All right. I guess we can get started. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Miami. Thank you for coming. First day, kicking it off here with Dr. Prahlad Singh of PerkinElmer. you know, maybe if you just want to start off and give some real high-level takeaways from the, from the quarter and how the year is progressing for you guys, then we can start digging in.
Yeah. I mean, you know, as we've talked about at the beginning when we did our earnings call, we are excited about the year. We are excited about our strategy. I mean, I'm sure most, if not all of you saw the announcement on the close of the divestiture of our Applied Enterprise and Services business. You know, we've set up the company to be a pure play Life Sciences and Diagnostics business, you know, which is high growth and high margin. That was essentially, you know, stage one of the culmination of the transformation process that we started many years ago. You know, we've set the company up really well for the future and the year.
Yeah. You guys closed that just for this conference, right?
I did that last night after market close just so I could announce it here.
Thank you. Talking a little bit about the quarter and kind of the demand. I mean, the On the guidance you guys have, it's a back half-weighted guide just like the rest of tools. As I look across the complex, you're one of the cleaner stories out there, right? You guys don't have any COVID, there's not a ton of instrument, demand questions, there's no bioprocessing. Kind of walk us through the demand environment as you see it and what's baked in the guide, and then we'll dig into China next.
Sure. Look, actually, if you look at our guidance, it's pretty well balanced throughout the year. There is no assumption that the second half is going to be significantly strong in that sense. 'Cause if you look at our comp, you know, pretty much we are assuming 9% quarter-over-quarter, except for the first quarter, which had a high comp from a year ago of 13%, so it's gonna be a little lower. Outside of that, it's pretty well balanced. You know, our markets are doing well. Again, the benefit that we have is now we are pure play life sciences and diagnostics. If you look in life sciences, you know, biologics, cell and gene therapy continue to play an important role, and are the growth story.
The way the company is now sort of structured is if you even look at cell and gene therapy, a majority of the investment is going to go on the research side. That is where we now have fully integrated workflows that we bring into play. You know, with all the acquisitions that we have made over the past 24 to 30 months, they are now coming into play. You know, that sort of gives us the growth impetus that we look on the life sciences side. On the diagnostic side, you know, I think outside of, as we have said, China immunodiagnostics, which had pressure last year, and I'm sure we're gonna talk about that, it has done very well.
If you look at our assumption around 9% growth for the year, you know, it assumes low double digits for life sciences and high single digits for diagnostics.
On the diagnostics, particularly with China, can you give us a sense of, you know, we've heard mixed data reports. Some are saying that the utilization's coming back stronger than expected. Just give us a sense of the trend line you're seeing from what you guys originally had outlined.
Sure. let's peel the onion around our China business, right?
Sure.
Our China business is constituted of 60% diagnostics, 40% life sciences, and applied genomics. Our life sciences business has grown more than 20% over the past three years, and our applied genomics has grown even more than that, and we continue to expect those businesses to do very well. 60% of our business in China is diagnostics, of which 60% is immunodiagnostics, and that's the one which was impacted. It was impacted because it is non-acute care diagnostics. The way to think of it, you know, China has started coming back to normal, you know, and I think, you know, we all see that in the pictures. We all have colleagues and friends that are saying that. Our assumption in our guidance is that it'll come to full normalization in the second half of the year.
Mm-hmm.
You know? There is no denying the fact that China has coming back to normal. Now, what you have to keep in mind is that for us, what that means is that more than 60% of our total revenue from China will start kicking off, right?
Yeah.
I think the non-acute diagnostics, our assumption is that it'll fully ramp back up to normal in the second half of the year. It's simply for the reason that, you know, if you're a healthcare institution or a patient, you are going to wait to go for something which is non-acute till things in a healthcare institution format comes back to full normalization. I.e., there is availability of nurses, testing capability, and the first triage of testing that happens are more of urgent care that is non-COVID basis. It's just in matter of process of that moving forward. You know, our confidence in our China business is very strong. It is 17% of our revenue, and we expect it to grow low double digits as we look forward.
Okay. thinking year out, so as the behavioral aspect comes back.
Mm-hmm.
The non-acute diagnostics start coming back, how that utilization plays out into 2024. I know you're not gonna talk about the specific numbers, but if we start getting back to even pre-COVID utilization levels, give us a sense of what that would mean for the diagnostics business going forward? You know, you're doing low doubles now, could that be, you know, significant step up there from here?
I think China will continue to be, as I said. You know, again, you have to look at the company as a whole. You know, our story is now pretty simple, actually, if you just try to decipher it. We are a life sciences and diagnostics company. You know, we are a pure play company that provides assays, consumables, reagents, and software to our customers, which account for more than 80% of our revenue. We are going to grow double-digits, as we have said in our medium-term outlook. We are gonna grow 10%. We are gonna spit out 30% operating margin. Just put that in perspective. three or four, five years ago, PerkinElmer was a $3 billion company spitting out 20% operating margin. Today, PerkinElmer is a $3 billion company spitting out 30% operating margin.
Plus a 4% or 5% grower, we are saying it's a 9% grower. I think that's the transformation that we are talking about here.
Yeah. You say you simplified it. You peek under the hood, there's a lot of businesses under there. When you think about the applied genomics...
Mm-hmm.
Thinking about that, right? You've been very acquisitive. You're talking about the instrumentation side of the business starting to be saturated. Give us a sense of what that business is doing, and then kind of where that fits in within the portfolio and we can jump off into that.
Sure
and gene therapy stuff.
I mean, if you look at it over the past two, three years, we've said non-COVID, that business has grown more than 25%. I think I'm being conservative in my assumption.
Right.
You know, and I think we started seeing some slowing down and tapering in the third to the fourth quarter because I think there was some saturation in the marketplace. It'll take some time to readjust. I think if you just go back and look at the new launches that we are having in that's one of the portfolios where we have a lot of new NPIs coming into play. You know, BioQule was just launched at MedLab, and it has gotten a lot of traction. You know, having a tabletop automated, fully automated, you know, sample prep system is really one of the key demands as NGS gets decentralized.
Mm-hmm.
That has a key play. We've got some other very attractive NPIs coming out, coming out in the applied genomics space. I think that business is going to continue to grow, you know, in double digits.
When you think about the evolving environment of the sequencing workflow, you're talking about going decentralized, and you're re-referencing the clinic on that side, right? The clinical application, or are you just talking in general?
I think in general on the clinic side for sure, but also on the research side. You know, there's a lot of opportunity because even if you just look in the clinical environment, right? You know, you take a look at our reference lab. You know, they might want to do a big run, but at the same time they might want to do a quick and accurate, efficient, smaller run to be able to test out a set of samples which we don't wanna put it in there. This is where BioQuel and then NPIs like that allow you to be able to do that sample prep without, you know, significant expertise that you might not need.
Simplifies the workflow.
Absolutely.
That's pretty much where you guys are playing right now across the portfolio, is really trying to simplify the aspects. You might not have the keystone instrument like the sequencer, but you're trying to offer and simplify everything around it. Is that correct?
I mean, look, if you look at it, if you recall, I've said this about newborn screening, you know. Our USP, what newborn screening taught us is that how do you own the workflow and how do you ring-fence it all the way from the dried blood spot card to the informatics piece of what gets it. We are trying to do that. We, you know, saw that aspect playing around from sample to sequencer, you know. Another way we look at it is you surround the sequencer. If you are able to provide your customers with validated but flexible workflows that are not closed in systems, but I'll provide them the options and provide them the instruments and assays, it goes a long way.
Okay. Moving on to cell and gene therapy, right? If we're thinking about your portfolio evolution, diagnostics, especially repro, I mean, you guys are from the prenatal to postnatal, and that's kind of what you built from your early days at Perkin. You're gonna do that with life sciences. Talk about the cell and gene therapy business and where you are in building that portfolio. How much further we need to go and kind of what are the pieces you need to add?
Sure. I mean, you know, during COVID, that was one of our most diligent efforts around how do we fill our portfolio. You know, the realization for us was that we had done a very good job around small molecules in research side, you know, especially preclinical research. I think as the industry was moving more and more towards biomolecules, cell and gene therapy, you know, that's where we did not have the right portfolio. That's our acquisition spree around BioLegend, Sirion, Horizon, Nexcelom Bioscience, is how do we fill and You know, put a contiguous workflow that allows customers to, you know, look for what cell lines they are looking for, what reagents they are looking for, how do they look at the cells, how do they count the cell, how do they test the viability of the cells?
You know, that has been our focus area, and that's where I think we've built a very strong portfolio. You know, of course, there are some gaps in that portfolio we'll continue to fill, and we'll continue to be acquisitive in that space.
On BioLegend, that was probably predominantly an RUO offering. Talk about the opportunity that you see in taking and building out the GMP capabilities, early phase clinicals and rolling up from there.
Yeah. I think one of the realizations was that BioLegend was very strong in the RUO pre-clinical research side. You know, they said goodbye to their customers as they moved into the GMP and the pilot plant and the clinical stage. It was for us a natural extension of continuing to support our customers as they moved into that, and that's what we've said, that organically, you know, one of the big areas of investment for us is going to be building our GMP capabilities around cytokines, antibodies, and reagents on the BioLegend side.
Wait. They would provide the pre-clinical discovery work, and then as that moved into the clinic, they had to find a different supplier.
Absolutely.
This is just a matter of scaling.
Absolutely.
Providing a GMP.
Absolutely.
When is that coming online?
Well, it has already started. They have a small facility. We just continue to organically invest and build that out.
Okay. Talk about the win rates that you're seeing there and, I mean, are you eventually going to... 'cause at some point, you're gonna have to stop with that same customer. They're gonna have to find other suppliers as they get to later stage, right? Are you gonna eventually go into clinical cGMP?
I think we'll be in cGMP space, yes. I don't think we are going to move into the mass side around, you know, manufacturing.
Right.
CDMOs and all, but that's where our sweet spot is going to be.
On BioLegend as it's been... Talk about how that's paced throughout the year, from a growth perspective versus what you guys had originally thought in the deal model. Just kind of a state of the union on the BioLegend piece right now and what you're thinking about for 2023?
Sure. I think the way to think of it is if you guys recall, you know, when I did the EUROIMMUN acquisition, you know, what I had said is that you should assume a 12% organic growth for EUROIMMUN forever. At least for the last five years, it has beaten that model.
Yeah. Nothing.
What I would just go encourage you to think of it is not as BioLegend, but our research business, our reagents business. You know, we have a $700+ million research business now, reagents business, sitting in our life sciences portfolio. You should assume that that's gonna grow in the double digits for the foreseeable future. I mean, that's the strength of that portfolio now that we have built with the acquisition of BioLegend, Horizon, and what we have from Cisbio and our legacy PerkinElmer portfolio.
On Horizon, it's a little... it's not discussed as much here, but can you talk about... I mean, the opportunity there was really the CRISPR screening capabilities that they brought and really just bolstering your cell and gene therapy platform. Give us an update on Horizon. We haven't heard much about that.
Yeah. I mean, you know, it's the Horizon and Sirion together, they are really playing two as a tango, right? You know what I mean?
Mm-hmm.
They provide the vehicles, the AAV vectors, and these guys do the cell line, the servicing capability, the Pin-point base editing, which is sort of, as I've talked about, is the next chapter in the CRISPR growth story, that we've licensed the technology from Rutgers. BioLegend has got, you know, several deals going on with big pharma in trying to, A, either license that technology, provide them the tools and capabilities to do that in-house or provide specialized services so that it can do it in, you know, in the Horizon campus for big pharma and biotech. They, they continue to be, you know, a really important cog in our wheel on the reagent side of life sciences.
Keeping Bryan Kipp busy over there.
I know he's trying to do something there.
All right. You mentioned EUROIMMUN before. You guided the 8%-12%, I think, when you did the deal. Now it's been growing mid-teens. Talk about what's going on there. I mean, it was predominantly China and European exposure. One of the big growth drivers was expanding in the U.S. Talk about where we are in that storybook, storyboard.
Yeah. EUROIMMUN has grown, you know, 12% plus since we've done the deal. you know, and if it was ex-China immunodiagnostics, it would have continued to grow much higher. I mean, obviously, China immunodiagnostics has been a challenge. If you take that out, even outside of that, they have grown significantly higher than that. Of course, Luke, as you point out, U.S. is a key part of that growth story. When we acquired EUROIMMUN, U.S. was only 5% of their revenue, and they are significantly higher than that, and they are growing much faster than the rest of the EUROIMMUN business.
Is it like 10% of that business then?
Oh, probably more than that.
More than that?
Yeah.
How much of that is due to the portfolio expansion? Excuse me.
Both. It's, you know, majority of it is, of course, portfolio expansion. You know, as you've said, as they get more and more reagents through the regulatory approval process, as they bring in more products into the market, it's gonna be the growth story. You know, the big thing that, you know, we'll hopefully be able to display at ACR is the launch of the Ascentis platform. You know, majority of the customers in the U.S. are large reference labs, and what they were really looking for, a fully automated random access platform where the full strength of EUROIMMUN's portfolio could play a role. Now that they are in the process of getting that launched, and, you know, they got CE mark, I think, end of December or early January.
As they bring that into the U.S., that is going to further provide impetus to the growth story of EUROIMMUN in the U.S.
Where on the diagnostics workflow? I mean, it was on like the immune-based, obviously, 'cause of the name, but diagnostics. Are you expanding outside of that, or are you staying pretty much within that sweet spot?
It's chemiluminescence-based technology.
Yeah.
It's going to be autoimmune allergy. As you look for the neurodegenerative diseases in, you know, our portfolio that we've talked about publicly.
Right. All right. Let's talk about the, the new business, the, the rebranding, but more importantly, the improved fundamental profile. As you look out, you guided the double-digit top line, 30%+. You look at the margin, where you guys jumped off from 4Q. You know, talk about the conservatism that you have baked in within that margin guide for the year, and really the puts and takes that you see throughout the year there.
You know, I'm glad you think 30% is conservative.
Well, you guys did like 34, right?
I think the way I look at it is, you know, look, you know, I think if you look in the fourth quarter, we did 32.5, somewhere in that range, right?
Yeah.
I think, you know, the 30% guide is more based around the fact is, you know, we have $31 million of COVID revenue in that 30%. Obviously that was a big impetus. There's a lot of moving parts with the discontinued operations and Content Operations and all which, you know, Max and Steve can talk till the cows come home and, you know, and I'm sure they will. I think, you know, the fact of the matter is, we've taken $100 million of COVID out of our guidance.
Mm-hmm.
We have still said that it's gonna be growing at 30%. I think what we should assume is 30% for us is our baseline. If you look at the medium-term outlook for the company, 10% and 30% is going to be assumed, should be assumed as our platform. That's what we have built now, and that's the level of confidence that we have in our capability.
When you think of that medium-term guide here, as you think about the drop through on a lot of this incremental, how much are you thinking about investing? If it's you're expanding margins 100 basis points a year, are you gonna plowback 70 or 50 basis points kind of ring-fence what the internal investment should look like?
I think we've publicly said that we're gonna have pre-teens, EPS growth, over that.
Mm-hmm.
Outside of that, you know, we are gonna continue to invest in R&D. We are gonna continue to invest in cGMP, as we've said, and we are gonna continue to invest in an e-commerce engine. A majority of our business now is, you know, on the life sciences reagent side. You know, one of the key successes of BioLegend is that you put an order in in Boston at 3:00 P.M. in the evening, and 10:00 A.M. next morning, you have your reagents at your doorstep. That is because of their e-commerce engine and the way they have set that fundamental. We need to now take that and extrapolate and expand it to the full business.
How much of your business is on e-commerce right now?
Minimal. I mean, I would say low single digits.
Low singles.
BioLegend is more than 50% of their revenue is e-commerce.
Do you have like any metrics or is it still too early to say, all right, when you get a same customer now ordering on e-commerce, you see the basket increase by 20%?
Well, we closed the deal 4:00 P.M. last night.
Yeah, sure.
Just need a few hours to be able to digest that. Really the opportunity for us, Luke, is think of it this way, right? If you look at the business, you know, as I said, 80% of it is consumable software and reagents, you know. That is the opportunity that we have in the medium to long term. If over the next three to four years, we are able to take 30% of our business, total business on an e-commerce engine, you know, that is going to be a big success story for us. Not only is the fact then, you know, customers have easy access to your portfolio, it obviously has an impact on your OpEx too, right?
It's a proven track record.
So.
Yeah. Why didn't you have it before? Is it just because of all the different businesses?
It's.
Yeah.
Disparate a portfolio. You know, we had seven businesses, all of them at some scale in a sense, right? We had to build out these businesses. If you just go back, right? First, I did that with the diagnostic side of the portfolio.
Yeah.
We did that on the life sciences side of the portfolio. We reached a point where the life sciences and diagnostics business, both from a growth and margin profile, looked very different than an applied enterprise and services business. That's what led to the divestment of that business. Now, again, I come back to what we are, which is a pure play life sciences and diagnostic company.
Yeah. You guys have, I know it just closed. What are the plans for those proceeds?
Well, I think, you know, we've talked about publicly, there are two, three aspects to it, right? One, you know, it's gonna take time.
Mm-hmm.
to get all of that because it's gonna come in various jurisdictions around, tax jurisdictions around the world. We've got 1.3?
Yeah.
$1.3 billion of debt that we have to pay, off in the next, I would say, 16 to 18 months. That's obviously going to be a big component of that. You know, we are gonna continue to be acquisitive. I've never shied away from saying that we are an acquisitive company, and our track record shows that we've done a pretty good job on the acquisitions that we have made. We'll continue to be, to do that and build out, continue to fill gaps in our portfolio across life sciences.
On the M&A piece, how constrained is the organization internally, given that you guys have done so many deals?
I think, you know, if you look all, Luke, I think I spoke to you this last year when we were at your conference, you know, before we started this M&A train, we build out an integration transformation office. That was the key driver on how we are gonna do integration. I've done 10 years of my life has been on strategy, BD, and M&A. You know, we've got a lot of expertise in the company as to what to do this. You know, it's a pretty well thought out strategy.
Yeah. I meant just from an internal, like, just having the people from the integration perspective. Are they stretched thin or are they ready to keep going?
I mean, you know, the last acquisition we did was more than 14 months ago.
They're ready to go.
More. 18 months ago, I would say.
All right. Last one here. I remember last year, you basically did a mic drop on me. Update us on, you know, how the confidence level as you're looking out. From the quarter perspective, the medium term and long term, obviously, you're gonna be very bullish here, but give us a sense of how the quarter's been pacing out versus your expectations and then as you're going into the end of the year and then as we launch into 2024 and 2025.
Yeah. Look, I said that last year.
It was amazing.
I was always been confident, am confident, and will be supremely confident in our ability. That's not changed. I think even if you just go back and look at the past 12 months, we've delivered on that, right? I think the way to look at the company is if you just look at our current portfolio and look at the past two, three years, despite COVID, that portfolio has grown high single %, low double %. There is not a whole lot that we really need to do to put it on a growth platform. We've already set a very strong foundation for this business to grow double digits in the medium term.
Mm.
That's what the business is now. Again, 30% plus operating margin, it's already doing that. You know, again, we sort of, as I say, put the infrastructure in place for us to see that.
Awesome. Thank you again.
Thanks, Luke.
Great seeing you.
Thank you.