I don't know what to say. Okay, welcome back to the 2023 Stifel Healthcare Conference. We are on the life sciences track here, and I am Dan Arias, the life sciences analyst. Happy to have Bio-Techne as our next company with us here today. We have CEO, Chuck Kummeth, spend a little time talking about the business. Chuck, thanks very much to, to start to be with us here.
Sure.
I was joking with IR guy, Dave, about what we were gonna start talking about, before the session, and-
Anywhere you wanna go.
Why not start with China, just because it is-
Gee, what a surprise!
... the life sciences topic du jour.
We thought about just handing out a sheet of paper all day, so you can take this with you, and we'll move on to the next question.
That would make this session faster, if nothing else. I don't know whether it would make it-
Yeah.
... easier or better, but it's 10% of revenues for you. Can you talk about the mix there and just what it is that the drivers of the business in China have coming to them over the next couple of quarters? It's an obvious question, but you do tend to talk about China a little differently than others sometimes when I think about the aggregate industry commentary.
Yeah, we're a little bit different. You know, and our company is, you know, 80% consumables and 10% instruments, with another 10% being the cartridges that go... that run the instruments, right? But in China, it's almost half, so we're very, very heavy mix on instrumentation in China. The labs are really into productivity, and the team there has done a really good job with these, you know, government-funded institutions that kind of run the place for China, right? And it's done very well. And during COVID, it went like it lit up, right? We had 50% growth for a couple of years. So we really have just got kind of an overhang of, you know, overpopulation in China for our stuff, really. That said, you know, that we're, we're very much, you know, government-funded, real research.
The institutions there, the markets really like U.S. brands. We don't have anything. Everything there is China for China, so we don't have the kind of problems that, you know, a Thermo or a Danaher has. There's nothing for export. So everything's there for China. We're building a new GMP protein factory because the demand is so good. We are, we were just there, like, a little over a month ago, and you wouldn't think anything had changed. I mean, the lines are out the door, Starbucks again, and you can't move on the highways. They're all clogged up. And I will say the one difference, about a third of all the cars are EV now, so they're gonna be the first totally converted EV for sure. But they can drive that with license plates, right? When you, when you don't charge for those.
Yeah.
... and everyone else pays $10,000, you can, you can, you can make a difference. But the airports are empty. There are no Westerners there, right? So it's claw-back time. Now, our company, we have a lot of people very well connected. We've had a good legacy of important people in our company, like, the person who opened up our office, her mother was head of the FDA for China. One of our senior scientists' brother was on the Central Committee, you know, the cabinet for China. So we have-
You've got pretty good insight there.
We've got good, we've got good inside information when we need it, and they were expecting to release funding in April, like usual, and they didn't. And then they were gonna-- then it was, we were told that it'll probably start after, you know, the schools reopen, and everyone gets back after the, you know, summer, September, October, and it didn't. And now we're being told if it starts even at all, it'll be after Chinese New Year-
Mm-hmm
... which means February, March. I wouldn't hold my breath, you know? I think, they're broke. They shut down their economy for over a year, and with their policy, and then they decided, well, let's just let everybody get sick, and that shut 'em down again for six months. And then they decided to spend billions and billions on testing everybody every day, and they really just don't have any revenue. Now, they do have a lot of levers to pull that, you know, that we don't anymore. We're $34 trillion in debt, they're not. They, they've never played fair in the world currency market, right? So they could start doing things with their currency if they wanted to. We're told they probably won't stimulate. They'll probably just start refunding, you know-
Yeah.
... come, and it'll just, it'll just start picking up again.
Yeah.
But you know, I think this quarter is gonna be a terrible quarter for everybody.
Mm-hmm.
I think after that, you will probably start to see some signs of life because people have run out of stuff now.
Yeah.
Nobody's being laid off. They're just really sitting around waiting to do something, so.
So to that point, I mean, you're right, you do have a consumables-heavy portfolio, and it's not the type of consumables product that tends to sit on a shelf for six months. So amongst these companies that are not dead broke and going out of business tomorrow-
Right.
... is there a destocking phenomenon that you see playing itself out, either in your business or otherwise? And so, you know, would you compare what's going on in the CapEx side to what's going on in the consumable side more favorably for consumables?
I think that's exactly right. I think they have run out of stuff, and we are getting interest. And, you know, China's a little different, you know, than here. There are big trade shows and conferences that people go to and but, you know, they're every week. They're much smaller, and they're in all the institutions, and you have to have a traveling, you know, workforce of technical people that hit all these shows and run the papers and go through stuff. And so you got tables up everywhere, literally, you know, dozens per quarter. And those are getting very active again, so that's a really good leading indicator that people are really getting interested in coming back and getting back to work.
So on the instrument side, I think it's probably a little longer because, you know, it's, like, again, we just had so much growth. I think, the capital cycle is taking longer. I think they'll, they'll have to be pretty well funded again before they're starting to lay out, you know, $50,000-$100,000 cash for instruments again. But-
Okay. Okay, maybe we'll move off of China as a specific topic. If we come back around to it in some other way, then that's fine. But to talk about some of the specific product areas or businesses, and maybe start with GMP proteins. This is an important growth driver for you. You've invested a lot of money in the facility that you built out in Minnesota.
Yep.
If I have it correctly, the things that are gonna drive that business forward are menu expansion, and then customers, more customers ordering bigger lots. So can you just talk about the menu that you have for that business, and whether it's tracked the way that you've hoped it would, and think you need it to? And then the larger orders coming through, because you like to make this tuna versus whale. I don't- it's a submarine metaphor. I think that's correct, but the point is that-
We like whales.
You do like... Everybody likes whales, right? Casinos, life sciences companies. Will you, do you envision yourself seeing some of those more, some of those whales coming through in, call it, the next 12 months, or is the industry just in a different place relative to where it was when you built the facility?
Okay. Well, our menu is fine. We've got about 40 GMP proteins on our menu, and they're mostly for regenerative medicine side, you know, not the immune side, T-cell.
Mm-hmm.
There's about half a dozen for that, you know, IL-2, you know, IL-7, IL-10, IL-15, primarily. So we're fine on menu. We're gonna probably double that menu again this coming year, at least for the immune side. It's more about turning small customers into larger customers, so getting people in the pre-clinicals into full, full-blown clinicals again, new ones, new clinicals, and getting some of these people through their endeavor, and getting into real product cycles. So we're also very dependent on Wilson Wolf kind of pulling us along, right? So Wilson Wolf is... I mean, there's probably only two de facto standards in cell and gene therapy now. One is Wilson Wolf for the bioreactor-
Mm-hmm.
-and the other is Miltenyi. And we're all chasing Miltenyi and making some ground there, I think. And Wilson Wolf, I think people are trying other things, but Wilson Wolf still has the most going on. There are 800 customers. They're in virtually all the clinicals. And they're moving to a different. We have them in our JV, right? You know, ScaleReady, but they've also... John's working on a new company called Cell Ready, and he's franchising the whole workflow, to save time and money for Professor X with a cell line, right?
Mm-hmm.
And just get in there to a qualified system workflow and go to work without looking for funding, getting licenses and all that kind of stuff, right? And that's gonna be great 'cause it's gonna be complete, our workflow, that drives the whole process. So I think at a high, high level, we've just kind of been on pause for a year, you know, waiting this all out. We're growing still great, but, you know, we were growing 100%.
Yeah.
Now we're growing only 40, you know, so we're still growing nicely compared to everything else going on, but it's a little under what it will be, and it'll, it'll kick back up, I think, pretty soon.
Yeah. I mean, for the time being, is the right way to think about a go-forward growth rate just something in between 40 and 100 and leave it there?
Yeah, I think, I think 40 is the right number for the short term, and I think it could, it could change drastically. We, we, literally, every customer that we have working with right now thinks they'll need $10 million or more annually of a protein once they get to a drug. And, and everyone's, you know, bashing the FDA, right? 'Cause it's, you know. How many clinicals in this country? 1,200 or something like that. 350 in China, another 400 in Europe, and we have eight drugs in the market.
Yeah.
So they're moving a little too slow.
Right.
So they're taking a beating, and they've promised they're gonna speed it up, so we'll see if they can or not.
So-
That's gonna be good for us.
When a whale becomes a whale, it's like an $8 million-$10 million whale. That's kind of the number that we should think about as being-
Right.
... at the high end of what you might need.
Well, that'd be a...
That'd be a big whale.
... that'd be a blue whale.
Right.
But, that'd be in production. We have a handful of customers that are beyond phase I clinicals, that are million-dollar-plus customers. To us, that's a whale right now.
Okay.
But when they get to the other side, when they're in production, it'll go up dramatically, and we don't need too many to start making that growth rate really look really huge, right? So this is a $40 million run rate business right now, and, you know, in a couple years, if it's not over $100 million, you know, I'd be shocked.
Mm.
But if... We just need a handful to get out, get through, so.
Okay. Maybe ProteinSimple, specifically on Simple Western and Simple Plex. Simple Western, for me, is an easy business to get my hands around why it is that growth would be above average-
Mm-hmm.
... and more likely to resume that, I guess, 15%-20% rate that it's been in prior periods.
Yeah, I like this question.
Hey, do you think that that's... Is that a right way to think about, you know, coming out-
Well, you're one of the guys that kind of picked on this early. And, you know, forever, I was always talking about, it's gonna be a 15% grower because it's hard to convert these people from hand Westerns to automated, right? And then we had COVID hit, and then there was all this productivity need, right? So again, that platform went to 50%-
Mm-hmm
... growth for a couple of years. Now it's going back to 15% or so, but there's a new angle now. Now, it's not just converting Westerns. Now there's new applications coming, too. So there's immunoassays, there's protein integrity, there's AAV testing, there's cell and gene therapy testing, there's... We have actually. We think we're almost doubling the TAM for this thing, but they're all unique applications, and they'll need to be sold through, right? So-
You're seeing demand for that. It's, it's beyond just, "Hey, we've now got a kit or an application that's-
Correct.
... that the commercial team thinks is working."
Yeah.
You're actually seeing buying for those purposes.
Yep, absolutely.
Okay. Simple Plex is harder for me because I say to myself, there was obviously... there were obviously a ton of systems placed during COVID. I mean, you were growing that business over 100%, for it feels like... Maybe not over 100%, but 75%-100%, for it feels like two or three quarters in a row.
Mm-hmm.
So you've now got this giant installed base, but I don't know how much those systems are being used relative to the COVID period, and I don't know what the right-
Yeah.
... growth rate for utilization, based on utilization, would be going forward. So can you just... Is that a headwind for you now, just knowing how much work was being done on them for the last two years?
If we were bigger, I think it could be, but it's not, 'cause it's just not that big yet. And it's roughly a $50 million business... and it's still growing well. In fact, all our instruments are being used heavily. I mean, we had 9% growth in our instruments last quarter, and it's an abysmal quarter for everybody. We had solid growth, but it was mainly consumable-
Mm-hmm.
... right? And Simple Plex led the pack. They were at 23% growth, and there was a mix of instrument and consumable. Now, the pull-through on that instrument is heavy, 'cause that's a... If you guys don't know, it's a bench-top instrument for a microfluidic immunoassay, where most of the technology is actually in the cartridge. So it's an expensive cartridge, you know, $500 and up, that we load as a closed system for customers with different analytes, and the box is actually fairly simple. So the IP is very good, and it's all in that cartridge, and they grind through. So the pull-through on that instrument is more money per year for the cartridges than the instrument itself, which is the only instrument we have like that. The rest are rule of thumb, 30%-50%, right?
Okay.
And there again, we just got ISO 13485 clearance. We are qualifying an Indian FDA-approved product here in this coming next, I think, next quarter, I think it'll probably be coming out for macular degeneration and dry eye in India, which is like a $400 million market all by itself. But we're hoping with the ISO 13485, that'll clear the way for some interest for people to take it and start doing 510(k)s here in the U.S. That's all on top of what it's been used for, so that's just new stuff, 'cause it's been a biodiscovery, right, biomarker discovery tool primarily. And it's been growing double-digit, like you said, forever, and it's not that big yet. I mean, I think this is a real sleeper-
Okay.
... you know, for, in terms of what this platform can really still become. Even though it's now a 10+ year old platform, you know, it's got a lot of legs.
I don't know whether you guys track or think about things in terms of annualized pull-through per unit.
Mm-hmm.
But if you do, should we be thinking up, you know, up year-over-year in the next couple of years, to your point on what it's being used for, and then potentially in the clinic?
I think Simple Western's a long-term 50% grower. I think Simple Plex is 20%.
Okay.
For all these reasons I just mentioned.
Yep. Maybe on the antibody side, on the antibody reagent side, Danaher acquires Abcam, and naturally, investors ask whether something will change in the industry when you have some M&A taking place-
Yeah.
... particularly when it comes from a larger company that's doing the deal. Simple question would be: Are you seeing anything different in the marketplace, now that Danaher is in there? I mean, it's early days for that, obviously, but...
No, I mean, Rainer and I are good friends. We're on boards together and stuff, and they have no position in antibodies at all. Zero. And so I think it'll be more Danaher looking at this distressed asset because it's been distressed, which is why Jonathan tried taking it back over. And I think they're thinking, you know, "The Danaher way, we can probably improve this, and we probably should be in antibodies a little bit," 'cause the whole world's moving towards this. Antibodies kinda run. They're, they're kind of the lifeblood of all these applications, right? Especially recombinant. And so there's a possibility, but it won't happen overnight. But, you know, I'd never count out Rainer and the team. They're- they know what they're doing.
Yep.
So it'll just be a couple of years before you really hear anything. You know, kinda like with PeproTech, with Thermo. I mean, you bought them two years ago, and what have you heard? You know, there's. It's kinda like we all thought. They're using it probably as a more vertical play internally in their workflow for bioprocessing and CDMO and stuff, right? And not figuring out how to take over the world on the retail side, you know? 'Cause again, they aren't. They're not selling anything through Fisher. All that's kept out of Fisher and for that reason, so...
Okay.
Could change, but not right now.
Do you think that the things that are happening in pharma change the outlook, the growth rate for the antibody reagents business longer term? Or can the new applications, the new modalities that are being developed, the things that are taking place with immunoassays , can that, can that?
I think it's probably been end up being healthy. If you remember about 10 years ago, we used to sit around these rooms and just bash antibody companies, 'cause they were just trash, right? Most everything in the market was garbage. Nothing worked, and the five of us got together, as companies, leading companies in antibodies, and said, "We've gotta squish these little guys out because they're ruining our market because they're selling garbage," and because there's no barriers to entry in making antibodies. I mean, literally, a professor and a beaker and a bench can make $100,000 antibodies in, like, in, you know, a day. You know, there's no capital really needed. It's all intellectual, primarily, and trade secret. So and they're very profitable, right? So it generates a lot of potential interest.
But you've gotta have one thing, you've gotta have a catalog.
Right.
You know? It's one thing making 10 antibodies, it's another thing having 100,000. So... And, that's where the difficulty comes in, managing, you know, a real portfolio and having high quality and a brand and all that stuff that goes with it. And the industry did a pretty good job of doing that, right, and pulling that up. And I think there's, there's more of the same happening now. Like, it's continuing, and we'll kinda get to the next level. I think the next chapter in antibodies is probably gonna be all, you know, recombinant and the world moving away from polys and things like that, so.
Yeah, and just to your point, how much bigger is your portfolio than some of the mid-size companies that, if they do still exist, are trying to operate sort of subscale?
Well, there's nobody big. I mean, us and Abcam together aren't even 10% of the market. So, you know, Abcam is, you know, it's public, and it's, you know, roughly called a $400 million kind of business. We're in the $200 million kind of range. BioLegend was about in the 250s, but they're very narrow to flow only, right? BD is probably still the largest antibody company in the world.
Mm-hmm.
They just don't talk, but it's all flow, though, right? Probably $500 million-$600 million. And then you've got, you know, Proteintech, and you've got all these others that are all $50 million and less, and you probably have 50 companies that are under $20 million, and you've probably got another 50 companies under $10 million.
Yeah.
You know, and we source from a lot of them, right? So does Abcam, right? And a lot of them are in Sweden and different places, you know? But, it's very hard to grow an antibody business over $100 million. There's only a, there's really only a handful of us, so...
Okay. Okay, I want to make sure I leave time for diagnostics and genomics here. So maybe just to touch on spatial biology and ACD as a starting point, where are you with the commercial scale-out for that team, especially given what's going on in the market, which is that there's a pretty robust environment taking place when it, when it comes to just hiring, but also technology development? For a while, that was something that you were-
You mean diagnostics or spatial?
So spatial, ACD.
Spatial, okay.
And just the need for a larger team in order to drive the growth rate necessary. Which, because there were a couple of quarters where, if I'm remembering correctly, you wanted to hire folks, you were just having a hard time finding the right ones.
We were always a couple short. You know, spatial has been one of those shiny new things out there-
Yes.
... you know, everyone's chasing in the last couple of years, right? And more shiny than real. And, you know, nobody in spatial is making money, I think, but us, right? Literally. But I think things have gravitated now towards there's a high discovery end, and there's a lower translational end. And I think the money troubles have wiped out a lot of the little guys, and, you know, NanoString's definitely not doing great at this point, and they're kind of in the middle, clearly, and play both ends a little bit. Akoya, you know, was definitely in trouble, and we bought Lunaphore, which puts us clearly in the lead on the low translational to the middle-
Yeah.
... middle plex. So I, you know, I think it's, you know, us and Serge looking forward, to be honest. And getting people, it's gotten easier through the last year or two as things have. The sex appeal's dried up, right?
Loosened up a little bit.
A lot have come back home after trying their hand with the startup flyer, and it not worked out well. Because it's a very technical sale, so our salespeople, it's very academic driven still mainly, and it's very technical. So having a good sales force out and about, you know, is very needed still. Now, with Lunaphore and with plexing, things we're doing now, we can start taking more of a stand going after, you know, more pathology. So pathology is a whole new market for us to really address with spatial. And, you know, we play there as a partner with Leica and Ventana and stuff, but only where they let us, right? We hit these gap positions, but they don't let you play, you know, full on, right?
With the high throughput, you know, systems, right? But, you know, we're—
Are they letting you do more? I mean, has it loosened up a little bit?
It is. Leica has been a really great partner, and they're letting us do more, and they provide a lot of extra pull-through for our systems as well, that goes beyond them. And, I mean, I'll tell you what happens, though. You'll have an institution that has a Leica machine, it'll have two Ventanas, and we're deep with Leica, so we're actually in their firmware and everything, right?
So the systems work, and we'll have an FSA, FSE, and FAS, and they're working on a system, making it all run, and the hospital director will say, "We've got these two Ventanas. Can you make this assay run on them, too?" And we go, "Well, we, we can't make it built in, but we can make it run." So, you know, that gets back to Ventana, so eventually, they're, "You know what? We gotta get you on our systems because your-- people are using it anyway." You know, so... And, and-
Okay.
... Dako is a whole other story, but.
Let me just ask about Lunaphore again. The enthusiasm on your end is clear. I mean, you talk quite frequently about how that was an asset that a lot of folks were looking at and that you were happy to have. When I go to AGBT, and we do diligence on spatial, I don't run into Lunaphore all that often. I know partially why that is because it's a clinical translational tool-
Yeah.
... and I'm looking at high-plex companies-
It's, it's-
... but that is where a lot of spatial companies go to-
It's Swiss culture, too.
Okay.
Yeah, they're very Swiss and German-like, and they don't toot their own horn much. They're, but they're very, very good. And we've, I mean, to be really honest, we're known as an acquisitive company, and we've gotten a few scoops on some deals that probably we've been looked at us saying, "Wow, they, that's pretty good they got that," right? And I've never gotten more compliments in from people in saying, "Man, we tried to get that. You got lucky to get that. That's, that's gonna be awesome asset." I mean, unbelievable amount of feedback. Ata and the team are fabulous, and, they're all sticking around and, really excited. I mean, they, their next-generation instrument is designed around RNAscope, you know, so we are just gonna really kick some butt with that thing.
And because, you know, we can now RNAscope can do co-detection with protein. It's the only system out that can do it. It's still, you know, morphology of the sample still exists. You know, it's just got a lot of attributes. And it's got a thermal cycling capability. It can tune itself. There's feedback around thermal activity, where like Akoya and these machines can't. It's just a better machine, period.
Not cheap, you know, there's that, but it's got a lot of acceptance. They grew... We don't talk about it because it's not organic yet, but they grew quarter-on-quarter 170% last quarter. You know, by next year, by next summer, when we, when we turn the corner and, and the account's organic, this is gonna be a, you know, an over a $10 million business running at 100% growth.
Is it fair to say that that's largely European, just to your point on, on where they play?
They're a little bit everywhere. They've even sold a couple in China, so I saw there, but still small, but mainly the critical mass has been Europe, and it's coming.
Okay. So spatial is obviously a focus for you in the longer term vision. Is it safe to say that the spatial assets that you have represent what it is that you're gonna run with in the market, or are you still in the process of-
I think we have what we need.
... putting together a portfolio?
Yeah, I think we have what we need. I think, you know, we have different versions of RNAscope, BaseScope, and, you know, mRNA and things like that that are all growing nicely as applications. And I think with this instrument, we can plex as much as we care to plex, and then we can use this now to go after pathology, as well as continue the mission of, you know, of, you know, really going where, you know, immunohistochemistry is, you know, and so it, it's, it should be good, I think.
Okay.
It's a, you know, $110 million-$120 million business right now, and it should be a 15%-20% grower. It should be.
Yeah. Okay, maybe just on the diagnostic side, since we're winding down here, I do wanna touch on exosome and the EPI test. It sounds like about 20% of urologists have used or are using that test. What do you think the other 80% need to see in order to adopt it?
It's just like every class of physician, they have to be, you know, shown. They have to have the white glove treatment and show that it's, it's something that's really practical, good for their patients, and not gonna steal their income. You know, all those things. So, it's, it's growing, so we're just gonna keep grinding away.
Okay.
Um-
So it's not about clinical evidence, it's not about reimbursement anymore?
Not for that. I mean, for the private payers, it's still more of that, you know. Some of them really want absurd amounts of clinical evidence. We just published our, our 2.5-year point on the same 500 candidate, you know, and nothing's changed. It's just rock steady.
Yeah.
You know, so this test works. It just plain works. And it's designed to be a surveillance test, and now we're finally gonna be able to do that, right, with it. And the growth is... it's actually accelerating, so.
Obviously, the use case from the start was as a pre-biopsy tool, but there were some pieces in the literature that came out that suggested there was utility as a post-biopsy tool. And when we did some diligence calls, we actually found some folks more willing to use it in that setting than in the pre-biopsy setting. Is that something that's adding to the mix?
That would be icing on the cake, but yes, we've. We're seeing more and more demand for that too, as, as surveillance after biopsy as well. It's not what that tip was originally designed for, but it, but it definitely has merit, for sure.
Okay.
Because it's so non-invasive, right? So it's just so easy to use. You pee in a cup and get it tested.
Right.
So.
And there's not a lot as an alternative that-
Right.
... you can use. Okay. Jim's not here, but he'll, I'm sure, be fine with you talking about margin profiles and, and where you think things go from here, potentially.
I'm not too bad with numbers.
No, I think you'll be all right. How... What are the prospects for Bio-Techne reliably expanding margins organically? Because you're up front about what M&A- what you're trying to do with deals and what the impact of those deals are. But for those of us that are trying to model the organic business or just feel good about where the legacy Bio-Techne business is heading, if Jim were sitting here, or if you're willing to just sort of speak on his behalf, would he commit to longer term margin expansion for the, organically for the next couple of years?
Oh, for sure, that's our plan. So when we get beyond our $2 billion number, it should be back around 40%, and we, we design ourselves to be at 40%. We're under there now because the investments we've made, and, you know, Lunaphore is 200 full basis points of dilution all by itself. So we always design our year about 100 under beginning of the year and ending at the end of the year over 100 over-
Mm-hmm.
... basis points, and we're kind of on track. We may have had not such great growth numbers last quarter like everybody else, but we did hit our bottom line pretty close, so we, we're pretty good operationally. You know, and it's, and it's a, it's a mid-30s by end of the year, and I think, as we expand and things get back to scale, you know, I think we're, we're on track. We run our models, and we can go well north of 40 if we want to, you know, once we get $2.5 billion in or- 'cause scaling off of things like exosome and spatial, when they start becoming a bigger piece of the pie, they're just very lucrative, high gross margin-
Yeah.
... businesses, so.
The intent is to get to 40 with the deals, correct? I mean-
With the deals.
... it's not, it's not, "Hey, we would have gotten here, but we, we bought this thing, and we like this thing, so, you know, it's gonna be one more year.
Well, it's with the current deals, but let's say in three years we're at 40, but we buy somebody, you know, and there might be, it might be 38 again for a while-
Mm.
... as we dilute and absorb that. But yeah, it's net, it's net of deals, so.
Okay. But sorry, just to drive the point home, could you envision yourself getting, because you will do more deals, right? I mean, you said yourself, you're an acquisitive company. It's part of the strategy. Could you get to 40 as a number all in?
We have in the past. We could. It kinda depends on the pace and what deals, so.
Okay.
They're getting hard, I mean, the larger, more impactful deals are getting harder to find, you know? But, you know, small ones will continue, and this is a very innovative industry, so I think that'll continue, and they're not that diluted because they're not that big, so.
Okay, we're winding it down, so maybe as a final question, because as much as it pains me to say this, you are gonna be departing your CEO seat, and making room for Kim Kelderman coming in.
Mm-hmm.
What do you think folks will be most surprised by and impressed by with respect to Bio-Techne over the next five to 10 years?
Well, Kim's been with me since I hired him away from BD at Thermo 14 years ago, so...
Yeah.
Jim's been with me about the same time. I don't see them changing anything dramatically, at least not overnight, from what we're doing as a strategy, as our mission, et cetera. But Kim's different, and he'll manage different. Everyone does the job differently, and I'm hoping for that. I mean, after 11 years here, it's probably time for a fresh set of eyes, and Kim is more technical than me. He's run a lot of things. He virtually is the guy who set up the infrastructure for Thermo that became their, you know, their wild ride in COVID with PCR, right? So Kim did that before he left. So this guy is very bright, and he's very talented with business. He's your consummate European gentleman, too. Much more likable than me, unfortunately.
No, nobody says that about you. Yeah.
But, but I... You know, I think there'll be changes. The team's in a pretty good place. You know, Will's been there a year and a half, and I think it's too soon to see him picking off some CEO job somewhere, probably, but who knows? But, but, you know, we've got, we've got lots of great people that wanna come in still. I mean, to get to this, to date, to date, I've never used a search firm for one of my direct reports, ever in 11 years. So there's plenty of talent that wants to come to Thermo, you know, to, you know, to Bio-Techne. And, we'll just have to see what happens, but, I'm very confident that our, our game plan is a good plan, and the team will probably stay with it until they don't.
Right.
But you know, we're paid to be professionals and find growth, and we'll do what we have to do to find that, so.
Okay. Well, I am going to leave it there and say thank you for the session and also just for the time that you've spent with us covering the stock for the time that we have. I've enjoyed it.
It's been a blast. I'm glad that ended up here at the Palace, one of my favorite places.
Oh, excellent. Thanks, Chuck.
Thank you.