Hi, this is Paul Knight, the Life Science Analyst. Repligen. With us, we have Jacob Johnson, head of investor relations, Jason, Chief Financial Officer, Olivier, CEO. We all very familiar with Repligen management. In fact, when I first met them at $3 a share, it was in the building I'm sitting in right now at 1301 Sixth Avenue. They've come a long way. You know, Olivier, you've been there, you've not been there forever. What are your impressions now as the CEO a bit of how Repligen's positioned and how this market feels to you?
Yeah. No, that's a great question, Paul. I mean, I've been here for about two years and a half now, CEO of the company for a year and a half. I mean, I'm obviously more excited than ever. I mean, we have a very unique and very broad offering at the same time. With our very intense commercial strategy, I mean, we've been very successful over the last couple of years to really get more closer to those big companies and getting them understanding we have a very broad portfolio of products. You know very well, like, innovation has always been really at the core of our DNA, and we're still doubling down on innovation as well, 'cause we really want to make sure we are helping our customers to improve their yield, increase their.
sorry, improve their cost of manufacturing and so on. We're really extremely well-positioned and, excited about what's coming for the next several years here.
You just mentioned innovation, which I think is like cornerstone of what Repligen is. I think 80% of your portfolio is differentiated. Could you just touch on what makes your product so differentiated? You said yield improvement, so that's definitely important. But on the other 20%, is there ways you're trying to add, whether it's analytics or other technologies to differentiate those offerings?
Yeah, no. Good question. On the 80% where we are really differentiated, the reason is simple. I mean, we've always make sure that our R&D team was focused on, well, what doesn't exist and what customer are looking for. I pick up two example here, which are two of the historical product line, ATF on the one side, pre-packed column on the other side. ATF, people have been telling us for a decade now, "We need a process intensification technology." I mean, we want to be able to get more out of the same footprint. That's what we've developed, that's what we've launched. We're already at the second or third generation of that technology, working on the next one. That's a perfect example. Pre-packed column is another one.
I mean, you know, back 15, 20 years ago or so, I mean, most companies were hiring people who would pack columns for their entire life. Now they just don't find those people anymore because the young generation wants to pack columns for three years and then do something else. Really working with a company that has got a decade of experience doing that and packing thousands of columns is absolutely a big, big advantage for those companies. On the 80%, you could mention PAT, the vast majority of our portfolio. Where we have more direct competition and the usual portfolio segment is obviously Fluid Management, we are still trying to differentiate ourselves. Here you would think about differentiating yourself via better service.
I mean, being more customer-centric, whether because you're offering better lead time or maybe also because you're really offering better customer service. It's fair to say, even though Fluid Management, single-use technologies have been implemented now for more than a decade, there are still several challenges with that technology like extractables and leachables leakages and so on. We are really trying to make sure our customer service team are closer to our customers so that we really differentiate ourself on that side. It's really, really whether we've got very differentiating products or for the 20%, making sure we are more customer-centric, making sure we offer better service than others.
Yeah, that makes sense. I never thought about the 20% with the service side, just like being able to serve your customers maybe more closely than a bigger competitor. It just seems like your portfolio, whether it's ATF, pre-packed columns, are really resonating with customers on the pharma side, on the CDMO side. Could you just walk us through some of those customer wins and what's really motivating these customers? Is it a product? Is it your sales force? Is they really know their products or a cost-saving metric? I think that would be helpful to hear.
Yeah. No, as I mentioned to Paul earlier, I joined Repligen about 2.5 years ago. I can tell you the visibility we have with big pharma accounts and big CDMO today compared to what it was 2.5 years ago. It's almost day and night. I mean, it's fair to say, like, 2.5 years ago or so, those big companies knew us for maybe a couple of our product line. Now they realize we probably have one of the broadest, I want to say probably one of the top three broadest bioprocessing portfolio in the industry today.
Really, during the last two years and a half or so, my focus with the commercial team and the product management team is to make sure those customers understand the breadth of the portfolio we have. I think we mentioned a couple of months ago also that in the last five years, the amount of product lines we've been selling to those big accounts has multiplied by a factor 2.5. That's a great sign, like, people really understand that we have a much broader portfolio.
We're at a point, in fact, where we are starting to even package all of our technologies together and then working on a full solution offering so that for some of these specific customer needs, potentially some of these specific modalities now beyond pitching all of the different part of the portfolio. Now we come and say, "We almost have a full workflow for you." If for whatever reason we might miss one or the other part of that workflow, potentially articulating how we can still support customers with that full workflow. This has been a huge involvement of our selling in the last two years and a half or so.
The good news, we are still at the beginning of that process, and I think we've got incredible tailwind for the next several years because people are just starting to understand the breadth of the portfolio we have today. Another good example here at Nice, we have now such a broader offering on the equipment side that where we were not getting a seat at the table up to probably six months ago or so, now we're getting involved in probably 80%-90% of any big RFPs that are coming out, 'cause think about it. Two years ago or so, we mostly had the ATF hardware offering. Then we added all of our downstream system, both TFF chromatography system, and then we added now the mixers more recently.
We have almost 80% of whatever equipment are being needed when a company decides to build a new bioprocessing plant, and that's such a fantastic opportunity for us as well here.
When you say equipment, Olivier, would that include ARTeSYN?
Absolutely, yeah. ARTeSYN is what I call downstream equipment, which is both TFF and chromatography system, yeah. We have had, as you know, really good traction on that side over the last couple of years here.
I was reading an old industry report that said that in the bioprocess industry, 40% of market was equipment, 40% is single-use, polymer bags, and then the remaining would be media and other. Would you still think that's a good number?
I'm not sure, honestly, Paul. I mean, obviously there are so many different studies coming out and so on. If you talk about a brand new site where people need to build and buy all equipment and so on, yes, it's fair to assume, like, overall, at least for the first one year, procurement is gonna have a big part of it coming from equipment and so on. Absolutely. Once the plant is up and running and so on, the percentage of the equipment is much lower than 40%.
I mean, if you look at the four big guys, but even to a certain extent ourselves, I mean, most of us have the vast majority of our sales on the consumable side, up to probably 75%-80% of sales going on the consumable side. Your number would potentially make sense for a site that is being built, and that's probably where the onshoring topics would be a good one to reflect on the number you just said. When you're more talking about a well-established operation and so on, consumable component is much bigger than hardware, for sure.
Sartorius, as we were talking earlier, talked Tuesday about, I think 9%-12% growth this year themselves or market growth. You're similar. What's your overlap with Sartorius?
Yeah, no. I mean, I'll start first where we collaborate together, and I mean, as you've seen and we've talked about several times, I mean, we're collaborating with Sartorius on the ATF side. We've been working our two team have been working together now for several years, and we're, I think, very happy on both side about the collaboration, where we are learning from each other and what needs to be done to improve further this process intensification capabilities and so on. Beyond that, obviously, yeah, it's one of our, I call it good competitor. I mean, it's a very good, very high technological company and so on. We don't have that many overlaps, honestly, Paul.
We have a little bit on the Fluid Management side, but they are much bigger than we are. I mean, we're a very smaller actor in the field versus where Sartorius is. We have some overlap, but limited as well on some of the downstream system and so on. Overall, we've got very little overlap with Sartorius.
I wanted to talk about how some of the tailwinds that we're seeing that you've mentioned are translating to your top line and just momentum in general. I think in 2025, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you raised guidance twice and also beat the high end of that range. Sitting where we are today, what do you think played out differently versus what you originally expected? Then we can go into more of 2026, but would love your thoughts there.
Actually, I was about to go to 2026 first because interestingly enough, our guidance for 2026 is very similar to the guidance we had at the beginning of 2025, but we will come back to that for sure later on. I mean, you know, one thing I've learned over the last 30 years being in that industry, Anna, is you need to have a very broad portfolio of products. Beyond having a very broad portfolio of product, you need to have a very broad portfolio of opportunities with customers.
Because, I mean, I would tell you, like in 30 years of working experience, I don't think I ever delivered a budget the way I thought I would on January 1st, because you always have good and bad surprises, but in the vast majority of the case, you deliver your budget because you have all of these opportunities, and if for whatever reason you get some headwind, you're gonna be able to compensate or even more than compensate for it. The way 2025 played out was a perfect showcase example where when we enter into the year, we had no clue like we would get that new modality headwind that we had finally in the course of 2025.
We didn't know either that somehow our biggest modality or our biggest franchise filtration would be the one suffering the most from that specific headwind, but that the other three franchises would be doing much, much better than we thought for multiple reasons. Again, this is the beauty of having a really broad portfolio of product and having what I call the best-in-class sales organization, because that's enabling you really to rebound, and you've got so many opportunities that you're gonna grab them. You've heard me say or saying several times, the funnel management is critical as well, which is we're operating typically with three-four months of backlog. It's good, but it's not huge.
The only way you're sure you're gonna deliver your years is because you've got a very strong funnel, and then you need to just be able to succeed on translating that funnel into orders. Last year, if I just have to pick up two, I mean, because three really performed very well, but I just pick up maybe two, which is protein on one side. Incredible success story for us last year. I mean, you know, like 2024 was a horrible year for us because we almost lost, well, we lost really two of our two historical OEM companies, customer and so on, and we had to reinvent our business completely.
I would never have thought we would have so much traction so fast and be able to go back to the level we were before we lost those two OEM partners. The good news today is we have our destiny in our hands, and the best is still to come because now we are on a much broader range of customer on that side, and which are end customers, meaning, we don't have this type of intermediate situation that we had before. Then the second one is analytics, where when we launched a new SoloVPE PLUS, I tell you very honestly, and I mean, I didn't realize how much traction we would really have. I mean, it went beyond our expectation.
Again, good news here, we're just at the beginning of the cycle because we replaced less than 10% of the install base. That's gonna be another tailwind for the entire year. Again, being broad from a customer point of view, from a product line point of view, is what has enabled us to over-deliver last year and what will enable us, among other stuff, to over-deliver versus market for the next several years as well.
Yeah, that's great to hear. The SoloVPE was definitely a good upgrade cycle, and good to hear it should continue in the next coming years. I have some more portfolio-specific questions, but I thought maybe for Jason, if we could just hit on some of the margin targets. Taking a step back, not looking just at 2026, but over the long term, where do you expect margins to trend, and just what are some of the levers to get there?
Yeah. You know, we've been you know, pretty clear and sharing often that our target is to get to call it a 30% EBITDA, and that's probably, you know, 25+ or so at the EBIT level by 2030. But we've also been sharing that when you look at that trajectory, it's probably a smaller step up over the next couple years and then accelerate as we grow scale and able to just find or benefit from more, I'll say, leverage, right, on the structure we've got. I think when you look at the path to get us there, we're certainly gonna continuing kind of think about the elements of the P&L.
We're gonna continue to be able to capture price, right, value-based selling in our markets. We'll certainly get volume leverage. That price will be able to effectively offset the inflation we have, right, and maybe a little bit more, and then we'll continue to deliver manufacturing productivity. The other piece that effectively would be a part of volume leverage, but you know, is worth calling out is really then the leverage we get from growing our operating expenses at a rate lower than our top line, right? Really being focused over the next couple of years, in particular on investing in our Fit for Growth journey, ensuring we've got the right people and processes and infrastructure to get there.
Then as that builds out, again, we feel like the investment on that will require lower amounts as we get into, you call it 2028, 2029, et cetera, and 2030. So that's really the model that we're driving. We delivered, I think, really strong margin expansion in 2025. You can take out the impact of M&A, and we expanded the EBIT margin by 240 basis points. You know, we've guided 150 for 2026, and I think we're gonna be able to kinda demonstrate that continued expansion here over the next few years.
That's great. It seems like, in the short term, more investments, but it'll drive top line growth, as we look out to 2030, and, that's great to hear. I thought maybe we could look at some of the product lines, Olivier was talking about earlier. Maybe on chromatography. I know historically CDMOs have been quicker to adopt the pre-packed columns, but now we're starting to see some pharma customers. I think you had two pharma wins, recently. Could you talk to us about the funnel, on the pre-packed column side? Are those mostly pharma companies, and, how long does that usually take to convert those customers?
Yeah, no, I mean, you phrase it right. I mean, historically, the value prop was particularly attractive for CDMOs. I mean, think about it. When you are a CDMO, you have to be agile, fast to react, because you're not 100% sure what you're gonna have to manufacture when you're entering into a new year. Having pre-packed column on the shelf is a great advantage because you are capable to react really fast if needs be.
It's fair to say, really, we're still having a lot of traction on that side where some of these CDMOs who were maybe mostly using small-scale pre-packed column in the past are moving towards using larger scale, which is one of the reason why we've seen so much growth last year, because they realized they really like the concept a lot. But beyond CDMOs where we've had traction for several years, now it's really about making sure we convince pharma companies to switch. For pharma, it's slightly different because, well, if you run a pharma manufacturing plant, normally you have a pretty good idea what your manufacturing plan is gonna be during the year around.
More than really having the agility, flexibility to move to another product faster, which is what we talked about for CDMOs, it's really more about having the expertise in-house. I alluded to the fact it's difficult now for those companies to find people who have got a decade of experience packing column. When you think about the risk of contamination, the risk of losing a huge volume of resin, which is very expensive and so on, I mean, slowly but surely, a lot of these pharma companies start to realize it's probably very good to consider using pre-packed column to reduce all of those risks. We had really good traction last year. It keeps on going this year, in fact. Last year we said we want two new customers. It keeps on going this year.
I mean, it's we have a product line where we know we've got still a lot of potential growth for the next several years, and we see new customers popping up quite regularly on that side still. Yeah, they're very exciting. I think we've got a great runway. I mean, column packing is a real art, and I mean and bioprocessing is an art, but column packing in particular is a real art, and you can't, like, suddenly be as good as a company like ours with packing more than 3,000 columns every year. We've got incredible knowledge on that side for sure.
That's really interesting, the fact that talent plays such a big part of why your share in the pre-packed column market's probably irreplaceable.
Can I jump in here on that topic of talent? I'm sure that when Repligen in the early days was acquiring companies, it was also to gain direct salespeople. Now it seems, I'm guessing you have the size that you can compete with any firm in the industry on recruiting talent. Is that a fair assumption?
No, it is, Paul. I mean, I have to say, I mean, we've had the chance to really hire more or less anybody we really wanted to hire over at least the last two years and a half I've been here. I mean, then a lot of people who have got the decades of experience. I mean, when we talk about getting Fit for Growth and investing in main talent and so on, I mean, that's definitely one big part of it. I mean, really across all of our function. I mean, obviously I started mostly on the product management side and then sort of commercial side when I joined initially in October of 2023.
In the meantime, we started to do the same in many parts of our organization, from finance to quality, including services, including IT more recently and so on. We are really bringing talent that have been working in that industry for a long period of time because as you know very well, Paul, it's a bit of a unique industry where knowhow is very important. I mean, whatever function you work for, I would even mention HR on that side, you're looking for very specific talent that ideally know exactly what is important for customers and so on.
We've had the luxury to be a pretty attractive company for people who see the boundaries we have now and who sees like, yeah, we are definitely smaller than some of the big guys, but this comes alongside also potentially more opportunity for growth and then more opportunity to really focus on what people think is really important.
Just on proteins, I think that's another interesting area where strategy has kind of shifted in recent years. I think you're launching a bunch of resins, custom resins for customers. Could you talk about how the business is set up for 2026? Are there new resins launching? Are these new resins higher in margin? I know there was some difference in margins, but that would be helpful.
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mentioned earlier, I'm so proud about how fast and how successful we've been to pivot that business because, I mean, I don't think there are many examples where you're losing suddenly two such huge customers of your business and you're capable to rebound like that. What we've done, we really work from different side here. Now, first of all, it all started with the acquisition of Avitide, which was about four or five years ago or so, which just give us the opportunity, the ability to develop custom ligand in three months. I tell you, nobody else is capable to do that.
I mean, in fact, what a lot of these big pharma and CDMOs have understood over the last couple of years is there is finally now a company that is capable to turn around a ligand, new ligand development in three months or so, which is probably five to 10 times faster than anybody else is capable to do it. Obviously, if you really want to play a role on the full offering, which is resins, you need to have the beads as well, which is why we acquired Tantti in our year and three months ago.
Not only the technology is beautiful, but for new modalities, I mean, it's giving us what I think is probably the best combination of the best ligands, plus probably what is the best base matrix for new modalities. That's why we have a combination of catalog product launches that have got great traction, but what people don't see is we work on multiple, and when I say multiple, it's really a big number of custom projects for those big pharma and CDMOs where we also have incredible traction. Then the last piece I would mention, not to underestimate, I mean, we've been collaborating with Purolite, as you know, on the monoclonal antibody side. The collaboration is closer than ever, and we are absolutely delighted about the progress we are achieving together.
We will strengthen that collaboration over the years, and that is also functioning extremely well. Very excited about protein. I mean, as you know, I'm always excited about my portfolio. That is really one where I think we've got also incredible runway for the next several years here.
Yeah. That's great to hear. It's definitely been a cool transition to watch from the outside. I wanna talk about the process analytics portfolio. I think you recently merged the C Technologies sales team and 908 Devices. Now it's like a more unified portfolio of process analytics, both upstream, downstream. What would the timeline look like for you to start pitching to the large pharma accounts, just a unified system level, upstream, downstream process analytics portfolio?
Yeah. We have merged the sales organization already. We did that in July 2025, so we're about seven, eight months into a merged sales organization. This has definitely benefited the funnel of 908 greatly because now, I mean, the sales team size is something like five, six times bigger than it was when 908 was independent. Obviously this is helping us to generate a massive improvement in terms of funnel for the 908 offering. This is already happening. Where I think your question is particularly accurate, and now we are just at the beginning of that digitization journey that we're talking about.
Because now between the FlowVPX we already had in our hands, plus the four technologies we added from 908, plus one or two extra ones, one of them, as you know, is the one we acquired from Daylight several years ago. That has taken us a little bit of time to develop. Now thanks to the know-how of the 908 R&D team, we've progressed very fast over the last 12 months to develop that MIRA technology that will be launched probably towards the end of this year. We have really six and probably very soon seven PAT technologies. Now the question is, how do we aggregate all of these together?
Mm-hmm.
How do we make sure like beyond selling each of them one separately to the other and so on, how do we make sure that people, our customers understand the real most advanced PAT provider in the industry is Repligen? How do we make sure we give them a chance now to aggregate all of the data they are collecting from our technologies and making sure, and you see me coming, they can also use AI and then type of software that will enable them to really develop their processes much faster on the one side, run their operation more efficiently on the other side. That is our path forward, where we, as you know, we took minority investment in an Austrian company called Novasign last year, which is somewhere between pure PAT and AI.
It's really more what is called digital twin, which is somewhere in between. We're working on a couple of other opportunities here, but the idea is to be really leading the pack for our bioprocessing customers in terms of AI enablement, so that they run their operations much better in the future. We are at the beginning of that journey right now.
Okay. Perfect. That was very helpful. I think maybe we could spend a moment just touching on 2026 guidance, visibility around that and also some of the assumptions. I think CapEx is something that's been muted for a lot of players. What are your assumptions around CapEx in 2026? Are you seeing an improvement on that side?
Yeah. I mentioned it earlier, it's interesting because when we worked on our guidance for 2026, we didn't look at all of the guidance we had in 2025, and it's really toward the end where we realized, well, in fact it's extremely close to the guidance we had a year ago with the result you know. At the same time, we said it's probably the appropriate guidance for the time being, yeah. We remember our framework has always been, say, +5%, at least +5% versus markets. Last year we did much more than +5%. I'm not sure exactly where the market landed, but it's fair to say we did much more than +5%.
This year we said it's gonna be +5 -2 because of the headwind we have on that specific gene therapy program. At least from what we heard so far, I mean, it looks like peer commentary at the beginning of February or so was like we would be more towards the lower end of the market growth we've been talking about for 2026, which is probably more into the 7%, 8% growth for the market this year. If you do the math, I mean, in fact, where our midpoint of the guidance is still a little bit above 5% above what some of the peers might have mentioned about market growth this year.
We think it's an appropriate guidance, and you pick up one of the good topic which is the CapEx spending. I mean, and as you know, we did probably much better than several others last year. I mean, our CapEx, our hardware business was flat in 2025 versus 2024, where at least one of our direct competitor mentioned being down high teens in 2025. We definitely did better than others. But it's, we agree with others that CapEx spending has not been back yet to the level we would like to see it. That would be definitely something I think all of us, including ourselves, are hoping to see happening more this year accelerating, because that will become a huge tailwind.
We're absolutely confident once the tap is open, it's going to become a huge tailwind for everybody. We would just like to see that happening a little bit faster. Again, this year we are absolutely confident we are gonna have a very nice growth. It's fair to say like from 2027 onward, we think really growth will accelerate further again because of all of this tailwind we are seeing. A couple of other topics are obviously small biotech. I mean, as you know, we've had three really good quarter in a row. I mean, of order intake growing really nicely. Interestingly, this came at the same time, kind of, or toward the end of the year where funding became much bigger as well.
We've always said normally funding doesn't come to those company in the first six months. You would think that combining the rebound we already saw, plus hopefully now money reaching those customer, that should be potentially another good tailwind for the industry as well. We are watching all of this stuff. I mean, I mentioned about Most-Favored-Nation, so-called Most-Favored-Nation legislation and FDA approval. That's the last piece. I will just repeat again once more here. Particularly FDA approval, I mean, we are now, what, the eighteenth of March. I mean, there have been almost no biologic drug approved this year. I mean, that is something we want to see improving because where it might not have a huge impact in the very short term, I mean, for the pharma ecosystem, it is important to see FDA approval.
I mean, it's absolutely critical because this is restoring confidence from the entire ecosystem to invest further and then to push for more innovation across the board. That is something we want to see improving as well. We are still very confident for the future.
Olivier, Jason, Jacob, we really appreciate your time today. I guess the closing question I would have, Olivier, is, you know, a lot of things were pretty negative last year, I guess, for pharma. You know, discussions at the FDA or the new head of FDA, et cetera, tariff pricing. Was it as bad as that talking to pharma last year?
No, I mean, obviously, you know, I like to do a parallel between the rebound we've seen at big pharma about two years ago or so, then we saw CDMO rebounding a year ago, and now finally we're seeing small biotech rebounding as well. From a customer segment point of view, you want to say like everything is much, much better obviously than it was two years ago, much better than a year ago, and then we're obviously very excited about all of that. We want to see a little bit how those Most-Favored-Nation deal plays out. I mean, we know like a lot of things are gonna happen.
We still believe like, we want to see people pulling the trigger now and saying, "Hey, do I really now push the onshoring button full speed?" Then we're gonna be onshoring into what's gonna be an incredible growth cycle for probably several years. We just want this button to be pushed and then I think everybody will feel like extremely bullish again. That's the only thing I think everybody's waiting for at this stage, plus a bit more FDA approval as well, Paul. Yeah, am I optimistic for the future of bioprocessing? Absolutely. I think we're gonna have several years of very nice growth in front of us here.
Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jacob. Thank you, Jason.
Thank you, Paul.
Thanks so much.
Thanks.
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