Good morning, everyone. Afternoon now, actually. It's a slash. Good morning/ afternoon. So, afternoon. Thanks for joining us here for the Stevanato management presentation. My name is Matt Larew. I cover tools, cover Stevanato here at William Blair, and I'm very pleased once again to be joined by the company's CEO, Franco Stevanato, as well as Giacomo from Investor Relations. I want to make two quick notes. The first is that the breakout session is in the Richardson room on the second floor. And then second, I am required to inform you that for a complete list of research disclosures or potential conflicts of interest, please visit williamblair.com. Again, very pleased to have Stevanato here today, and I will turn it over to Franco.
Thank you. Thank you to William Blair and to host Stevanato Group in this very nice event. Good morning. I'm Franco Stevanato. I'm going to have the chance to present Stevanato Group, and I will try through this slide to show a little bit the history, the track record, the value proposition that we put in place at Stevanato Group in order to mirror the future requirement of the biologic industry. At a high level, Stevanato Group is present in the industry more than 75 years. The company was founded by my grandfather just after the Second World War. At that time in Europe, they were starting to have more and more increasing requirement for glass containers for different applications. We entered in the industry for beverage, food, cosmetic, and pharma, and had the idea to automatize the technology of glass.
The journey started from that time. It's also true that in the last year we focused more and more on what was the pharmaceutical industry. After 75 years of effort, we can say that Stevanato Group is a player recognized in the pharmaceutical industry. We have a good track record. We are also market leaders in certain segments. For example, we are market leader worldwide on pen cartridges in ready-to-fill vials, and also we are the second player worldwide on syringes. We serve most of the bigger customers. We serve the top 23 global key customers worldwide, but also we serve 700 customers between general customers, regional customers, and biosimilar worldwide. The group was able to grow in the last five years, 15% per year. We were able to double our revenue in the last five years, and it's consistent with the track record of the last 25 years.
In 2024, we delivered EUR 1.1 billion of revenue, 100% focused on the pharmaceutical industry. Just to show you the value proposition that we have, we start with practically to produce the glass container, but in the last years, we put in place a sort of value proposition in order to be able to serve the pharmaceutical industry and everything that is injectable. In Stevanato Group, we have two main business units. We have the BDS segment that represents more than 80% of our revenue and the engineering segment. I'm going to explain to you why we have these two divisions, because these two divisions are two business units, but fully complementary in order to serve in the real intimacy of our pharma customers.
Starting from the left, what we can see, we have a full portfolio of glass products like cartridges, vials, and syringes, which is our today's core market and where we are heavily invested in Europe and the United States, in particular in the plants in Fishers. Also, this product we have converted in the last year together with our customers in what we call EZ-fill products, practically where we sell more value to our clients and also represent more marginality and more protection of our product compared to the competitor. On the right side, you can see our engineering segment that is market leader worldwide on glass forming because we developed the technology of glass forming for vials, cartridges, and syringes.
Also, in the last 10 years, we specialized our division in order to develop a sophisticated visual inspection machine for our pharma customers, a particular assembly technology for this new requirement of what we call auto-injector space. What is the combination? This competence, this capability connected with our tech center that we have in Italy and Boston, we try to have a holistic value proposition. Practically, we want to serve the client from preclinical in order really to be filed in the FDA with our client at the very beginning, and then step by step develop the tailor-made product, process, and service based on the drug that they deliver. Today, you can see the pharmaceutical industry is heavily invested in product in phase two, phase three, and there is a rich pipeline with most of our pharma customers worldwide.
Stevanato Group, through these two tech centers, is present in most of these products in phase two and phase three. When the product goes commercial, we are present with 13 sites in nine different countries, in particular in Europe and the United States, in order to, when the pharma company is scaling up, we can serve the full material. Let's spend, if it's possible, a little bit of time about the history because through the history, it's important to understand the strategy and the different milestones. The company has a long history of success. Like I mentioned to you, we are in business for more than 75 years. In particular, in the last 50 years, we focused our competence in just the pharmaceutical industry. In 1971, we decided to develop the technology.
At the beginning, we decided to develop the technology internally in order really to have more productivity, to have a better process, and to be more fast to market because all the machines that we use for the internal group are developed by the sister company [Engineering]. It is also true that in the second step, we decided to further enlarge our product portfolio and to develop this machine also for our pharma customers in order to increase the intimacy that Stevanato Group is going to serve the primary packaging, but also is going to use the technology installed in the pharmaceutical company in order to increase the productivity for our customers. This is today one of our competitive advantages that we are trying to build our value proposition. In the last 25 years, we tried to add other three drivers of growth because our customers became global.
What we have done? We have tried to more and more mirror the footprint of our customers worldwide. Our customers start to challenge Stevanato to not be only present in Europe, but to be present also in America, in Asia, and Latin America. Today, we have built a supply chain through our plants that we have the same quality standard. It's going really to serve our customers with the best efficiency. This is one of the ways that our big client is recognizing Stevanato as the true partner for their sophisticated product. What we have done? We reinforce more and more what we call the research and development. Originally, our R&D was more focused on process. Then step by step, we tried to put value in the product that we do. How?
We see more and more the tendency of the pharmaceutical industry to outsource what is not core competence for them. For example, washing, siliconization, sterilization, preassembly. The pharma company more and more is focalizing on filling and to develop the drug. This is the reason why we have developed a patent, particularly EZ-fill technology on syringes, on vials, on cartridges in order to enhance more value for our client and also more marginality and more security of our value proposition for Stevanato Group. In the second step, what have we done? We have performed some particular M&A in order to introduce in Stevanato Group certain capabilities like high-precision plastic injection molding. Today, what do we do?
Today, we have competence through our plants in Germany, our plants in California, and today what we are installing is exactly the same competence in Fishers that we can provide to our client: pen, auto-injector, wearable device. In order to do what? To have always a value proposition that can really support everything that is injectable for our client. This is the competence that we have introduced through this M&A. It is also true that we have made a couple of acquisitions on two sophisticated companies in Denmark specialized for inspection systems and assembly for this sophisticated drug delivery system. The last two important things that we have focused on in the last years was the attention on people.
More and more, we put in place since the last 10 years a strong board of directors with international leaders coming from the industry pharma company and also the industry of primary packaging. Also, more and more, we have a strong leadership team based between Europe, the United States, and Asia, and we are all linked with the same company goal. In 2021, last big milestone, we decided to go public. We listed the company in New York. Why? Because at that time, at the beginning of 2020, we were presenting to the board the new industrial plan, but we were facing very huge investment in order to increase capacity, in particular in Europe and the United States. We are talking about after the IPO, we invested more than EUR 1 billion in order to massively build capacity in order to support the growth of our customers.
It's exactly what we have done. We listed the company, we raised money, and we're injecting between Europe and the United States. To make an example, the greenfield plants that we're building outside of Indianapolis is an investment of EUR 500 million that will generate at the end of 2028 EUR 500 million revenue. This is the goal: extremely focused on customers, extremely focused on what is the growth in order to support the supply chain of our client. Here we can see a little bit of the picture. We are present, we have a global diversified manufacturing footprint. We are present through 16 sites. Today, we call more and more campuses. Through these campuses, we can serve different capabilities to our clients from nine different countries.
This is really in order to mirror and to give the perception that we have the more safe and high-quality supply chain. One characteristic that we have in all our plants is that we do not compromise on technology, we do not compromise on quality, we do not compromise on the latest technology. We want really to give the offering to our client that no matter if it is China, Brazil, Mexico, United States, they have the same quality level for the plants that we serve. On top of this, what have we done? We add two sophisticated tech centers, one in Italy and the second one in Boston, in order to do what? To try to serve the client at the very early stage.
Most of the time, our client, when it's in phase two or in phase three, is looking to understand which is the better compatibility between glass, plastic, siliconization technology of syringes, shape. We really have between Italy and Boston 80 engineers that are specialized to do this type of service. Today, like I mentioned to you, we are so focused on building up these greenfield plants in Latina that today is up and running. We have already delivered positive gross margin in Q3 of last year, and we are so focused on building up these greenfield plants in Fishers. Exactly, we have already installed several high-speed lines for syringes. We've introduced also capacity for vials, ready-to-fill, and also we are going to install a big program for devices in order really to serve the full capability from our U.S. plant.
The addressable market that we serve is big and is continuing to grow. Based on our estimation, we're talking about an addressable market of $13 billion per year. It's growing in high single digit or double digit. Starting from the left, we can see that the drug containment solution is where we are so focused. The market is growing 8%, but what is related to biologics is also in double digit. We have the DDS market because most of our clients that are launching new cartridges and new syringes on the market, most of the time there is also an auto-injector or a pen or a usable pen. It's where also there is a big focus, and also we are placing a big investment.
Today, in the office in Milan, we have 17 engineers focused on continuing to develop our AP between pen, auto-injector, wearable devices. In the plants in Germany and the plants in Fishers, w e are building up high-speed capacity for this type of technology. Lastly, the engineering segment also is growing. We were talking about an addressable market of $1.5 billion that is growing rapidly, in particular based on the latest investment that our big customers have approved in the last three, four months. We are talking about a few hundred billion dollars in new technology that our clients are installing between Europe and the United States. Also, through this division, we are working hard.
If you are going to practically collect this, we are in a very nice environment, and Stevanato is laser-focused to execute and to really become part of the supply chain for the future molecule of our client. Here we are. I show you the addressable market is what we are doing. Today, we are really strategically positioning our focus in order really to expand our global footprint, in order to have some dedicated campuses in each region of the world. We have really more and more developed our investment in order to address and build capacity for high-value products. Today, nearly the totality of the EUR 1 billion that we have invested last year is focused on increasing capacity for high-value products.
We continue to invest in research and development organically or, when it's the case, through partnership in order really to have the most fast and flexible business model for our client. Lastly, to our tech center, what do we do? Today, it's also true that the client is growing with a lot of commercial products in MAPS GLP-1 monoclonal antibody. It's also true that there are several hundred molecules in phase two and phase three, and there are several hundred of biosimilar clients extremely energetic to launch these products. We have a huge, big organization fully dedicated to file our product in the FDA with our client at the very early stage. Okay. Just to give you some information about our high-value solution program, where we are really fully focused and we are investing in since a few years.
What are the benefits for our client? Why is the client going to use this high-value product? What is the benefit? The first, they are going to reduce the total cost of ownership. The fact that they are outsourcing to Stevanato washing, siliconization, sterilization, preassembly is giving us, giving to them the possibility to invest less in CapEx and people. Also, because just to understand, Stevanato is producing billions of glass containers every year. The pharmaceutical industry, most of the time, they are washing, siliconization, sterilization connected, for example, to their live process. Maybe they work one, two, three shifts per week. In Stevanato, we can really bring in full- scale and to really do scale and to reduce the cost and increase the quality. This was really starting to build this type of standard on syringes years ago.
Now it's moving into syringes, and now even more is moving to cartridges. The customer is outsourcing what is not anymore their core business. Also, this can help to increase the quality of the product that we're going to serve. You know better than me that more and more there are higher regulatory requirements. For example, our next one, where the pharmaceutical company has to put in place processes that have to enhance any risk of sterility or any generation of glass particles. Practically, the way that we are delivering today, our glass containers, so no- glass to glass configuration, ready-to-fill, can really help to increase the quality and to reduce any type of risk of market recall or even more risk for the patient.
It is also going to make our supply chain even much more efficient because practically we produce everything, we ship, and the client is going just to fill. It is going to, in this way, mitigate the supply chain risk. What is the benefit for Stevanato? We can reinforce the contract. We can really increase the barrier to entry because in this way we can increase the number of investments, regulatory registration, and to reinforce the contract and increase the marginality. The target of gross margin that we have in the high-value product is between 40%-70%. It is where today all our organization is focused on selecting contracts in the future based on this type of characteristic. In fact, you see the track record. In 2019, 17% of our revenue were on high-value products. Today, we are in the range between 39%-41%.
We'll continue to grow in the next years. Over the last years, biologics have also been an important growth driver. Most of the time I hear from you, which is the presence of Stevanato Group in GLP-1, which is the revenue that we will do in the next year in GLP-1. Fortunately, GLP-1, it will represent a very nice tailwind for Stevanato Group because since many years, our historical big insulin clients have validated Stevanato for their new GLP-1. Close to 10 years ago, our big clients have filed our syringes, EZ-fill Nexa, our syringes with bypass, cartridges with ready-to-fill, vial, inspection machine, and device. Besides the GLP-1, what do we see? Biologics in Stevanato is growing rapidly and is strictly connected to our high-value products.
The beauty is that the product portfolio that we developed in the last year on EZ-fill, on devices, and also in engineering technology is perfectly fitting with this requirement of biologics. It is where today more and more we are heavily investing because we have a program with tens of hundreds of new molecules where, for example, our Alba technology, our Nexa technology when there is an auto-injector, or our cartridges ready-to-fill when there is a pen or a usable pen is perfectly fitting. Today, more and more, we are focusing our organization from R&D, tech center, and production, commercial to really become the true partner from our pharma customer. This is also here you can see the trend. For example, this year, 43% of our revenue in the BDS segment was just dedicated to the biologic product. It is continuing to grow in this way.
I want to underline certain points in order to explain that the origin, we start with glass, we focus on pharmaceutical, we build global footprint, we add research and development, and today we are building a sort of product portfolio and a supply chain in order to mirror the future 10-20 years' growth of our pharma client. We want just to be focused on pharma, focused on biologics, and focused on injectables. It's where we want to be the number one in what we do. Also, some numbers. Here we can see we were able to more than double most of our KPI in the last five years. Before the IPO, we were a EUR 500 million revenue company. Last year, we were EUR 1.1 billion, also including the big spike of COVID and also the very painful stocking issue that we faced last year.
Overall, it means that our investments are going in a good direction because they are perfectly consistent with the last 25 years. Just to make you a number, in 1998, the company revenue was EUR 18 million. Now we are EUR 1.1 billion. Our goal in the next few years is to double just following the organic growth and the contract that we are executing with our customers. This is what we want to do. More and more, reinforce our contract with our clients and to reinforce our marginality in order really to build a business model very safe for our customers, maybe more for our investors. I would like to briefly summarize the Q1. We are facing a good momentum. Last year was not easy because we grew only a few points, in particular for the issue of the stocking. Today, the Q1 is positive.
We are plus 9%. We start to reinforce the marginality. What is important to share with you is that the most tough situation where we are facing, not only Stevanato Group, all the industry last year, like the stocking, is starting to be behind because we see more and more positive signals from the market that our clients on vial are going to normalize the ordering partner. Starting at the end of 2024, we start to see small, mid-sized customers reactivating normal order. In Q1 or Q2 of this year, we see also the big organization placing more regular forecasts. We are confident that throughout 2025, the vial market will move versus the normalization. Also, what we see in 2025, we see the important investment that we have done with the greenfield plant in Fishers is starting to generate revenue and Latina also gross marginality.
This big effort of this multi-hundred- million- euro investment that was just looking to burn cash in the last years, now it's starting really to deploy. The execution is on track. The validation with our client is on track, and now it's starting to be a real contribution on our revenue. Also, there is other, say, lateral positive KPI that is going to show that the trend of 2025 is moving in a good direction. In fact, independently for the external market volatility, we are fully focused to confirm our guidance and continue to drive growth. This is a little bit of an explanation of our approach strategy around investment. In 2020, we approved the industrial plan. Also, in parallel, the board suggested the leadership team to went public in order to find a safe way to raise money. We went public in 2021.
We raised money, and we invested practically between EUR 1.1 billion and EUR 1.2 billion between building capacity for organic growth for our client, reinforcing research and development, and also to do other types of investment in order to do the right infrastructure to prepare the company for the next level. In fact, where we are. It's also true that this important cycle, we share with you that we have a peak, but in 2027, we want to go back to a normalization situation that will be high single-digit, low double-digit compared to our investment. We want to run between 9%-11% of investment based on our revenue. We are perfectly on track.
The beauty is that outside, compared to 2021, when we decided to do the IPO and when at the capital market in New York, we shared this number, there are more and more progressions of positive opportunities for Stevanato Group on the market. This will enhance Stevanato to more and more do the right priority of where we want to put our money in the future. The idea is to always focus only on high-value products where there is a solid contract, solid pipeline with our client, and also good reputation on the molecule behind it. The type of investment that we are doing when we invest in high-value products is the ratio is EUR 1 CapEx have to represent EUR 1 revenue. In fact, this big portion of investment that we are doing between Italy and Fishers, it will represent additional revenue in next year.
Make an example, the investment that we are doing in Fishers, we are talking about a EUR 500+ million investment, nearly focused on high-value products, and at the end of 2028, have to deliver the equivalent in terms of revenue. The goal is to generate after the end of 2028, EUR 500- million revenue from the plants in Fishers. This is our goal. The goal is to continue to go in this approach. Again, I would like just to summarize. The company is not a startup. It is more than 75 years old. The first profit we saw from my grandfather after, because today, you're right, you are focusing to have the return on investment. They put all the performance objectives, all the leadership team, including myself, return on investment.
My grandmother told me that the first money arrived after 30 to 40 years in familia Stevanato because it was only focused on the money where I always, always in the company. Now we changed the approach, don't worry. The goal is origin was really strong exercise, a lot of discipline, invest heavily, build a reputation with our client, and to build a sort of value proposition between global footprint, between value proposition in order to become the true partner of the supply chain for the future biologic drugs. It's exactly where we are really working. We are happy. We are laser-focused today in the company. Most of you in this today, they ask us, which is your main priority, your main, let's say, concern? Today, the external market is positive. The demand is robust. The pipeline of our client is robust. Our product is well perceived.
Today, we have five big priorities in Stevanato Group. The priority, what does it mean? That are some cross-functional projects that are fundamental for the success of our industrial plan, where there are involvement between all the functions, supply chain, operation, quality, HR, controlling, that we are going to monitor every week the status. Priority number one is Fishers because it's a big investment. Priority number two is the greenfield plants in Latina. Priority number three is we win a big program for cartridges ready-to-fill. We are developing through our engineering division this high-speed machine that does washing, sterilization with a new patent technology of sterilization in order to build a multi-hundred million capacity for cartridges ready-to-fill. Phase one in the plants of Latina. There is an organizational laser focus to build this technology.
Priority number one to resize and enlarge our competence from engineering because we have one plant in Denmark, one in Italy, but we need to further increase this capacity of this engineering division in order to prepare for the future growth of this company. Priority number five is digitalization. Today, the company is more complex. We want to more and more increase and make an efficient tool for us, for our client in order to be efficient. Clear execution, clear priority in order to succeed from now to 2027 without having other distractions. We want to more and more be recognized like the humble but hungry proactive partner for our customers. Thank you very much.
Okay, I think we have time for my one question, I expect.
Franco, you referenced the EUR 500- million CapEx in Fishers, and that's part of a EUR 1 billion of CapEx since 2022, largely to support future growth and high-value products. I assume that's mostly driven by biologics, referenced from broad-based demand. From the outside looking in, investors see that the last several quarters you've seen significant destocking, which at least on the surface gives the appearance of the opposite mismatch of supply and demand. Obviously there's quite a bit of focus on GLPs, which some of your peers have characterized as high single-digit percentage o f revenue. There's obviously, whether it was the Lilly readout earlier this year or just generally speaking, a fear of that market moving to oral.
Maybe speak to, as you make these significant investments, what is underpinning that and what gives you confidence that it's not just one drug or one drug class, but broad-based demand to fill that capacity?
The stocking was related exclusively to the vial, particular bulk vial that is known high-value product. We served during the COVID period this vial from the plants in Slovakia, Mexico, Brazil, China, a little bit from the plants in Italy for the EZ-fill. What happened during the pandemic? The client, they usually keep three to six months of inventory. They build a layer of more than one year of stock in order to be ready to serve the market with this COVID vaccine. On top of this, many clients build additional inventory for the COVID vaccine. A lot of CMO build additional inventory to be ready to win contracts.
When, fortunately, but unfortunately for the industry, at the end of 2022, COVID disappeared, the full market, we are talking about a 13 billion size per year of vial, they find that they have on the top more than one year. One year, they have half of stock. This took for all the industry practically two years to clean up. Today, where we are, this, like I mentioned to you, this COVID is starting to disappear, and all our clients are moving to a sort of normalization. Many times I receive from you, what is the future of vial? Vial is still one of the most flexible primary packaging for drugs. It moves from 2 ml to 30 ml, can really store any type of therapeutic drug. So it's there in Europe. In the U.S., it's growing 1%-2%.
In Latin America, in Asia, in Russia, it's growing maybe 5%-6%. It's there. It continues to remain there in the next decade. It's also true, and this is the reason why we are heavily investing in the greenfield plants, that the new molecule that the bio customers are launching on the market are most of the time entering what we call self-administration. The vial, most of the time you use in the hospital or you use in certain countries where they're spending, there are a lot of attention or pharmaceutical expenditure. The new drugs that most of the time are sophisticated, expensive drugs, that's administration is through auto injector or pen or wearable devices. It's where Stevanato Group is building capacity on syringes, is building capacity in cartridges, and building capacity in auto injector. There is not one thing that is going in the conflict.
COVID was an exceptional event that never happened because in the pharmaceutical industry, one thing is safe is the secure of the supply chain. It happened, and now, fortunately, it is behind. There is the good news that there are several hundred new molecules that are well spread to many types of therapeutic areas that the customers have been investing and where we are putting our money. GLP-1 is one of these. Maybe it is the star in this moment. Probably it is the star of the new growth on the market, but also it is well compensated by many other products. You also asked the role of the oral pill. Also, the pills, it will take a role in the market. Remember, we are talking about they are building capacity for several billions of unit dose injection per year.
It's normal that also there will be a role of the pills in the next year. There is an estimation from the market that it will take a role between 15%-30%. In our model, we put the most safe approach that the oral pill will take up to 30%, but in an environment that we grow also in injectable a lot.
All right, great. Thank you. We'll head up to Richardson for any more Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you.