Yeah, it's at the Raymond James Institutional Investors Conference. I'm Andrew Cooper. Happy to be joined by the Haemonetics team today. We have CEO, Chris Simon, CFO, James D'Arecca, and Head of IR and Treasury, Olga Guyette, as well as David Trenk with us in the audience for a little fireside chat. With that, Chris, maybe just start us off, as a refresher for anyone kinda newer in the audience, a few minutes on who Haemonetics is and some of the key areas you play and some of the key topics of late.
Well, good morning, Andrew. Thanks for having us. This is my fifth consecutive year with an opportunity to present at this conference. It's a great conference. We welcome the opportunity to engage with existing and prospective investors. My comments today will contain forward-looking statements. The usual safe harbors apply. For those not familiar with Haemonetics, we're approaching $1.4 billion in revenue, diversified, increasingly diversified, small midcap MedTech company. We are the global leaders in plasma apheresis. It's a billion-dollar addressable market with durable EBITDA and return on invested capital and robust free cash flow. We've been on a path to strengthen that leadership while we also diversify into what we believe are highly attractive, not growth-constrained med-surg categories. I'm sure we'll talk about all of that.
What's noteworthy, I think, is that we are in the final quarter as we speak of our fiscal year, which is also the final quarter in our 4-year LRP. For those who were there in June of 2022, we set some bold and audacious targets, and I'm proud of this team to say that, you know, we met all of them, high single-digit revenue growth, operating margin expansion almost, you know, 800+ basis points, cumulative free cash flow of $600 million-$700 million, and essentially added $3 of earnings per share over this period.
Great. Let's dive in with I think what most folks probably associate you with in terms of plasma. Last quarter, you grew 3% organic, 20% ex CSL. It feels like a quarter where there was a lot of crosscurrents. You had pricing, you had volume normalization, you had CSL, non-plasma therapies in the background, just a lot going on. Can you maybe just walk through some of the moving parts, not necessarily for the quarter, but kinda how they each have come in, faded out and, you know, kinda crossed paths over time?
Yeah. Plasma is driving outsized growth across our portfolio. It's a combination of sustained share gains. It's a innovation-led platform benefits and the pricing that comes with it, and it's increasing collection strength, which we refer to this year at least as our trifecta of tailwinds. You know, it is clearly the strongest that plasma's been performing in the history of the company. I think we've continued to invest behind that to widen the gap competitively against, you know, our competitors. So, you know, we're driving trust, we're driving expansion, and, you know, we are excited not only in our performance and our customers' performance, but in the end market demand for plasma-derived therapies, which we think continues unabated.
It's always fun when you guys give us something new to talk about. Last week you announced Persona PLUS, adding I think you said mid-single digit yield on average versus Persona. Something like mid-teens overall versus sorta where you were not that long ago with the legacy system, legacy nomograms. First, can you give us a little bit of what the plus entails? Is it, you know, just a tweak to the algorithm? Do the customers need new bottles? How does it roll out? How do you intend to sorta take that to market as you go and talk to these customers?
Yeah. PLUS is the next step in our plasma innovation cycle. It further reinforces our leadership in donor-centric collections, and it strengthens our long-term economics and importantly, the long-term economics of our customer. It definitely builds on the shift that we initiated with Persona. It's a data-driven approach. As you said, mid-single digit % increase on average above what we're already achieving with Persona. That's been very difficult for our competitors to match. Where they've encroached upon our patent protection, we're aggressively defending that. You know, we're excited. We think this goes from strength to strength for us. You know, the actual approval itself was backed by a pivotal trial that involved over 30,000 plasma donations from almost 3,000 donors, clear safety and effectiveness profile. O ur customers are highly familiar with this technology.
We developed it in conjunction with them over the last 18 months. They are anxiously awaiting this approval the same as we are. We'll move immediately into commercialization.
Okay. Helpful. This may tie in here, but, you know, you're now kind of at the point where some of the initial NexSys adopters are probably near recontracting conversations. How, if at all, have those evolved with NexSys, with Persona, and now with, you know, Persona PLUS as you go to try to extend those contracts?
Yeah. Look, our customer relationships are strong. I think they're reflected in the continued share gains and a deeper strategic partnership that we now enjoy across our entire customer base. They adopted NexSys with Persona. They're enthusiastic, as I just said, about Plus. They are increasingly standardizing their operations around our technology, not just here in the U.S., but also globally. I think us enabling them to increase their throughputs, to improve donor center productivity, to scale their operations more efficiently, while, and this is really critical, while improving donor safety and satisfaction, has meaningfully differentiated us. I think one of the things that are important to emphasize to the core of your question, Andrew, is it's not just about the device.
Clearly, it's a great device, but it's a fully integrated ecosystem that spans hardware, software, data through NexSys, Persona, and NexLynk. That's the piece that I think is really differentiating and candidly quite difficult to replicate.
You mentioned share gains . Wanted to touch on that. You know, you've been seeing some through the course of this fiscal year. Can you frame the magnitude of sort of the share you expect to add within the various customers and how far through that process are we, and how is it compared to what you expected maybe at the start of fiscal FY26?
Allowing for the customer transition that we've called out repeatedly, we're growing 20% this year. You know, share gains with the existing customer set has been the single largest driver of revenue growth year-to-date and will continue to benefit us well into the future. The conversions and the overall commercial execution progressed in line with our expectations, reflecting that strong customer engagement and a really disciplined rollout. I just wanna emphasize, this is not a one-time event. We're the clear market leader. We absolutely expect to grow our global marketplace leadership for the foreseeable future.
Okay, perfect. You know, Terumo's Rika was this big, big topic for a while. It doesn't feel as new anymore, but would love the latest on kind of the competitive landscape, both with them, with the other competitor out there, and then, like you touched on, directly for the plasmapheresis machines is one thing, but also from that sort of wraparound capability perspective and what you're able to bring to bear.
Look, I'll continue to hammer home the point and it's clear the pride we have for what that team's accomplished. We're the company that the industry knows and trusts. We were there for all of our customers through the pandemic and what has been a meteoric recovery in volumes on the other side of it. As I said, it's the integrated platform. We're the ones driving lower cost per liter and increasingly now a new set of metrics around cost per gram, which is a more sophisticated way of measuring the true productivity. You know, you mentioned software. Our NexLynk DMS is the leader in share in the U.S. It's the only proprietary commercially available platform, and it's the one that is providing real-time operational visibility and intelligence to help customers further optimize their performance.
With PLUS on top of that, we're going from strength to strength.
I know you're not gonna guide for fiscal 2027 sitting up here with me, but I'm gonna ask anyways. Just as we think about the moving parts, some of which we hit on there between capturing price with the innovation you've brought and the share gains and the, you know, normalization of inventories, how do you think about entering fiscal 2027 from a plasma perspective, and does it look maybe a little bit more normal as some of those things kind of are a little bit further behind us?
Yeah. I'm not sure what normal means anymore. But, you know, five years ago, when we first got the news about our customer transition, et cetera, I think a lot of folks had real consternation and were counting us out on multiple dimensions. None of those fears or anxieties have come to pass. In fact, you know, what we did over this four-year LRP is really reestablish that global leadership, that global share gain, and the momentum we've got. More than anything, I think what I would want investors to understand is the durability of those results is our priorities for twenty-seven will look a lot like they have over the past four years. We're gonna continue to grow share. We're gonna advance Plus.
Plus is not the last innovation that we will introduce, I'll go on record to say there'll be other meaningful things to talk about in FY27 when we get there with regards to our innovation cycle. Yeah, we are bullish on where we go from here and what we've built.
Great. Wanted to shift gears a little bit and talk about hospital. Maybe jumping into vascular closure to start. You know, you've had some challenges in that space really after waking up some of the competition with, I would say, early success as you focus there. You started trying to solve for those a few quarters ago. I think the process has been maybe a little bit longer than a lot of folks expected or hoped. What have you learned over the last few quarters that, you know, despite this timeline, keeps you confident in the growth trajectory longer term in that space?
Yeah, Andrew. Look, we have no higher priority than returning the Interventional Technologies franchise to above-market growth. It's taken time, and as you point, longer than anticipated, but what we're seeing reinforces confidence that we're on the right path. It's a dynamic market for sure. You mentioned competition. That's clearly the case. There's also several macro themes that have impacted the near term. You know, the pace and the velocity or the curve of PFA adoption for one, we're definitely seeing that. We're also seeing a rise in concomitant procedures, which among other things, has an effect on the available access sites for closure. Now, and it'll increasingly gain momentum here over the coming quarters and years, is the shift to ASCs, the alternate site of care, and that momentum. We think on balance, these dynamics are favorable for us.
As PFA adoption matures, there'll be less disruption on the closure market. As ASC volumes scale our same-day discharge and some of the other aspects, the health economic benefits of VASCADE will make it a, you know, modality of choice. I guess on balance, I'd say to your question, we have the right setup for FY27, with an increasingly competitive portfolio, there are two or three things that you'll see and hear from us. The MVP label expansion, both here in the U.S. and Japan, will be an important milestone for us. We've got a meaningfully stronger and growing body of clinical evidence, and, you know, we just completed the Vivasure acquisition, which will hopefully lead to the synergistic launch of PerQseal Elite here in the U.S. Those things will be meaningful catalysts as we return to growth.
Great. We'll touch on a few of those in just a moment here, but I did wanna ask at least one that's a little kinda nearer term. With fiscal third quarter, you talked about a couple open territories in the sales force. Can you give a sense for maybe magnitude and an update on where you are today? Has the competition for talent changed as some of the others have maybe focused a little bit more on closure than they had, you know, a few years ago?
Yeah. As you said earlier, just to reaffirm, we definitely woke up the competition. Today, though, we have the largest dedicated vascular closure sales force in the market. They're fit for purpose, they're highly experienced, they have deeper EP expertise and improved count, account coverage and a better, more aligned set of incentives to support them. We built that team deliberately. To your point, some of the territories, some of the roles took longer to fill as there is more competition for talent, but we're very excited about the caliber of folks that we were able to bring in. What matters now is converting that improved coverage and experience to more consistent execution. This is a business that requires thoughtful execution day in and day out. We need very deliberate corporate account strategies. That takes time to fully mature, and that's what we've experienced.
The team is making measurable progress operationally, and we're beginning to see early but important signs of operational improvement. There's been a lag, we acknowledge that, but that, you know, we don't have any doubt that what we are doing will yield meaningful success, and it'll yield success in FY27.
Great. Maybe just to touch on it, you mentioned it a little bit, you know, Interventional is a couple other things in there as well, OpSens and Attune, you know, have had their headwinds, let's say. How should we think about those businesses stabilizing from here and what that means, you know, for optimal growth and for the segment overall?
The OpSens business, particularly SavvyWire, had delivered consistent double-digit growth, but OptoWire got hit with a customer OEM inventory rebalancing and destocking that just wasn't foreseeable. That impact is not expected to repeat, which, you know, will improve growth visibility on the core business going forward. SavvyWire is a great product in early stages of its adoption curve. We estimate that it's a $200 million addressable market focused on structural heart, specifically with TAVR, and a really nice overlap with our existing hospital footprint. Over time, we absolutely expect SavvyWire to be a core pillar for this durable growth contribution within IVT. We also talk about Attune. Attune was ultimately a case of a strong technology meeting a market that shifted faster than anyone else could have expected, making this perhaps a good product, but it is absolutely the wrong time.
You know, the revenue is small. It gets a lot of airtime. It. We understand that. We understand the proof points, et cetera. You know, this is approximately $3 million in revenue last quarter on a $300 million-plus business, not gonna spend a lot of time on it. The challenges have played forward. We know where we are, and I think over the course of FY27, we'll get a very clear read on the market potential and, you know, the opportunity for that product going forward. You know, we see it, you know, the Attune headwinds fade, OpSens transitions, you know, from a detractor to a contributor, and that really sets the stage for us to lead through vascular closure, which is the absolute pillar of what we're doing in IVT.
Great. You mentioned an earlier question Vivasure, so I wanted to touch on that as well, and PerQseal for large bore. How does just having that large bore option sort of change the overall franchise and open up what you're able to do as you go to customers?
Yeah. Look, in MedTech, good products win. PerQseal Elite is a very good product. It's gonna meaningfully extend our leadership in closure, giving us a credible path to category leadership across small, medium, and large bore procedures. You know, the large bore opportunity as we define it is roughly a $300 million global TAM growing at least in the high single digits. You know, 65% of that TAM is right here in the U.S., and it's heavily concentrated amongst, you know, TAVR and EVAR procedures where we can leverage that 240 person sales force that I mentioned just a minute ago. We know closure, and we have established physician relationships that we can build on. There's no need for a new standalone organization. The launch strategy itself is gonna be phased and controlled to avoid any unnecessary disruption.
Again, really good product, clinically differentiated, addressing a clear unmet need in large bore closure. You know, where we see safety, speed, reliability as paramount attributes that we bring distinctively to the market. You know, the clinical data, we've called this out elsewhere. The clinical data set to support the product is outstanding. Zero major complications, immediate median hemostasis. The median time is literally 0.0, and it's a suture-less, fully bioabsorbable design with no permanent implant. There isn't anything like it in the market, and we're enthusiastic about what we can do with it in our sales force's hands.
Maybe just on kind of that launch, I think you mentioned with earnings, there's maybe a little bit of near-term dilution there, but not as much on the financial side. What has to happen? What are the steps, given it is a lot of the sales force you already have, like you mentioned, what are the sort of logistics steps to get to where you want to get to with that product?
Yeah. Look, it's important to learn from the past, good and bad. In this case, we're gonna make sure that the PerQseal Elite launch follows a very deliberate investment curve with operating leverage improving as we scale and build the product as part of our broader portfolio. You know, the minimal dilution we referenced around Vivisure is, as I said, gonna be very deliberate. It's tied to getting the launch right, and we'll have, you know, none of which is structural in nature. We don't need a new sales force. As I mentioned, there's a lot of overlap with our existing call points and existing hospital customers. Focus is gonna be on training and readiness for that sales force, so they're ready to go on day one.
We will-- at this point, we're envisioning placing it with our existing vascular closure team, again, because we think it's highly synergistic alongside VASCADE. There's operations and logistics work that has to be done to finalize the manufacturing plans and supply chain readiness. Vivasure is great, but they're a very small company that hadn't gone through this phase of commercialization. There's a bunch of launch infrastructure, et cetera, that needs to be added. From a manufacturing perspective, it's not a greenfield build. You know, the near-term spend is around standing up scalable processes so that we can quickly get the gross margins in line and consistent with what we see elsewhere in hospital, where it's pushing, you know, into 70%. We're excited by that. You know, the incremental spend is targeted, it's time-bound, and a lot of it's already behind us.
You know, we're excited what we can do with PerQseal for the launch, and I think that will be a good proof point for the ongoing success of that IBT franchise.
Shifting gears a little bit, to an area I think we probably don't spend as much time in the investment community as we should. But blood management, which has been a great grower for a decade plus at this point. You know, it's really been impressive there. Earlier this year, you gave some views on the addressable opportunity, kind of penetration and share. I think in a little bit different way than you had before, TAM versus SAM for viscoelastic testing. Can you level set kinda how you think about that opportunity, your share, and then what drives the growth in the future between share versus viscoelastic adoption, versus menu expansion, et cetera?
There's a lot to unpack there, Andrew, but I fervently agree, you know, that, you know, blood management technologies, TEG specifically within it, just doesn't get near the mind share or attention it's earned. From our perspective, right, consistent double-digit growth, margin expansion led by the TEG 6s utilization and rollout. You know, the heparinase neutralization cartridge last year was a big catalyst. It created an inflection point for these larger under-penetrated markets. To your question specifically, we're sizing the global SAM at just above $400 million, growing at least in the mid-single % on an existing procedure basis. The big opportunity is this relatively modest level of penetration across geographies. There's meaningful runway, both in the U.S., in EMEA, and Japan alike. Less than 50% penetration to date.
You know, we've catalyzed that through the conversion of our legacy TEG 5000 systems. We're also seeing with this site of care success device, just a meaningful uptick in returns per the individual device, doubling the actual usage. We're excited about that. We think 6s is a defensible standard of care. You know, we've got greater than 70% of the viscoelastic testing market, and we've got meaningful real-time and robust data to actually support that, and a team that are just absolute zealots about the importance of adopting viscoelastic testing. Growth will come in different flavors going forward. It's gonna be additional penetration as we expand adoption in the existing and new hospitals.
It's gonna be utilization, as I mentioned a moment ago, and then it's gonna be share and conversion, which, our team's getting after in a big way.
You mentioned heparin neutralization cartridge. I think it's been a nice helper of late. Where are we in sort of the runway there in terms of driving adoption within the existing customer base? Also I assume it's a tool for you to go capture additional customers. A little color there would be great.
Yeah. No, it's absolutely both, driving adoption and utilization on our existing base, but it's also helping with new account wins. I think about it along at least 3 dimensions. It's played a meaningful role in accelerating the conversion of our legacy TEG 5000 lab-based devices, and we're getting into the final stages of that now, but it's been fun to watch that acceleration. It's also a strong new account enabler, reinforcing TEG 6s i s the most differentiated and fully integrated viscoelastic test. We have a product called TEG Manager, which has the ability to apply real-time intelligence. With our share of the market, the feed loop there is really powerful in terms of data and analytics. You know, as i I said, overall, the penetration of viscoelsastic testing still remains relatively low.
As we build a body of clinical evidence and strengthen our commercial efforts, we think that heparinase neutralization will lead the charge in further expanding utilization across devices and across markets.
Not to shortchange that product, but are there other menu expansions of that magnitude that make sense on the TEG 6s or kinda how do we think about the trajectory from there?
Yeah
beyond heparinase neutralization?
As one of our three core products, we have a very robust pipeline of product development. It's gonna be a combination of new users and greater utilization. It'll be new indications, like the heparinase neutralization indication last year. I mentioned earlier geographic expansion, where we'll target Europe and Japan as real growth opportunities.
Great. Shifting a little bit, wanna talk about capital deployment. You know, you closed Vivasure. How are you thinking about, you know, nearer term M&A today, and then also longer term capital deployment? You know, you've got some repurchase authorization, you've got the zero percent converts that are coming due here near term. Just help me think about kind of the big picture of capital deployment.
The capital intensive phase of our transformational growth is largely behind us. Major investments at the time, you know, the NexSys device builds, our ERP program implementation, build-out of a new manufacturing facility in Clinton, Pennsylvania, are all reflected in today's results. When we measure ROIC, it's increased over this period from less than 7% to greater than 11% year to date. We're not in any way satisfied with that number. It needs to be better, and we're gonna drive hard to make that happen. It is happening through margin expansion, a simpler portfolio, and really disciplined deployment. You know, to your point, we've had 95% free cash flow conversion year to date on a raised guidance in excess of $200 million, $200 million-$220 million now. You know, we've got the capacity and the flexibility to allocate purposefully.
Our first priority continues to be organic growth, particularly R&D and commercial execution, Andrew, where we can strengthen our competitive advantage and drive outsized returns. You know, we last week addressed the $300 million debt maturity using our revolver. That's as it was planned, and we think that further preserves optionality while keeping our capital structure both efficient and flexible. You know, at the current share price in the market, and there's a major dislocation here, so share repurchases continue to represent an attractive risk-adjusted return for us. We'll continue to deploy. As you said, we have the authorization. We'll continue to deploy capital opportunistically as the conditions favor it. Longer term, not near term, probably not in FY27, but longer term, M&A is a strategic growth driver if it deepens our leadership in core markets and adds differentiated capabilities.
You know, we're gonna remain disciplined near term. We're gonna focus on what we've got, and we'll be patient. You know, as we return to growth in IVT and we deliver a really successful launch for PerQseal Elite, you know, there are other meaningful talking opportunities that we would pursue down the road.
Great. Maybe on margins, pretty impressive step up from, you know, the teens, I think, in fiscal 23 to the mid-20s here at this point. I think James commented recently, 50 to 100 basis points a year might be a little bit more reasonable on kinda the go forward basis. When you think about that 50 to 100, how much of that is pure operational improvement? How much is mix? How much is, you know, anything else that might go in there? I ask that with a little bit of, in the back of my head, questions I get where investors ask about some of the noise in hospital.
Yeah
... and whether that changes and that change in growth changes the mix benefit that you get on the margin side.
Yeah. I think a lot of companies will be happy with, you know, 50 to 100 basis points growth per year. You gotta understand where we've come from. Over the last decade, you know, when I joined the company, our gross margin was in the low 40s, 43%. Our operating income margin was in the low teens at 13%. Today, our gross margins hover around 60. We think we can do better than that over time, but that's a really good starting point. We've doubled, literally doubled from 13% to 26% on our operating income margin. We're not gonna be satisfied with incremental turns of the crank. We think there is more to be done here. Certainly, mix, productivity, price, and volume all play a role.
As hospital fully recovers and grows into itself, I think you'll see operating leverage as a new contributor, which is specifically what James is referring to, and we believe there's meaningful room to run there. Aspirationally, we haven't issued guidance for next year. We haven't issued a new LRP. Aspirationally, there's no reason this business can't grow at least in the high single digits on the top line with something north of 60% and probably something north of 30% on the operating income margins, respectively.
Great. I know you're about four weeks away from wrapping up the fourth quarter here, but any context you can provide about fiscal FY27 from a financial perspective? I think the Street's a little under $1.4 billion revenue, $5.32 on EPS. Is that aligned with how you think about going into the year or anything you wanna comment on relative to that?
Yeah. I guess it's not a surprise for you. We're not gonna provide FY27 ...
I gotta try.
guidance here today. I appreciate you trying. What I would say is FY27 will continue to be about balanced, sustainable growth, revenue growth, margin expansion, and free cash flow. They're the three metrics we run to, and you should expect more of all of them from us in FY27.
We're just at the end of the time, so I'll open it up with the question that everybody likes to end with, which is just whether it's what are investors missing the most in the story or something else you wanna leave us with, I'll just pass it back to you.
Yeah. At 30,000 feet, I'll leave you with this simple tagline, which is, you know, as the fog clears, the forest for the trees will be revealed. This is an outstanding base company, and our best days are ahead of us.
I think that's the most philosophical statement I've ever heard in one of these. Love it. Thank you. We'll be down in Amarante 1 fo r the breakout. Bye.