Day two of the TD Cowen Global Health Care Conference. Dan Brennan, Life Science Tools and Diagnostics, really pleased to be joined here on the stage with me. Management of QIAGEN. To my left, we have Roland Sackers, who's the CFO, and we have to his left, John Sheldon, who's Investor Relations. So, gentlemen, welcome.
Thanks, guys.
Really pleased to have you guys. There's a lot to tackle here. Maybe, you know, let's just kick it off with Roland. You want to give us a quick backdrop on, you know, kind of Q4, maybe just look ahead to 2024, kind of how you thought the year went, and maybe, you know, what are you excited about for 2024?
Sure. Yeah, as you said, I would say last year was actually quite a good year for QIAGEN. We finished the quarter with 8% non-GAAP growth rate actually. Also for the full year, we had 8% non-GAAP growth rate. If you look at the particulars of the growth drivers, we clearly have seen quite successful results for all four of them. I would say there's one which we probably will tackle a bit later, which is NeuMoDx, which was a bit more difficult. But in particular sample preparation, QuantiFERON, but also Digital PCR and QIAstat-Dx, our decentralized instruments, all had quite good results for the full year. Also in terms of profitability, we made a good progress.
I'll also now looking into this year, while recognizing, I would say, particularly for the first half of the year, probably micro-driven, a bit more challenging environment, we do believe at the end of the year we will most likely also have a good year, expecting also margin improvements. We have seen that we got it also for 100 basis points margin improvements. From anyway, 27% last year to north of 28% for this year, which I think is clearly industry-leading. So I think, not much to complain. Yes, there's clearly, I would say, some topics in China which are not company-specific, but rather, I would say, even not industry-specific, but rather micro-specific. Clearly, you have continuous resolution budgets here in the U.S. You have a similar situation in Europe. But I do think they are much more temporary than long-term.
Mm-hmm. Maybe just stepping back, you know, the growth that QIAGEN has posted has been, you know, solid, right? Ex-COVID. COVID was obviously a key driver for the company when it occurred. But you've grown nearly 8% organically ex-COVID. And the stock has, you know, hasn't performed certainly probably as well as maybe you guys would have hoped. It's lagged despite executing on the five pillars, attractive margins, and the top-line growth rate. So kind of as you look at the strategy and you look at the performance that you've put out and you try to put it together with how the stock's done, kind of, you know, what are your thoughts on maybe, you know, kind of the lack of follow-through in the market? And, you know, how does management think about that as you're planning forward and kind of your forward strategy?
I'd say the best way to reflect on that is really going back to all the way back to 2019, so literally post-COVID, where there was clearly, I would say, a significant strategic change within QIAGEN. It's also a management change. I do think that clearly boosted our revenue growth quite significantly. We launched four new platforms into the market. I would say that was a big success factor for QIAGEN. We were clearly focusing on our core competences around PCR. That was the reason why for the last years we had either actually all the time either a high single or even a low double-digit non-COVID growth rate. So I do think that that worked out quite well.
As I said, we also believe even if you look on this year, for the second part of the year, we are, again, expecting like 5%-6+% growth rate. So I would say, clearly something what is, at least above industry average. And I do think, delivering quite nicely. What what makes a difference for us is, it's clearly the resilience of our business. We have an 85% consumables franchise, which also in days like this where, again, some of the, micro-environments are more challenging, delivering us, a good growth rate. Clearly, on the implementation side, in the second, something costs more than $100,000. People are pushing out decisions, a bit more. It's also something what we are feeling. Nevertheless, the portfolio is still quite quite young. And you will see when we go into the details that they're all quite early in terms of lifetime.
Most of them have quite significant double-digit growth rate opportunities.
Back to the stock price. Like, what's maybe some of the feedback that you get, or?
I do think the one thing what we have to have in mind is that QIAGEN is fortunately, unfortunately, however you look at it, a global company with a global footprint. We are listed in Frankfurt, and we are listed here in the U.S. And shareholder split is also roughly 50/50. We clearly have seen a lot of European shareholders during COVID flowing into the stock. And unfortunately fortunately, however you look at it again, they are much more generalists, right? And of course, with all the COVID revenues which had to phase out of our numbers over the last 12 months, it's hard for people who are not, like, specialists to follow that. I think we have seen that also in the mix of shareholdership.
We do believe that over the last, again, probably, a couple of weeks, a certain shift that we see more interest here, again, covering up in the U.S. And hopefully that, there's a stabilization in Europe, that should help us to get, again, probably a more aligned performance also in terms of share price.
Got it. Okay. So we'll hit some of the product areas, and then we'll get into margins and cap allocation and the investor day. So just in terms of the products, obviously, QuantiFERON's been a great story, right? Just, you know, the guidance this year, 10%+ growth, arguably could be conservative. Just how do you think about where we are on the penetration of QuantiFERON? And, you know, just in terms of, you know, some of the key drivers going forward, you know, whether it be, you know, kind of the geographic kind of penetration, maybe on the automation side, just how do you think about what are the key building blocks to QuantiFERON growth?
First of all, QuantiFERON is our latent TB test, as you said, very successful, north of $400 million in revenues. Now it's the third consecutive quarter with more than $100 million in revenues. So clearly a success story. But particularly driven also by a conversion of the literally 120-year-old skin test market, still 65% of the addressable market. So it's really the Western world. But even including China, while we see it as a mid-term opportunity, is still doing this skin test. And, as we all know, the clinical environment sometimes is very sticky. And it took us, also more or less 10 years to become a significant player into that market. But now where we have a market share of, let's say, 15%-20%, you can see we are the new standard. Everybody wants to offer the new standard.
That's the reason why we see that acceleration in growth rate. You are right. For the last three years, we always guided 10% in growth. We always came in significantly above it. Last year, 24%. We saw it, "Okay, let's guide another 10%." I'm quite sure that we're not ending up at 10% only.
What about, like, the moat around that business? You know, you have a Oxford Immunotec got split up between, I think, it's PerkinElmer and Quest, right, if I remember correctly. But just how do you think about, you know, there's always been this concept in the market, could a big diagnostics player come in and enter? And what would that mean? And how would they compete with QIAGEN and QuantiFERON? So just talk about the product today and how we think about the, you know, kind of the competitive profile of the product.
So let's talk about the elephant in the room because we see that also as one of the near-term pressure points on the stock is this anxiety that a major diagnostics player could come into this market. It's kind of like we deal with new investors and the same old rumors. This is the third cycle of that rumor we've been dealing with in the last 12 years. If there was a day that QuantiFERON should have died, it was September 2018 when Quest bought the rights to the Oxford Immunotec test for the United States. That's the day this product should have died. And who today is one of our biggest customers for that product? And its former chairman and CEO is now on our board of directors, Quest. People think that, "Okay, this is the anxiety of HPV replaying again." QuantiFERON is not a replay of that situation.
Key factor number 1, we never had a decent automation solution for the HPV tests. It was a highly manual test that was never changed during the entire time it was within our portfolio. It set the standard. It set the gold standard in reducing the number of deaths around the world for cervical cancer. Let's be clear about that. But we did not have good automation. QuantiFERON, we have a great partnership with LIAISON systems from DiaSorin. There's over 8,000, trending towards 10,000, I think, right now, of these LIAISON systems from DiaSorin around the world, heavily geared towards the United States and Europe. Okay? So we have a great automation system. You go to the big major lab customers in the United States, they have factories set up to run these tests.
Take our sales, think about half the United States, then divide that by $15 or $20 a test. You get an idea about the millions of QuantiFERON tests that are being done and the factories that are set up, automated, working great, and creating massive profits for these big lab companies. Number two, we're innovating on this test. We are now on the fourth generation of QuantiFERON. It's going to be really hard for someone to come up with a test that is more clinically relevant than our test. Again, the QuantiFERON test is just as old as the HPV test. The HPV test was still the first generation of what we offer around the world for customers who still want it.
And there are a lot of customers who still like it because the competitors are often 30-40 percentage points lower in terms of sensitivity than our test. But on QuantiFERON, we're now in the fourth generation. We're in all the guidelines: CDC, Stop TB, UN guidelines around the world. We've been out there. Over 100 million patients have been tested with this product. And if we see a competitor coming, as in the past with one of them, we actually told the market they were coming before they even announced it. But in terms of new competitive threats out there, we don't see them. And we don't see them in our KOL networks. And if we're not seeing them, we, you know, we're trying to figure out. But again, this is the third cycle of that rumor. We're ready for them.
So you feel good. That's great. Maybe, maybe just switching gears to digital PCR. So today, I think that business was a $70 million business in 2023. The guidance, I think, is $90 million in 2024. But we've hosted Thierry in the past. Out of all the five pillars, even though QuantiFERON's the biggest, fastest-growing, he almost seemed most excited about digital PCR, where that could go. You discuss a clinical product coming later in 2024. Just talk about that franchise today, the level of differentiation versus competitors, and kind of where that could go post this clinical start as we look ahead beyond 2024.
Yeah. I would say it's, as you said already, it is clearly a product which is most likely still a product where we have to do better education how much of an impact and difference it can make for QIAGEN. Because, as you said, it's more or less close to year three after launch, and we're going to have $90 million in revenues. We clearly have an automation solution which is state-of-the-art, probably. I would even argue is the best in the market. There's one competitor who was earlier in the market. But if you look on the workflow opportunities with our instruments, the three different sizes we have in terms of instrumentation in the market, a significant advantage for our customers. It's clearly also an instrument where our entry point is around $35,000 compared to others, which you start rather with the six-digit numbers.
So you have a nice opportunity to, based on your volume needs, to pick the right instrument. Second, it is also what I said before, a conversion story. It's a nice opportunity for customers doing qPCR with newer technology to get more information and clearly, again, drive science. Right now, the majority of our revenues are coming out of the life science and now increasingly also out of the pharma area. But as you said before, end of the year, we're also going to enter the clinical market, which, again, some companies are saying it's an overall a $10 million market or $10 billion market opportunity. Right now, we say we're focusing, as we did so far, on the life science. That's a $2.5 billion market opportunity. But it is clearly a market ready for conversion.
We have an opportunity to really increase productivity by adding more panels. We're adding more or less every quarter 2, 3 new panels, that drives utilization. Clearly, right now, by far, the majority of revenues comes out of placements, out of the hardware component. But it also shows how successful we are in placing these new instruments, right? And I think that's also not only true for digital PCR but also for some of our other instruments, particularly the ones with a lower price point. The market for them is very stable. We have similar placement numbers, even like for some of our other instruments, but including QIAcuity as well, as we had in the peak of COVID. So I think if you have a great instrument and a market where with converting to a different technology, you can generate a lot of opportunities.
You have an opportunity to grow. Simple example for Digital PCR, pharma companies love it specifically because it allows them to replace some of their expenses they have for sequencing. Because if you do, like, a drug research, for example, as a pharma company, sequencing, of course, takes literally weeks, costs into the $1,000s. Digital PCR is done in one day and probably with $100+ in terms of cost. Sequencing is a great technology if you're looking for the unknown information. Pharma companies typically know these are the four or five markers which either change or not change. That's something exactly what you can do much better, much more efficient with Digital PCR. A big part of our growth comes, for example, out of this area.
And especially when you think about this conference is great, what you put together, because you hear from the experts outside. And when you hear all the buzzwords, liquid biopsy, MRD, cell and gene therapy, this is right in the wheelhouse of digital PCR. We forget sitting here in Boston that 80%-90% of all cancer patients are being treated in community hospitals. These patients aren't going to be getting these CGPs and these big, long, expensive, NGS panels. Doctors are looking for quick, efficient results, and that's where we want to drive digital PCR. And that's driven excuse me, driven by our precision medicine business. We have partnerships with all 30 of the big pharma companies out there, and we're on the labels of a lot of these drugs for companion diagnostics.
That's all being driven right now on qPCR, and that's going to be transitioning to digital PCR. We already have one of our first partnerships in that area.
So will the clinical there be like companion diagnostics? Will it be pharma developing MRD tests? Will you just be the engine in the background, or would you look to develop any of your own assets?
No. We're the picks and shovels guys. We're the guys who will sell you the equipment. You name all the companies that you're talking here about all these liquid biopsy tests, you go there and you'll see the sample prep factories that we've built for them. You'll see the bioinformatics from us being used off the back end. And then you're going to start to see the QIAcuity digital PCR systems being used as well.
Mm-hmm. So, like, I guess we'll learn more at the Investor Day, but, like, the clinical growth, as we look at 2025, 2026, it's been growing at a nice clip, you know, the digital PCR business. Could we see over the ensuing two to three years a real inflection given clinical adoption?
That's exactly what we hope for. Again, we see already that's, as you know, we started in academia only, right? We had already a nice start. So then in September, more or less, 2022, we started with the first application for the pharma customers, which is giving us an acceleration in growth rate. Now we're adding on top, end of this year or whatever, with a 2025 impact, clinical applications, while the others are doing as well. And again, the support is building for them, of course, as we speak. That will have an impact on QIAGEN.
Mm-hmm. That's for in Bio-Rad, or who are the other players in digital PCR?
I would say it's quite obvious that that is probably the number one and number two position in the market. There's a couple of other players. We reviewed their technologies at some point as well. We believe that we have not only the best machines, we have an opportunity to build manual. I don't think there's too much change to be expected in terms of market share.
What's important also is we have complete freedom to operate in terms of cross-licensing with Bio-Rad. We've cross-licensed our IP portfolios, so we have that freedom to operate. That's really important for our customers to have that peace of mind.
So just switching gears for a second, kind of zooming out maybe from a customer level, pharma and academia, just pharma is 15% of your business. I think part of the first quarter guide, as you talked about, maybe pharma slower pharma release of budgets. Just how do you, like, how do you see the pharma business acting in Q1? What's your expectation for 2024? Just any color about where we are with kind of pharma spending.
I think pharma is overall doing okay. As I said, we see certain areas like digital PCR, but there's also some other areas, even opportunity to help them to be more efficient. And there's quite a significant demand. It was a good start for us in most of our areas, within the pharma sector. So I would say that's actually quite a stable environment for us. I would say the one thing where we expect rather a change from Q1 upwards is on the regional side. It's China. And on the budget side, it's more in the academic space.
Mm-hmm. So academia, I know we, you know, kind of met with you guys a few weeks ago. Just in terms of the, you know, continuing resolution in the U.S., kind of what have you assumed? Is there some pressure point that, you know, the customers are seeing? Are they real-time or whatever's baked into the guide?
Expectation is that we most likely expect sometime in the second quarter that these things resolve.
Mm-hmm. Got it. Okay. And maybe circling back to QIAGEN, I mean, you have a small business and a lot of peers in China. But just, what, you know, we've heard several comments throughout the conference here. Some of the instrument players are saying things are bottoming at pretty weak levels, but bottoming. Others are saying some of the applied markets are actually starting to pick back up their stimulus. Kind of what's your view on the ground in China right now?
Just a framework. China for us is 6% of total. So it's sizable, but I think it's reasonable as well. Different to most other companies, we have a two-layer setup in China. We have 60% of our revenues in China with more or less a global QIAGEN brand and 40 on about 40% of the revenues with actually a local copycat we bought in 2005, developing in China, producing in China, selling in China only, similar margins, different price points. And, we clearly can see difference in impact. What I mean with that is I think China right now has three layers of, topics, which have to be solved. One is, value-based pricing. That's not a big topic for us.
The only product for us which falls into that category is HPV, which I think is less than $2 million in China, so not really important for us. The second one is what it's referencing, what I said before, is this overall buy local topic, right, which is clearly something what I would believe stays for quite some time. I'm not sure if it will ever go away, but right now, it's clearly on the agenda. And we clearly see a difference between, call it a global QIAGEN brand and a brand which has a clearly significant different China footprint. And I think it's important for companies to think through that, how we get more local. That is not certainly specific, right?
Go back to the US, like in the '90s, right, when all these German as well as Japanese car companies started to have production plants in the US to become more American, right? So I don't think it's something what we see in the EU. But I think it's also something within healthcare where we have to see how do you become more local? I think we as QIAGEN have the opportunity. We have production on the ground. So we have an opportunity looking at assembling and other opportunities. But I do think it's an opportunity as well. I would say the third one is right now the most important one for us as for any other company. Also, China, of course, has overall macro issues, right? We have significant budget cuts. We have significant unemployment rates. I think we all expect improvements over time.
We expect right now that Q1 is significantly negative for us. It's certain stabilization then over the course of the year. And if we end the year in China with a flattish growth rate, it's more or less what is baked in in our expectations. That would be a good result. We are far away from the double-digit growth rate pre-COVID. I think there's midterm opportunity to go back to that. I don't think it goes as quickly.
Are you seeing any stimulus in China across your businesses for any of the businesses?
We hear about it. I wouldn't say it has hit us at least.
I got it. Okay. So Sample technologies, you're guiding to down 2%, or I think it's down low single-digit growth is what we have written here after growing mid-single the last few years. Is that just comps? Is that just kind of walk us through exactly why that business would be weaker this year?
Yeah. No, I think first of all, you have to mix the comps, right? Right. And what I see, we clearly had quite a significant COVID business also with sample prep. So non-COVID, COVID, sample prep last year was growing 6%, so it was clearly doing quite well. We are guiding a lower number this year. That's fair. But it also has to do, like an overall QIAGEN, we expect a different pricing increase net-net this year than last year. As you know, we typically do price increase every year. We, as many other companies, because of inflation, had larger price increases for the last two years. Last year, we had around about 300 points net-net price increase. For this year, we are planning around about 100 basis points. Similar things in sample prep. That's the reason.
Volume is still quite okay, probably a bit lower in the first half of the year, but going back to a normalized level similar to last year in the second part of the year as well.
But it's also comps, then, I guess, because if you went from six, you know, if you took two points out of pricing, it would.
Yeah. Again, then you had 400. We don't see a very answer here.
Yeah. Yeah. So it seems like there's conservatism there. It feels like it.
But just to stop for a minute on our sample prep, that's the heart and soul of QIAGEN. That's the brand where every year we're having two or three customers winning Nobel Prizes. If I think about the workflows you're seeing for all the companies that are up here, just for example, the one that was last year, they rely on our products to make their products work. This is this QIAGEN brand, ubiquitous. You find us in labs all over the world. And that's where we still see innovation opportunities with sample prep, especially on liquid biopsy. You'll hear more about that at our Investor Day in terms of what we're doing to enable that. And because sample prep liquid biopsy is really the sample prep set. How do you get the circulating tumor DNA out of the cell? How do you get the circulating tumor cells?
How do you get the exosomes out of the blood sample to be able to analyze them? That's what we see as such a critical step. And then we're enabling all of these tests downstream. So that's a thing where you also see more and more about automation. I think that's one of the points we could talk about in terms of gross margin. The instruments we're launching, don't forget, we've rejuvenated our sample prep portfolio there as well. So this is really a key part of QIAGEN.
Maybe just before we hit some of the other five pillars, like, if you take the five pillars out, like the rest of the businesses from QIAGEN, how would you characterize them? You know, it's a decent chunk of revenues there, Roland. What's the main stuff that sits in there? And has that business been reasonably steady, or are there opportunities, you know, kind of in this other non-five-pillar area?
I would say there's quite a good couple of products which are doing quite well. I think one where we recently had a bigger focus also to the outside on is, for example, our bioinformatics franchise. It's a $100 million business, actually quite profitable, but clearly also in a business area where consolidation is needed, right? And also our $100 million were driven by organic growth rate, but also a number of acquisitions because a lot of these pieces customers are using are quite small, are very dedicated, and they want to get it on one platform. And there's a nice opportunity to drive this consolidation. Again, bioinformatics overall is very profitable. I would say it's hard to find a bioinformatics product with the gross margin is not like 70%-80%+.
But of course, it requires certain R&D investments to build that as it is a double-digit grower, as it is for QIAGEN. And the challenge has changed in our industry, right? Like over the last 20 years, the problem was always like getting the information out of the biological sample, right? And now we have all this information, but the interpretation of this information, not only in oncology but also in many other areas, becomes an underlying issue, right? And that is something where we have a leading number one franchise, and we really want to double up.
So QIAstat-Dx, like how is it doing head-to-head with bioMérieux? Like do you have a sense of? I'm sure you follow it very carefully. How is bioMérieux growing? How is, you know, versus the mid-teens growth or the, I think, the growth rate outlook for QIAstat-Dx this year? And then obviously, you're getting the meningitis and GI panel coming into the U.S., which is going to be a big, hopefully a big lift there. So just think about the overall environment and then, you know, the setup for 2024.
I just think QIAstat-Dx, which is our decentralized PCR platform, is doing very well. And I think it's also a good example on what we indicated also, more or less over the last three years. There is a life post-COVID, right? We have today more revenues than even on the peak of COVID, right? So you can see there is a good opportunity with the overall diagnostic industry to go into the decentralized market, which is far from being penetrated and offer tests which are closer to the patients, have results in 45-60 minutes. And clearly, as in our case, symptomatic testing, people want to know, right? And again, we all know, four years ago, some knew about PCR testing. Now everybody knows about even what a CT value is. And that shows the power of these kind of technologies.
As you said, it is clearly our responsibility to expand the menu beyond respiratory. As you know, we have gastro and meningitis in Europe. We will bring it to the U.S., hopefully soon. There's more to come in general terms, more on the analyst day. But again, there's clearly a nice opportunity. We place every quarter 150-200 machines, more or less what we did on the peak of COVID. That speaks to the strength of the market.
How do you think that's doing versus bioMerieux?
Again, they're not as good as we are in releasing numbers, so you should push them a bit more than us. But I do think, they had opportunities to being early in the market. I don't think they are far ahead in terms of quarterly placements.
Got it. So, you have the Investor Day coming up. You mentioned at the onset when we talked about the stock and the growth rates, you launched these four new products back in 2019, really kind of elevated the growth rate. Like, what how should we be thinking about the Investor Day? Some of them are just updates on strategy goals. Others are used as maybe more of a pivot point for some new initiative, maybe some new products. You know, I think you guys have talked about maybe a go, no-go on NeuMoDx at the Investor Day. Just any color about like what this Investor Day can mean.
We clearly want to talk about how we look more or less the next few years into the market, what are the markets we are focusing on, what we do expect in growth drives. We clearly will talk about profitability as well, why we believe that we also will have an above-average profitability growth, what is driving that, because there's a good set of opportunities. If you just look on this here, right, you said before you're only growing in brackets 3%, revenue growth, but at the same time, we are improving our EBIT margin by 100+ basis points in EBIT margin improvement. Again, if you put that in a more normalized level going forward, it speaks about a couple of opportunities we see, and we want to give you some reasons to understand that as well.
So on margins, you know, even though this year having good growth, I think with some of the investments in the instruments, that's kind of been dragging on gross margins, right? And you've invested heavily in R&D to support this innovation. Just, what's the, again, we'll find out more at the Investor Day, but I think that's one area maybe some would argue you've generated good top-line growth, but maybe the margin pull-through hasn't been as strong. Maybe not, but how do you think about like the commitment going forward to generating positive leverage?
I do think the one thing I have to really remind you and everybody on is going back to 2019, what we did in 2019. As I said, we launched four new platforms in the market, right? QIAstat-Dx, NeuMoDx, QIAcuity, and Sample technologies. If you now launch one platform, we launch four. What it means is you have a higher instrumentation share, and you don't have a full utilization. Only over time, you have a more normalized ratio between consumables and a yearly pull-through and a better utilization in your production equipment. If I take all four platforms, all of my numbers as of today, our gross margin would be north of 70%. It's very normal because it takes time that the consumable pull-through ramps up.
It's the reason why we also strongly believe that our gross margin over time, again, is going to normalize, that we probably also have seen a kind of a inflection point sometime this year, and then we make bigger steps. It's also the reason why I'm in brackets somewhat relaxed about margin improvement. Short term, it's probably coming more on the operational side. Mid-term, probably with a larger contribution from the from the gross margin side for the given reason because it's no question that consumables also mid and long-term have a significantly higher gross margin, than our instrumentation or than any instrumentation business, while our instrumentation business still has somewhere between 40 and 60 basis points of margin or 40%-60%. It's a question of time.
So Thierry has talked before. He's been, listen, very open, like you're running the business, driving as hard as you can the growth, the strategy, the margins, the cash flow. And at the same time, obviously, it's a consolidating industry. You had the Thermo deal a couple of years ago that didn't go through. Basically, he's implied, "Listen, we're open for anything. We're going to run the business. We're not looking for a merger. If someone wants to come and pay a premium price." I don't know. What's how do you view the strategy going forward in the context of a, you know, the life science industry? How you fit in the industry today, creating value for shareholders. Either as a standalone company or maybe looking to hook up with a big suitor?
I think the view of QIAGEN hasn't changed more or less since then, right? Again, it was as you first of all, I think you know, and I want to remind everybody, it wasn't the QIAGEN management declining the deal. It was the QIAGEN shareholders pushing the deal off the table. Clearly, QIAGEN as of today is a very different company. I think we built a good franchise with, as you said before, quite significant growth rates and profitabilities. Nevertheless, the fundamentals haven't changed, right? We clearly know about our responsibilities towards all stakeholders. If there's important proposals on the table, we will review them. I don't think there's any kind of something which is off the table. We are looking on one hand side on bolt-on opportunities for QIAGEN.
At the same time, if somebody comes forward with something where one-on-one gives a significant benefit for stakeholders, we are very much open to look at that as well as the board is, of course.
So maybe what's the message you want to leave investors with today?
I think we will continue on what we started quite successful in 2019 and, executing on our strategy. I think we are in all our growth pillars are quite early in terms of market penetration. We are in the right market. Diagnostics healthcare in general, diagnostic and specific is a great market opportunities. Being a tool provider gives us a great opportunity to be, with a, I would say, very solid growth rate, very resilient, 85% consumable business. It's hard to avoid to do revenue growth because at the end of the day, as long as people go in the lab, they are going to use our products because otherwise, you can't work.
Terrific. Well, thank you, Roland. Thank you, John. Thanks for being with us today.
Thank you. Thanks very much. Thank you.