Ladies and gentlemen, the program is about to begin. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the program over to your host, Michael Ryskin. You may begin.
Great. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for joining us, and welcome to today's event. My name is Mike Ryskin . I'm the lead analyst for the Life Science Tools and Diagnostics team here at Bank of America, and I also have the privilege of covering the animal health sector, which I've now followed for over a decade. It's become an annual tradition for us to host this Animal Health Summit in the first quarter. I think it's a great opportunity to dedicate a full day just to the space, take the time to dive deeper into, you know, the key trends, topics, debates that matter specifically to the animal health community. We've always had really strong participation from companies in the sector. I'm pleased to say that continues again this year in 2026
We also have very strong interest from clients and investors, you know, really glad to see that. I want to say I appreciate everyone taking the time to tune in today. I know there's a lot of other useful going on across the space, across healthcare and the broader market. As always, our goal is to make the event as useful, productive, and beneficial to you as possible. If there are any questions, if there's any comments, anything you'd like us to include any of the chats, feel free to use either the Veracast portal or reach out to me directly, via, you know, on Bloomberg Chat. You can email me at michael.ryskin@bofa.com, although I imagine most of you have my email.
My associate covering animal health, Alex Chan, is also on, and you can feel free to reach out to her and ping her with questions or anything you want us to include. With that, I think we're ready to kick things off. For our first session of the day, we're excited to be joined by IDEXX Labs. With us, we have Mike Lane, Executive VP and GM of Global Reference Laboratories, Diagnostic Solutions, Information Technology, and joining him is Andrew Emerson, Executive VP and CFO. Andrew and Mike, thanks so much for joining us.
Thanks for having us.
Yeah. Thank you.
Maybe just to kick things off, we'll start with sort of our default opening question. You guys reported 4Q recently. Maybe you could go through sort of the key moving pieces of the result. What stood out to you? Sort of what trended a little bit better, what surprised you a little bit? We'll, you know, follow up on a lot of those topics, I'm sure.
Great. That sounds great, Mike. Yeah, in the fourth quarter, we had exceptional financial results that we delivered, that's really benefited from, you know, top-line, double-digit gains, that allowed us to also deliver, you know, strong, operating margin improvement. You know, from a overall organic growth perspective, we delivered about 12% organic revenue growth in the quarter, and that really supported, you know, the full year, in terms of achieving that double-digit growth on a overall organic basis, for 2025 as well. You know, the innovation that we saw, you know, really helped us, you know, continue to drive the volume growth, which was, you know, really a more significant step up in the second half than the first half in 2025.
New platforms like our inVue Dx Analyzer, you know, helped us, you know, succeed, you know, over 1,900 incremental placements in the quarter, in that category. Overall, our premium instrument placements were really a record level that we've had in a long time. Our install base expansion, you know, really grew about 12% year-over-year. That was led with, you know, some of those innovation benefits. We saw, you know, continued sustained double-digit growth in our international business as well, in the fourth quarter, and really saw it a step up, you know, just in terms of the volume growth in the U.S. business, all in face of, you know, the fact that the sector continued to decline. We saw clinical visit declines of about 1.7%.
Really, a really nice improvement, you know, just from an overall growth rate in face of, you know, some sector challenges on clinical visits. I think that really has a lot to do with some of the innovation that we've delivered. You know, inVue Dx, you know, incremental slides on our Catalyst platform, as well as, areas like Cancer Dx, which I know Mike can talk to as well. You know, the commercial teams continue to engage our customers, and we're just seeing a lot of, you know, strong demand, you know, for some of these new innovations, you know, which help, you know, grow the overall industry and sector that we participate in. As I mentioned, for 2025, we saw double-digit top-line gains.
We delivered about 90 basis points of comparable operating margin improvement year over year, and, you know, really aligned with our longer-term financial algorithm for 2025. You know, excited to see that type of performance. As we head into, you know, 2026, just as a reminder, we're not updating or confirming guidance today, but, you know, in terms of what we highlighted on our recent earnings call, you know, we are planning for CAG Diagnostic recurring revenue growth of 8%-10%, organic overall. The midpoint of that, of approximately 9%, really is about 100 basis points step up year over year compared to what we delivered in 2025.
We feel good about that trend, and again, you know, continuing to execute on the innovations that, you know, we're building off of, here from a recurring revenue growth perspective. We also see strong interest in, you know, continued interest in our platforms like inVue Dx. This year we're planning for about 5,500 instrument placements, you know, which is a really solid metric that we've been tracking. This time last year, we were planning, you know, for about 4,500, and we outperformed that in 2025 and, you know, certainly are planning for a higher metric here in 2026 as well. Overall, you know, feel good about the trends of the business, you know, we are still faced with, you know, clinical visit headwinds.
We're planning for about a 2% decline in the U.S. business on clinical visits at a same-store sales basis, but still, you know, anticipating to deliver about 5% volume growth, you know, overall from a worldwide perspective in light of that. I think we like the trends that we're seeing, you know, just more generally, even though, again, we're not planning for a change in, you know, kind of the underlying sector dynamics that we've seen. From a margin perspective, again, you know, continue to focus on, you know, delivering expanded margin on a comparable basis year-over-year.
Our target for 2026 is 30 - 80 basis points, the midpoint at which is really, you know, kinda in line with the range that we provide for a longer-term opportunity for the business as well. I think, you know, we're really in a good position, and I think we're excited to see, you know, how we can continue to drive the innovation growth.
Yeah. I'd maybe add a little color on our innovation-led growth strategy. We exited 2025 with really strong momentum, as Andrew mentioned. In particular, let's talk a minute about inVue Dx. You know, over 6,000 placements on the year, you know, beating original estimates and just really well-received. You know, building on really common clinical use cases with ear cytology and blood morphology, beginning the controlled rollout of FNA, starting with lumps and bumps for mast cell. Similarly, 6,000 customers on the year for Cancer Dx, a lot of momentum there. Interestingly, about 18% of these customers were new to the IDEXX Reference Laboratories. Maybe either being introduced for the first time or being reintroduced to our exceptional service.
This innovation-led growth, and we can talk more about, you know, these extensible platforms of inVue Dx and Cancer Dx, just adding a lot of benefit, both to record instrument placements, but, utilization growth as well.
Okay. Oh, that's a, I mean, that's a great intro. I've got about seven different things from that I wanna follow up on, guys. Let me handle them one at a time. First, maybe, Andrew, you called out sort of like the overall 2025 performance and how the year played out. If we just take a step back and we look at where you ended the year, you know, 9.6% organic versus where you were guiding originally, sort of in that, you know, mid-to-high single-digit range, 6-9. You guys, you know, outperformed pretty meaningfully by about 200 basis points. If you could sort of unpack that, like, what really worked for you last year, right?
'Cause it's not that vet visits came in much better, it's not that price really deviated from your original plan, so it's the execution, it's the IDEXX portfolio. You know, is there any way for you to say, "Hey, the biggest driver was inVue Dx, then this, then Cancer Dx" any way you could break it down and just sort of, you know, so we could see why you guys did so much better than initially thought last year?
I think, you know, just in terms of, you know, we did take up our guidance range, you know, kind of over the course of the year a couple of times. Part of that was, you know, really driven by the strong execution of, you know, some of the innovations that we had. As we highlighted, you know, earlier and, you know, on a more recent call, you know, we had started the year with about an expectation of about 4,500 placements on inVue Dx. We do see a nice benefit just in terms of the revenue on the companion animal instrument placement revenue, you know, side of the house. That's a bit more one time in nature.
You know, we ended up doing, over 6,400, or about 6,400 placements in 2024, or excuse me, 2025. You know, reality is, like, that was one of those beautiful drivers at the top line. It delivered about 200 basis points, you know, to our overall revenue growth in the year. What's really exciting by that, though, is this, you know, momentum that we build on the recurring revenue side. That's part of why, you know, when we look at the CAG diagnostic recurring revenues, you know, we benefited from that as well in 2025.
The, you know, step up at midpoint to up 100 basis points, I think, you know, has a lot to do with, you know, to your point, that strong execution more globally, as well as some of these innovations that, you know, we continue to get benefits from. inVue Dx is tracking to, you know, what we've highlighted in the past of $3,500-$5,500 per instrument. However, you know, that also includes our FNA launch, which Mike noted we're in a controlled launch phase of that, and, you know, we expect that to grow over the course of the year. You know, we feel really good about the performance that we're seeing and the track record of the instrument.
You know, there's certainly strong demand for it, but that instrument placement played a portion of that, and then, you know, again, we continue to see strong execution. As we are able to, again, reach customers internationally, we had announced, you know, midyear that we were expanding our field force in some of these global markets. You know, that's also allows us to, you know, continue the journey of building belief and use of diagnostics more broadly on a global basis. I think it's a combination of those factors and, you know, really being earlier in this ramp cycle on some of the innovation platforms.
I'd maybe just add, you know, the quality of the visits, utilization, we saw, you know, a step up in what we call frequency, the percent of clinical visits include blood work, to about 100 basis points, so 2x historical levels. You know, that builds on, you know, these innovations that are supporting veterinarians to raise the standard of care, support patients with higher levels of care, particularly, you know, as they're aging.
Okay, okay, that all makes sense. I mean, Andrew, given your emphasis on inVue Dx, maybe we'll just go drive, jump right into that and come back to some of the other points later. Yeah, you're right. I mean, the, the placement numbers in 2025, the exceeding the original guide, you sort of quantify that because we know the ASPs, you know, just over $10,000, so you can kind of see the impact there. Now you're seeing that pull-through start to come through for 2026. You know, you're talking about the recurring revenues going from 8% in 2025, total company being a guide of 8%-10%, so 100 basis points improved into this year. By our math, about 50-75 basis points of that, is going to come from inVue Dx pull-through.
The incremental inVue Dx pull-through, given the install base, I mean, again, depends on exactly where you are in that $3,500-$5,500 range, but we're about there. Let me know if that's, if that's a reasonable starting point. The other factors there, you're assuming visits relatively similar year-over-year. Price, you're taking a little bit less. Again, what's that other driver to get recurring from 8%-9%, this year?
Yeah. To your point, we aren't expecting any change in the sector landscape. I think, you know, we've continued to see pressure on wellness visits as well as, you know, some of the more discretionary types of procedures, things like dentals, as an example. You know, and, you know, Mike highlighted the benefit that we see on the quality. When folks are coming into the clinic, you know, we're actually seeing them use diagnostics more frequently and, you know, certainly the utilization or the breadth of the diagnostic categories has continued to expand over time. You know, there's a multitude of factors that go into, you know, kind of the growth rate. I think you've characterized, you know, some of them well.
We are expecting a modest headwind on, you know, price, net price realization. You know, for the year, we're anticipating about 4%. In 2025, we did between 4% and 5% or 4% and 4.5%. There's a bit of a headwind there. Not really expecting too much change, you know, within the underlying sector dynamics. What it comes down to is really that volume growth, that we're gonna expect benefit from. Mike highlighted Cancer Dx. You know, that's another, you know, innovation category that I think will continue to help us. You know, we noted that we'll be launching mast cell tumor, mid-year on the Cancer Dx platform.
In addition to lymphoma, which is available today, we're also globalizing that, you know, over the course of 2026 here as well. We're continuing to build on other, you know, innovation areas. You know, we had launched Pancreatic Lipase a little over a year ago at this point, into the Catalyst platform base. We also launched Cortisol mid-year of this year. Yeah, we continue to have a robust set of other menu additions that, you know, help us, you know, continue to drive volumes and expand the use of diagnostics over time, and really improve the workflow at the clinic level. I think it's the combination of these factors that we're focused on.
As we mentioned, again, an expanded field force internationally should help us have these conversations more in depth with our international teams across the globe and clinics to continue to build the conviction behind how to use diagnostics more broadly.
Yeah, I would just say that if you think about Cancer Dx, it really hits on, you know, all the growth drivers. It engages the practice, it supports raising standards of care, utilization. It also expands the value which supports both price and, you know, high 90s customer retention. Just like, you know, other innovations, you know, that are highly differentiated before SDMA, Cystatin B, Fecal Dx antigen, Cancer Dx, these innovations drive multiple, you know, growth drivers and enablers.
Sticking with FNA, sticking with inVue Dx for a little bit, let's talk about FNA. You're rolling that out, as you had indicated before, like you said, starting with mast cell tumor detection. Can you talk about that rollout, over time? you know, why start with just mast cell? Why not broader? When should we think that would expand? Just sort of talk about your pull-through assumptions, $3,500, $5,500, just sort of how the incremental rollout of these capabilities will impact that.
Yeah, I can start on that. Andrew may wanna add. You know, these are highly extensible, you know, platforms, in the case of inVue Dx, start, you know, starting with your cytology and blood morphology, and then, you know, FNA is a broad area, but mast cell, in particular, is one of the most commonly diagnosed, you know, cancers for general practitioners. It's an area where we prioritized. You know, most pets will form lumps and bumps in their lifetime. We estimate only 10% of those are tested. Many are not found. They may be hidden in the fur, or they just may be below the skin. Yet, there are also about 12 million that we estimate that are done.
It's a large, traditional, opportunity done at the point of care. That's why we prioritize mast cell, you know, with inVue Dx FNA to start. Clearly, we'll continue to expand that platform, just like we're expanding Cancer Dx.
Yeah, to Mike's point, I think the great news is there's a lot of opportunity, you know, just around lumps and bumps in general. A lot of, you know, potentially continue to ease the workflow in the clinic to make that easier so that we're not testing just 10% of those. You know, we're really expanding, you know, how often those are looked at. You know, a lot of that has to do with the simplicity of the inVue Dx diagnostic instrument platform and the load and go mentality, which is a core principle as we think about bringing, you know, new diagnostic capabilities into the clinic.
You know, I think the other you know, kind of exciting part of this is, not only is inVue Dx really extensible by, you know, being able to address these different cytology categories, but to your point, FNA, you know, actually it becomes a, you know, an extensible panel or profile, you know, within that as well. We'll be able to continue to add, you know, new capabilities on FNA, just like we are with the broader, you know, system itself. It's a really powerful, you know, underlying technology that, you know, I think really adds a lot of productivity benefits in the clinic, and gives us the opportunity to continue to broaden out the use of diagnostics more, more comprehensively over time.
Maybe, Mike, I'd just add that, you know, we prioritize mast cell, of course, not just for InVue, but for Cancer Dx, and that was very deliberate. These work together. Cancer Dx really looks at the whole body, you know, through a simple blood test to indicate if there's mast cell, and then InVue comes along to interrogate specific lumps and bumps. It's really that interrogation of the specific lumps and bumps that the pet parent can get peace of mind that this is a benign lesion or tumor, or this is cancerous. With Cancer Dx and InVue, we find it earlier and a lot can be done about it to extend the life of these pets.
Great. Thanks. What I was gonna say was, how difficult is it to expand from one indication to another? Sort of like, I mean, and it's sort of a technology biology question, but okay, you've got FNA for mast cell. How different is that from developing FNA for other, for other cancers, for other indications? Is it completely different technology? Sort of like, how easy is it to make the leap into the next application and the next and the next, once you have it for one?
I can, you know, it's a platform, so it's designed to extend. It's not a, you know, different application. I think it's just, you know, you need to prioritize. Some of that comes down to, you know, data sets, clinical evidence, rather than, you know, hold something back when we have such clinically relevant tests to provide, you know, we've decided to, you know, release them as they come, you know, urocytology, et cetera, blood morphology, FNA, and we'll continue to expand that. You know, I think it's time and time and distance, you know, in terms of how we continue to extend the platform. Similarly, as you've seen with Cancer Dx, this isn't that different than when you look at Fecal antigen.
You know, we started with two fecal antigens, then we had a third, a fourth, fifth, we have another one, you know, coming. This is, part of our, you know, Technology for Life. It's part of our, you know, innovation approach, which is it's not really the big bang, it's about bringing incremental value, you know, to the pet, to the practice, you know, as we have it. That's, I think, what you're seeing is the, in the rollouts of both of these, breakthrough innovations.
We continue to build in, you know, the investments, you know, towards research and development in order to continue that pace. You know, over the summer, at our Investor Day, you know, Martin Smith had provided an overview of, you know, just how we think about, you know, research and development and our approach to, you know, commercializing that, you know, with high confidence. You know, I think we're continuing to invest in that area just to be able to improve that pace over time. To Mike's point, you know, we think about this as platform technology so that, you know, it becomes easier to add these things in as, you know, we're able to identify them and, you know, build conviction that, you know, we, and confidence that, you know, we're capturing the right resulting
Yeah. Okay. It sounds like it's just a matter of time of, like, generating the clinical evidence and having the runs and, you know, training the algorithm. Okay. Andrew, you touched on price briefly. I want to make sure we touch on that as well. You know, 4% this year, like you said, just a modest tick down. I think, you know, you talked about your LRP of 2.5%-4%, so you're at the higher end of that. Should we just continue to expect that you just kind of, you know, grind down and, you know, gradually come back down to that range and still feel like that's a good sustainable point longer term?
I guess, other part of the question would be: What determines if it's 2.5% or 4%, right? Like, that is a relatively broad range in any given year. What are you looking at to determine, where you shake out in that? Or what do you look at in 2026 to shake out at 4%?
Sure. Yeah. I think over time, you know, certainly what we'll, what we'll be paying attention to is, you know, the value equation, you know, here. I think that's a key part of how we determine the pricing, whether that's this year or any other year. It's really about, you know, how much value are we able to, you know, kind of bring to our customers, you know, across a myriad of different avenues. Some of that is, you know, new diagnostic capabilities that we don't charge for discretely. We have a long history of doing this, things like SDMA or Cystatin B, you know, where we're adding, you know, additional insights into these panels and profiles that we deliver.
We don't charge explicitly for that, but part of how we recapture that value over time is through list price changes, you know, on a yearly basis. An example of that this year is, you know, mast cell tumor detection on Cancer Dx. What we have highlighted is we're actually not changing the price of the panel, which already is, you know, quite affordable from our lens on. When you're including it in a broader diagnostic panel, it's about $15, but even standalone, it's only about $60 as we sell it to the clinic. You know, that's part of our design, is how do we think about, you know, making sure we're helping build and support, you know, the sector? You know, we believe, you know, strongly in some of these clinical use cases.
We believe there's real clinical value there, as do our customers, and, you know, we're really trying to bring that, you know, more comprehensively. Certainly, you know, the last several years, you know, we've been dealing with significantly higher levels of inflation, you know, really across the board. That's another thing that we have to take into consideration in any given year. As, you know, you've probably seen more broadly, that's, you know, been easing. We pay attention to, you know, CPI and, you know, certainly work with our partners and suppliers on how to manage some of those dynamics. In those periods of, you know, significantly higher inflation, we have to accommodate and take that into consideration as well, which is part of why you saw some higher levels of pricing historically.
Our starting point tends to be around, you know, the value, that we deliver and, you know, making sure that our customers understand that also believe in that value as well.
Okay. I want to make sure we don't skip over, vet visits and sort of the macro dynamic and where it goes from here. I'm actually surprised it's taken me 20 minutes to get there. Normally, it's the first question we start with. You know, we've had a lot of debates over the last couple of years in terms of what's driving the weakness, why it's been depressed for as long as it has been, why it's not recovering more. You know, 2025, I would say, on the whole, was still somewhat of a disappointing year in that regard because I think, you know, we had hoped to see some change at some point, and it really doesn't seem like it's turning.
You know, with another year under your belt, what would be your latest take on just sort of what's keeping that so suppressed for so long, and just sort of what the roadmap is for here?
I'd say, you want me to? Yeah, I'll, maybe I'll.
Yeah, start, go on.
Jump in. Yeah, I think on clinical visits, Mike, what we're seeing, and certainly in 2025, what we saw was, you know, a lot of pressure really on the wellness side of the house. Again, these discretionary types of procedures that, you know, can happen. You know, so that's, you know, folks, I think as they're managing, again, a broad base of inflationary impacts across their own environment. Yeah, making those decisions about whether they go into the clinic or not. Again, we're seeing that more in those cases where it's, you know, less about the acute issues that, you know, may be happening with a patient or a pet.
Yeah, I think what we find is when those types of situations are happening that, you know, folks are willing to go to the veterinarian, seek, you know, the healthcare, you know, for their pet. They still believe that they're part of the, you know, family. They wanna, you know, prioritize healthcare for those individual pets. They may be a little less, you know, inclined as they're trying to work through their own budgetary constraints, and especially in some of the lower economic levels, to, you know, go in and get those wellness visits. I think that's where we've been seeing the pressure this year more explicitly. We did see a little bit more benefit or, you know, kind of less impact on the non-wellness side.
Just as a reminder, you know, non-wellness visits account for about 60% of overall clinical visits, and they tend to use higher intensity of diagnostic utilization. When you actually look at the diagnostic revenue associated with that, it tends to be more about 70%-75% of the overall sector. We are seeing, you know, I think solid, you know, kinda, stability on the non-wellness side at this point, and certainly the aging cohort, you know, pets that, you know, folks got during the pandemic, you know, are starting to hit that adult and more senior age category. We talked about some of the green shoots that we're seeing, you know, on, you know, the aging pet population.
We continue to see pressure, you know, on some of those younger age cohorts, a little bit more muted, puppy and kitten, types of visits, as well. You know, I think that has a lot to do with again, just the broader macro environment that we've been managing through. Consumers, you know, tend to be a little slower to add or replace pets, when they're feeling under pressure from their own, again, budgetary constraints. I think those are the types of dynamics that we see play out, and, you know, we're not anticipating a major change, you know, to that this year. You know, I think we're optimistic on some of the aging pet populations over time
Yeah, just if you step back, you know, you think about the long-term opportunity that we have. You know, only 20% of the visits are receiving blood work today. So, you know, the real opportunity is the visits that are coming in to expand that. We talked about the quality of the visits earlier. We're seeing, you know, 2x over the historical rate last year. The quality, you know, the frequency, the diagnostic intensity that Andrew's describing, you know, as pets age, certainly that's an element. That, you know, say, for those visits that are happening, saying yes to diagnostics, both the veterinarian and the pet parent, that's what we're seeing drive utilization.
Okay. Okay. We did this, I'm sure you guys saw, we did this analysis maybe a week or two ago, where we looked at visit trends, not just going back to 2020 or 2021 or 2022 post-COVID. We kind of took a step back and looked over the past decade. While they were still positive visit growth pre-COVID, it was decelerating a little bit. What we've gotten increasing feedback on from some vets and KOLs we spoke to is, you know, the role that vet clinic consolidators and private equity has played in driving excess price and therefore maybe destroying some demand.
Just wondering if you have any view on that or any thoughts on that, just sort of like the prevalence of the consolidators, how big they've gotten in the industry, you know, how hard they're pushing price, and whether that's having some sort of, sort of multi-year, you know, decade-long impact of pricing out some of the consumer.
Yeah. Maybe I'll start on that one again. You know, I think, you know, from our perspective, you know, certainly, again, we pay attention to things like the vet services CPI, and, you know, it's been, you know, a little bit more elevated, you know, here versus overall CPI. It has kind of come down some in the last, you know, year or two as well, which I think is good news. There's been a level of, I think, professionalization, you know, within the industry at the clinic level as well, that, you know, some of these larger, you know, consolidators have had to invest in just from a staffing perspective.
I think, you know, what we saw initially, you know, coming out of the, you know, peaks of the pandemic was more of a capacity constraint. You know, that had a lot to do with, you know, stability of, you know, maintaining, you know, veterinary capacity, technician capacity within the clinic itself. I think, you know, making sure that, you know, they could, you know, create some stability on that and not see the types of levels of turnover or burnout that they did. It had to do with, you know, some of the rebalancing of, you know, things like pay over time that I know they're having to accommodate as part of that change.
You know, I think the, the broader, you know, kind of point, you know, from our perspective on, you know, the pricing, you know, piece of this is, it tends to be a little bit more macroeconomic, right? Again, the cost of housing and food and transportation, you know, all went up, you know, in this time period. Maybe a little less acute, you know, relative to, you know, the veterinary industry, specifically changing some of those economic metrics. There's always some interplay on, you know, price, volume, elasticity, but, you know, I think our perspective is kind of this broader macro environmental change that, you know, consumers have been working through, you know, here, related to that.
Over time, we have a lot of conviction and, you know, the return of clinical visit growth, just given, you know, things like the aging pet population. You know, the fact that the underlying dimensions, you know, related to, you know, people loving their pets and wanting to treat them well and provide them the healthcare services that they need. Yeah, I think that all, you know, is really intact and sustained, you know, longer term, and, you know, will be, you know, kind of coming back over a longer period of time.
Have you seen, we've seen a little bit of this in international markets, especially in Europe. There's been a little bit of government involvement in those regions to try to keep pet inflation down, try to keep costs down a little bit. Any signs of that happening in the U.S.? I mean, we typically think of the veterinary industry as being incredibly unregulated and just sort of ignored by the government to large degrees. Any concerns that you'll get some regulation and some price controls, given how elevated it's been in recent years?
Hard, hard to predict, the future on, you know, where the governments might go. You know, I think it's certainly something we'd be paying attention to. But, you know, again, when you actually take the, you know, underlying cost, you know, of a pet visit, you know, into consideration, you know, it hasn't changed, you know, so dramatically, you know, just from a pure dollars and cents perspective. I know some of the growth rates, you know, seem quite high, but it's still a relatively small portion of, you know, the overall consumer budget.
Again, I think it's some of these broader, you know, kind of challenges that we've seen on the inflation side that, you know, consumers are having to deal with and, you know, separation between lower-income households and higher-income households, although that hasn't been a significant impact that we've seen yet to date.
Yeah, I would just add, of course, you know, we work hard as part of our innovation, you know, to make these highly differentiated tests highly affordable. Andrew mentioned, you know, $15 for a breakthrough early cancer indicator, you know, starting with lymphoma, which, by the way, we just expanded the claims for lymphoma, you know, around therapy, monitoring, and early identification. We do this because it's part of the innovation process to make it affordable, you know, in this case, so there's not a false choice between: Hey, do I run a broader blood panel or do I run cancer? At $15, this can be combined.
That's what we're seeing in the, you know, for example, the cancer diagnostics runs, 50% of them, you know, part of wellness panels and the vast majority, part of overall panels. We work hard, Mike, to, you know, make these innovations affordable, to drive and support the adoption and utilization.
Okay. We've got about five minutes left, and I got a couple more topics I want to run through real quick. One, on the demographic shifts, just going back to the vet visit and the macro, you talked a number of times about a post-COVID puppy pandemic boom and what that might do for demographic shifts. You've had some good data on that. Just thinking through the next couple of years, we get, you know, we start approaching 2027, 2028, investors are going to be thinking about this more and more. Could you help us size that potential benefit, how to think about it? We've always debated, you know, is it going to be like a one-year jump and then back to normal? Is it going to be spread out over five years?
Just the shape of the curve and, you know, at peak, could this improve underlying, you know, volumes by 100 basis points, 200 basis points, 300 basis points? Just anything you can tell to help us size that demographic shift and the tailwind it could be.
Yeah. Maybe I'll start. Andrew can add some specifics. You know, just, you know, just big picture, I think we all know, just, you know, as we age, as all of us on this call age, we have more diagnostic needs. We're seeing that. We tend to say senior at seven, an adult, you know, in that five-year range, which we're, you know, for that cohort of pandemic puppies and kittens, you know, we're well within the, you know, adult and heading, you know, quickly to senior.
I think in the second half of 2025, we started to see, you know, in the data, you know, some, you know, some of that increase in frequency and utilization, you know, for that cohort. You know, I think, you know, fortunately, pets are living longer, so I don't, you know, personally see this as a, you know, a one-year thing. This is a, you know, this is a, you know, a secular trend that's gonna go on for quite some time.
You know, as these pets continue to age beyond, you know, seven, eight, nine, and fortunately, thanks to, you know, all the great work that veterinarians are doing, you know, pets are living longer, which is great.
I think you captured that well.
Okay. All right, we'll stay tuned to see how that develops. Just a couple of minutes left, and maybe I'll do this as the last one. I mean, Andrew, first of all, you know, we've spoken many, many times before, but I guess this is your first time joining the summit as CFO. You guys are also sort of in the midst of a CEO transition, so, you know, both internal promotes, both with a lot of longevity at IDEXX and sort of a lot of continuity, and that's always very encouraging to see, but still, a good amount of management transition at the top of the organization.
Anything you want to say in terms of, you know, where that might impact strategy, priorities, you know, how both you and Mike are viewing your new roles, as you're stepping into them in 2025 and 2026?
Yeah, sure. Maybe I'll kick off, and Mike might have a point of view on this as well. The great news about all of that is, you know, I think we have a really strong, you know, executive leadership team. You know, Mike being a key part of that, and has been part of this team for a long period of time. Both he and I have worked with Mike Erickson, you know, as the next CEO, you know, coming into the role, for, you know, a decade plus, you know, since Mike's arrival or my arrival to, you know, IDEXX. You know, and I think we have a lot of key, you know, components or key leadership talent at the senior level.
There's a ton of opportunity within our space as well, right? We've highlighted over time that we believe there's an opportunity for about a $45 billion of diagnostic sector growth or sector expansion. I think, when we think about just the size of opportunity and the areas that we've been hyper-focused on playing and adding value to our customers, whether that's in-clinic productivity, new diagnostic insights, allowing them to have a workflow that is easier to manage, I think that's all space that for us that creates significant upside growth over time, as well as really high returns within this business. I wouldn't anticipate a lot of change.
We have a robust pipeline of innovations that we've been developing over a long period of time, and Mike knows these areas, quite well, and I think we're excited to, you know, just continue to keep driving the company forward.
Yeah, I would just add, you know, we, of course, IDEXX has a really well-defined, consistent long-term strategy, innovation driven. Mike Erickson is, you know, uniquely suited, you know, for the CEO role. Mike and I have worked together for 15 years since he joined IDEXX. You know, he's been in the diagnostic business, the software business, our commercial team, our corporate accounts team, you know, highly innovative. Really look forward to working with Mike in his new role.
All right, well, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks, thank you for joining us, Mike, Andrew. Thanks, everyone on the line, and, we'll stay in touch. Looking forward to it.
Thank you. Thanks, everybody.
Bye now.