commercialized drugs, have continued to grow at that high single digit, low double-digit rate. If we look at the volumes of manufacturing, those have also grown at the same high single digit, low double-digit rate, which are supportive of that. Then lastly, if we look at the development pipeline, not only do we since the pandemic have more molecules on market today than we had previously, we also have a very strong late stage, call it phase three funnel of new drugs that are at the precipice of approval and moving to commercialization. All of that together, we see as a positive and supportive set of facts, data points.
We have not changed our long-term perspective on the bioprocessing market, which we view to be a high single digit growth in the long term.
Gotcha. Gotcha. And I know you said we'll leave the guidance assumption in late January, right? And without getting into guidance, when we look at Q4 exit rates of high singles, isn't that when I think about the moving piece, we had destocking, we have early, and then we have China. Destocking seems to be coming to an end or we're past that. The question marks are really China and early stage. Are those the only two variables when we think about fiscal 2025?
We think about three things as it relates to bioprocessing here. It's the order rate and the backlog in the book of business that we see, as well as that order velocity exiting 2024. As you say, we have to understand China, which to date is stable, but at a low activity rate. We expect that probably to be similar going forward, certainly in the short term. Lastly, we've seen some volatility lately on FX. We always take that into consideration. We'll have to do that here thinking about 2025 as well.
Understood. And just maybe one clarification. When you say order velocity, what does that term mean?
Well, in this case, we just want to see that our funnel and the number of orders that we're getting continues to increase as a part of a gradual recovery.
Understood. In China, I thought Q3 China is perhaps bioprocessing was a little bit softer. When you looked at Q3 , what was China versus ex-China? And did anything change in China in Q3 ?
Q3 in China, while it was sequentially a little bit better, fundamentally is at a lower activity level. And we haven't seen a lot of catalysts that would change that in the short term. So our expectations there remain the same, that China and the Chinese government, which we're fairly close to, is fully aware of what's going on in the market. And over time, including the measures that are being taken here in the short term, we expect China to return to more historical growth rates. But that's probably a little bit out. So in the short term, we really don't see a fundamental change in bioprocessing in China.
When you look at the team on the ground in China, is that more of a function of macro where the government is focused on? Is that what's driving those comments on bioprocessing? What causes this narrative to shift on bioprocessing within China?
If we look at what the root cause is for the lower activity level in China, it's really about funding, right? So as we think about, as would be in other markets, venture capital played a large role in driving biotech growth and the excitement there in China over the last years, and venture capital essentially has been significantly constrained. It's much lower than it has, and it's not shown any recovery. It's also been far more difficult because of some new regulations to use the IPO, the public markets as a means of monetization, and then also with the volume-based procurement on the pharmaceutical side, the attractiveness in the incentives for launching new drugs has been lower. The incentive system in China is likely going to need some revision. I only am saying what I know from my visits to China there.
We do know that the government is working on that.
Gotcha. And what was, when you look at bioprocessing growth ex-China year to date, would you say that that's done a lot better than the overall trends that we've seen? It looks like by our math, maybe 3Q was up mid to high singles ex-China.
Well, as you can imagine, there are a number of factors influencing the growth at any given time, China being just one of them. And so the math would indicate top down certain things. What we see and what I'd like to underline here is that we see the gradual improvement continuing.
Gotcha. And maybe last one on China bioprocessing. When you said Q3 we saw sequential improvements, is that a signal that we've perhaps we will not see China growth, but certainly the declines are over and we've stabilized?
That's our hypothesis. I've used the colloquialism of bouncing along the bottom a little bit. And I think that's where we are. But again, we don't see any short-term catalysts that would change that.
Understood. That's helpful and then maybe the other topic, I think bioprocessing every quarter, there's something new. I think a couple of quarters ago it was capital spending and book-to-bill orders on the capital side. What percentage of your bioprocessing business is capital, and what trends are you seeing within that part of the business?
So we would say that about 15%-20% of our bioprocessing business, if I can just say it this way, is equipment and typically capital expenditures. And while that did not see the same level of sequential improvement as consumables, we did see sequential growth in our equipment orders as well. And the source of that is really our larger customers. These larger customers continue to see growth in the drugs that are commercialized, as well as the new ones that are about to be launched and are investing in order to be able to do that. So we are seeing not just consumable orders, but also equipment orders pick up in the large customer segment.
Understood. But it did grow sequentially, the capital piece and the.
It did, just not as fast as consumables.
Understood. And so if I just parse out the different pieces, right? There's consumables, there is China, there's instrument. If I could just segregate China and instruments, would that imply consumables was mid singles or trending north of mid singles in Q3 ? Would that make sense or?
The entire order book grew sequentially in the Q3 by high single digits. You can see that by the equipment not growing quite at that rate with the options there are.
That's helpful. And then maybe the other piece within biotech that comes up is research and medical. That market has been challenged, I think, for about Q6,7 now. What has driven the downturn in research and medical and what turns it around?
The DNM business for us, for a large part, large extent, is driven by our analytical tools for protein analysis. That really needs to be viewed similarly to our life science tools businesses, so the analytical equipment business. As you know, that has been down here. We think that that is at the bottom. That's really what has been driving that on the DNM side. We would expect that to recover here in the context of the overall tools normalization process and ultimately be for the long term a mid-single-digit, mid-single-digit plus type of growth.
Fantastic. And one, I guess the sequential sort of question on Q4, perhaps not applicable to Danaher, but I think some of your peers talk about year-end budget flush. Is that relevant for Danaher? And what is the Q4 guide assuming from a year-end budget flush?
Our tools business, as a reminder, is less than 10% of our total revenue. So I'm not sure that we're a great read across for that. So we really don't plan for and don't expect to see a meaningful budget flush here for the end of the year.
Gotcha. And maybe switching gears now to diagnostics, you did bring up Cepheid. The non-respiratory business growing in the teens off of 20% comp, those are big, big numbers. What has driven this? Maybe I'll just stop there. If you can just give us the bullets on what's driving this strong.
We've seen great growth in our non-respiratory business. That's driven by a number of factors. The first factor is that we've increased our installed base since the pandemic by a factor of three. At the same time, we've been able to increase not only the size of our menu, so the number of assays that are approved by the FDA, but we've also then been able to improve the utilization of assays in that now far larger installed base. On top of that, we've launched new assays, including this year with HPV. We're seeing the adoption of these new assays to be very strong. We couldn't be more pleased with the team, how they're executing here commercially. Customers really want this value proposition. I think we see that continuing here for the long term and demonstrates that we're taking share there in molecular diagnostics.
Are those kind of growth numbers sustainable, Rainer, when you look at the non-respiratory part of point of care diagnostics?
If we look at the penetration of molecular diagnostics worldwide, it's less than 40%. So we feel as though there's a lot of runway there, both in terms of our installed base, but also in terms of the utilization of that installed base. And we have the largest FDA-approved menu by quite a margin. And of course, we intend to and have a great development pipeline to continue to expand that. So we're going to continue to drive that penetration here for the long term.
When you look at the different assays and menus, are there any particular assays you want to point out to which are the early part of the adoption cycle, which could be meaningful drivers over the medium term?
Sure. Hospital-acquired infections is a broad category. We see Group A strep. And we see sexual health as another area of strong growth. And as I say, our development pipeline is full of additional opportunities, which we intend to take full advantage of.
Fantastic. And maybe last Cepheid question, I think some of the metrics some people have looked at is how many customers are doing more than one test? Presumably, some of these expansion installed base is driven by the pandemic. And are they doing non-respiratory tests? Do you track that metric? And what does that inform you about the business?
We do, and I would say the majority of those customers do more than one test. It is so that we had the benefit of COVID and then the 4-in-1 test to be an anchor assay for us during the pandemic, allowing us to really drive that installed base. But now as customers are starting to more broadly take full advantage of the Cepheid value proposition, we see the utilization of that menu continue to expand. And of course, that's something that we drive every day.
Great. And then switching over to respiratory, this year it's coming well above what we started versus initial expectations. I think the current guidance is $1.7 billion. Is that an endemic number? Because I think that endemic number has moved from $1.2 billion to maybe $1.5 billion, $1.6 billion. But maybe talk about sustainability.
As you can imagine, guiding to a respiratory season is quite a feat. We have continued to learn and refine our processes here. We would probably say today the endemic level is probably $1.5-$1.6 billion. In any given individual year, it might be a little less and it might be a little bit more. $1.5-$1.6 billion is our current point of view.
Understood. And I think getting back to the macro, some of the changes at HHS and FDA, et cetera, there is a view that perhaps funding for infectious disease area might take a back seat. But does it have any relevance for real world in how medicine is practiced and how customers, hospitals are testing patients?
We'll see how that all plays out. But just to give you a sense, our vaccine business is less than 1% of Danaher's revenue. So we will observe with interest here how that situation develops. Obviously, from a public health perspective, that's going to be incredibly important as it relates to our business. It tends to be on the margin.
Gotcha. Gotcha. Fantastic, and maybe of respiratory. I know we have the . Is there some thought process of expanding the panel to perhaps a broader eight or 10 test? Does it make sense for Danaher?
We always look at what clinicians require and the use cases at the point of care. Where we see that opportunity, of course, we can add to the test or any other test. I think over time, we are taking the view of syndromic panels. Clinicians need to address the patients as they present themselves with symptoms. Rather than taking the view of let's rule out certain diseases and then guess what it might be out of the remaining possibilities, the syndromic panel allows you to actually diagnose what the patient has and then prescribe the appropriate treatment. I think that's the trend. We'll continue down that path. We view the test as a respiratory disease syndromic panel.
Gotcha. And I think some of your peers, when they look at syndromic panel, they've looked at 10 or 12 organisms. Does the Cepheid platform allow you to do 10 or 12 organisms?
So the way the tests are made, of course, is they actually attach to and then ultimately amplify the genes of any given disease, right? And so we think that the great majority of the disease presentations are done with, let's say, 10 or less Plex, as it's known in the industry. But certainly, there are others. And we continue, of course, in our development pipeline to expand our capabilities going forward.
Fantastic. The recent analyst, I thought Beckman was the, I think, the center stage. I think the expectation of Beckman to accelerate to high singles caught a lot of us by surprise. What drives that turnaround, right? Because those are pretty large established markets, established players. But how confident is Danaher that Beckman can actually accelerate to high singles?
We're very confident. The team is making all the right moves at Beckman. In fact, I was just recently there with the team. We looked at all of our developments. It's really driven by three factors, I'd say. First of all, I would say patient volumes are strong globally. We expect that to continue, certainly in developing markets, but not only developing markets. The populations are aging. We see that requiring more testing. That's the first thing. The second thing is the team has done a great job in innovation. As we look at the DxI 9000 high-resolution immunoassay platform, which opens up more testing possibility for us, including neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer's being a case in point from a blood draw. We're very excited about that.
But at the same time, the team has closed some of the menu gaps that they have historically had, whether that's related to infectious diseases, whether that's related to blood virus, and that's certainly the case, or whether that's related to high-resolution cardiac panels. So we've also closed some of those gaps, which have been a bit of a drag. We've innovated on top of those. The DxC 500 AU line and all of its variations has been renovated and is being adopted by customers aggressively. And then I'd be remiss in not mentioning that the team is executing far better commercially as well. Of course, when you have new products and new capabilities to talk about, that's one thing. But we also see that our process improvements there have made a big difference. So we're certainly excited about Beckman Diagnostics and its long-term growth rate.
Fantastic, and when you look at proof points for success, should you be looking, when you look at maybe perhaps at some point in 2025, should the win rates go up? Is that what you're looking for?
We're certainly looking for increased win rates, increased penetration in certain markets. So that's absolutely how we measure it. And that's exactly what's going on.
Fantastic. And then the other two parts of diagnostics, I think Radiometer, maybe it was a timing element in 3Q. I thought it was a little soft. What is the longer-term outlook for Radiometer? Should this still be a high single-digit growth business?
Absolutely. Radiometer has been a high single-digit grower for us for a long time. There might be a quarter here or there where there's an anomaly. But we view them as a high single-digit grower. And in fact, that's based on their very unique positioning in blood gas, where they are the preferred option. But they've also invested significantly in point of care immunoassay. And that's become an additional and supportive growth vector for them. So we're excited about Radiometer, their innovation levels, and how the team is executing, and see high single digits as the right way to see them long term.
I didn't realize that they were expanding immunoassay. Is there specific areas that they're looking at?
As you can imagine, when you go to the emergency department, there's 20% of the cases that are presented are 80% of the testing requirements. That's where not only the existing menu, but the development work is focused.
Fantastic. And then maybe the last piece in diagnostics here on Leica. That's one area where I think some of your peers have spoken about digitization, AI. Where is Danaher in that evolution?
Leica Biosystems, as you may know, has the digital scanning platform GT 450, which is a high-resolution platform. It's competitively advantaged and is growing very strongly and is really the portal into digital diagnostics support for pathologists. That gives us really a preferred positioning with the pathologists today. As you can imagine, we're working on not only the assays that we supply and turn around faster freely than anybody with a BOND-PRIME platform. We also, of course, are working on the digital diagnostic support through AI, artificial intelligence, and other types of algorithms.
Should that drive incremental revenue upsell, if you will, because you're providing more value to your customers by digitization? And should that perhaps accelerate Leica growth to high singles over the longer term?
We see Leica's growth rate today at high single digits. While it takes some time for assay development as well as assay approvals, we expect that to be a tailwind for the Leica Biosystems business over the long term.
Great. And then one on. I know I said we'll get back to capital deployment. The one area within diagnostics, which feels like an obvious product gap, at least from an external standpoint, is liquid biopsy, MRD. How attractive are these end markets to Danaher? Do you look at those markets? Do you have a view on liquid biopsy?
Of course. Liquid biopsy is maybe one form of looking at it. If we can talk about it as cancer diagnostics more broadly, it has been an area of interest to us. Our diagnostics team talked about that at the analyst day, and even with our current platforms, that's relevant for organic investment. You were talking about capital deployment, and so we're always looking in all of our businesses to expand and strengthen our capabilities, and that's the same for us in diagnostics.
Understood. Then maybe the third lever vertical, if you will, life sciences instrumentation down mid-single digits year to date. When you look at instrumentation, core growth, what's been that core growth versus 2019?
As we look back to pre-pandemic as the anchor year, I think that's where you're going. The now five-year CAGR would be mid single digits.
Fantastic. So that's pretty robust. That's strong. And when you think about instrumentation, are those end markets also bottoming out? Should we be looking for a turnaround within instrumentation?
We've seen some stabilization here. We talked about our book-to-bill being over one in our life science tools business here. In the Q3 , we saw a little bit of sequential orders growth. And so that's indicative of us that we are likely at the bottom. It's Q1 . We prefer to see more than Q1 to confirm a trend. But it's encouraging.
That would be predominantly within mass spectrometry?
No. I mean, that would be our Molecular Devices, SCIEX. We were talking about Beckman Coulter Life Sciences. So I won't name all those operating companies here. But those would be the largest ones in our tools area.
Understood. And I think for most, for the space in general, we're looking for some growth for instrumentation for next year. Would that be like a reasonable way, just given book-to-bill trends that would be not too crazy, right, instrumentation to be up next year?
We're looking now for some confirmatory data points, including the Q4 here, to see that what I think is encouraging signs around us being at the bottom to start turning into positive dynamic. I think it's a little early to say. We want to see the Q4 here as well and then come back to you here in January to talk about that.
How much visibility does that book-to-bill give, Rainer? Is that like a three-month conversion cycle or a five-month conversion cycle?
So I would say it's a three-to-six-month conversion cycle in the tools area. Some of the larger equipment that's more involved from an installation perspective might take longer than equipment that is basically a plug and play on a benchtop.
Understood. And then recurring revenues within life sciences, that's pretty high at 60%. Where could that mix go over time? Are recurring revenues growing faster than instrumentation?
With the addition of to our family of operating companies, as well as our genomics companies, we would expect the recurring revenue percentage to continue to increase as those faster growing segments are supportive and higher than the fleet average there.
Thanks for bringing up genomic medicine. That piece, obviously, end markets have been challenged. But it feels like Q3 , we saw some signs of life within that part of the market. Is that a fair characterization?
I think I would say that it's mixed depending on the application segments. But as I said from the beginning, I think the genomics segment is a very attractive segment here and will ultimately, in the long term, provide a tailwind to the fleet average, whether that's in bioprocessing or whether that's in the genomics medicines business, independent of sort of the short-term mixed picture here as we sort through some things post-pandemic. But I think we're very well positioned for that trend going forward to the long term.
I think in the past, you've brought up oligos and NGS. Where are we? Have end markets stabilized? What's been the major pressure point within those end markets?
So the end markets in next-gen sequencing in particular, they have stabilized. I think that we, as an industry, had to work through some of the pandemic level of testing. You'll recall population testing going on for a long time. And as that has come off now and the comps normalize, we're starting to see the normal strength of that business returning.
Gotcha. And I think one of your peers talks about gene synthesis. It's a smaller piece for Danaher. But how would you characterize the competitive position within that part of the market?
That's a small space for us, I have to say. We're actually very excited about some of the solutions we're bringing to market here, specifically at IDT. We've just launched our gene synthesis solution called FastGenes. We've come out of the gates there quickly, albeit off of a small base, and feel that we are very competitive there, not only in terms of quality, which of course is essential, but also in terms of turnaround time.
Understood. And then on China one, some of your peers have looked at China CAGR versus 2019. When you look at the overall China book of business, what's been the CAGR from pre-pandemic levels?
So as we think about looking backwards to China, as you say, to 2019, we would say that our CAGR's probably been in the mid single digits area and probably below our fleet average. As we think about China long term, so not in this short-term phase where the market's resetting there in China, we do think that China will be accretive to the overall Danaher fleet average and growth, but perhaps not as high as we had seen it historically where we were in the mid teens. So it's probably closer to sort of the high single digits, maybe low double digits, once the government and, of course, the industry has sorted through some of the complexity it's dealing with today.
Should stimulus be a tailwind for Danaher? Does it matter for Danaher?
I think in specific segments, stimulus can be a tailwind for our business. If we think of the tools sector in particular, that can be helpful. Whether that plays out then in bioprocessing remains to be seen. As for now, there's sufficient capacity to meet the demand. So we would say it's a tailwind. But it's really important to us that beyond the stimulus, that the fundamentals of the market are sustainable and on a growth track because the incentives are in place for that growth long term.
Gotcha. In the last maybe couple of minutes, one on margins. Is Danaher under earning? If revenues come back, should incrementals be above? Or how would you characterize the margin profile?
This is the way we think about it. When we're at our high single digit growth, we think our incrementals are 35%-40%. We would expect our operating margins then to be in the low to mid 30s. As we start approaching those kind of growth rates again, that would be our expectation.
Gotcha. And with that, Rainer, does it mean like we have like a catch up to low 30s and then we hit the 35%-40% incrementals? Or it would be a gradual step up to that low 30s?
I think it's going to be a gradual step up.
Last one here, fiscal 2025, without getting into guidance, what should be the pluses and minuses and how you're thinking about the moving pieces?
Here's how we're thinking about it. First, you have to think about the order book, whether that is for bioprocessing or, as we just talked about, in the tools area, which is a smaller part of our business. But certainly, we have to see how the order book develops here in the Q4 , which is the largest quarter of the year and sets up a good part of the next year. Secondly, I think we need to understand how China develops here. There's been one stimulus announced, which we've all seen and heard. More stimuli seem to be in the offing. We'll see how that develops. We need to understand that for sure. The respiratory season, as you know, it straddles Q4 and Q1 of every year. We'll need to see how that plays out here for Q1 for sure.
And then lastly, while we always look at this, it does seem that we need to look at foreign exchange rates to make sure that we have that dialed in properly as well.
Great. With that, we're out of time, Rainer. Thank you so much for the time this afternoon.
Vijay, thank you. It's been a pleasure.