Danaher - Q2 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

My name is Ashton. I'll be your conference facilitator this morning. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Danaher Corporation Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then the number two on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the call over to Mr. John Bedford, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Bedford, you may begin your conference.

John Bedford (VP of Investor Relations)

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us on the call. With us today are Rainer Blair, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matt McGrew, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to point out that our Form 10-Q for the second quarter, our earnings release, the slide presentation supplementing today's call, and the reconciliations and other information required by SEC Regulation G relating to any non-GAAP financial measures provided during the call, are all available on the Investors section of our website, www.danaher.com, under the heading Quarterly Earnings. The audio portion of this call will be archived on the Investor section of our website later today under the heading Events and Presentations, and will remain archived until our next quarterly call. A replay of this call will also be available until August 8, 2023.

During the presentation, we will describe certain of the more significant factors that impacted year-over-year performance. The supplemental materials describe additional factors that impacted year-over-year performance. Unless otherwise noted, all references in these remarks and supplemental materials to company-specific financial metrics relate to the second quarter of 2023, and all references to period-to-period increases or decreases in financial metrics are year-over-year. We may also describe certain products and devices which have applications submitted and pending for certain regulatory approvals or are available only in certain markets. During the call, we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate will or may occur in the future.

These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in our SEC filings. Actual results may differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make today. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Rainer.

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Well, thank you, John, good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us on the call today. Our team executed well delivered our quarterly revenue, earnings, and cash flow expectations despite a more dynamic operating environment. The resilience of our portfolio showed through in the second quarter. High single-digit base business core revenue growth in life sciences and diagnostics, paired with better-than-expected respiratory testing revenue, helped offset softer base business demand in bioprocessing. Our team's ability to navigate these challenging operating conditions is a testament to their commitment to leading and executing with the Danaher Business System. Their actions are helping mitigate supply chain constraints, enhance productivity, and improve manufacturing throughput. We're proactively addressing structural costs while maintaining a healthy cadence of growth investments. Now, our second quarter results also highlight the durable, balanced positioning of our portfolio.

We have an exceptional group of businesses, all powered by DBS, that serve attractive end markets with favorable long-term secular growth drivers. This powerful combination of our talented team, the strength of our portfolio, and balance sheet optionality differentiates Danaher and positions us well to operate through today's more dynamic operating environment. With that, let's turn to our second quarter results in more detail. Sales were $7.2 billion in the second quarter. Core revenue declined 7%. We delivered 2% growth in our base business, which was more than offset by a COVID-19 revenue headwind of approximately 9%. Geographically, core revenues in developed markets declined high single digits, primarily driven by lower COVID-19 revenues. High-growth markets declined low single digits, with China down approximately 10%.

In China, our diagnostics businesses benefited from continued recovery in hospital patient volumes, while stimulus initiatives helped drive strength in life sciences. This was more than offset by a decline in our biotechnology business, where a significant deterioration in the funding environment during the quarter led to project delays and an increase in order cancellations. Our gross profit margin for the second quarter was 56.5%. Our operating margin of 20% was down 840 basis points due to the impact of lower volume in our biotechnology and diagnostic segments and costs incurred to adjust our capacity and cost structure in response to COVID transitioning to an endemic state.... These actions in this transition year are intended to ensure that we're in the best position to deliver on our long-term growth and margin objectives, while maintaining an accelerated cadence of innovation investments.

Adjusted diluted net earnings per common share were $2.05. We generated $1.6 billion of free cash flow in the quarter, and $3.3 billion year-to-date. This results in a year-to-date free cash flow to net income conversion ratio of more than 125%. Our notable strength in free cash flow generation differentiates Danaher and illustrates the quality of our portfolio, business models, and our team's consistent execution. Let's take a closer look at our results across the portfolio and give you some color on what we're seeing in our end markets today. Reported revenue in our biotechnology segment declined 17%, and core revenue was down 16.5%. In bioprocessing, underlying market conditions weakened further as we moved through the quarter, resulting in a high single-digit base business decline.

Larger customers are still working through inventory they built during the pandemic, emerging biotech customers, which we define as customers without a commercialized therapy, continued their efforts to conserve capital. In addition, we saw the ongoing biopharma market correction in China intensify as the second quarter progressed. Given these dynamics, where we can, we've started actively working with our larger customers to help them more quickly manage their inventory down to normalized levels. Now, while market dislocations are impacting our near-term growth, recent positive developments have only strengthened our conviction in the tremendous long-term opportunity ahead in the biologics market and for our leading bioprocessing franchise. The number of biologic and genomic medicines in development is meaningfully higher than at any point in history, and during the quarter, we saw notable regulatory approvals for a novel gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy and a monoclonal antibody-based Alzheimer's therapeutic.

These groundbreaking therapies are not only poised to improve quality of life for patients around the world, they're also serving as validation of these emerging therapeutic classes and reinforcing the potential of drugs currently in the development pipeline. In May, we completed the combination of Cytiva and Pall Life Sciences, creating a premier global bioprocessing franchise. The combined business, which will go to market under the Cytiva name, uniquely positions us to support customers as they pursue these life-changing breakthroughs. Cytiva's portfolio has the broadest offering in the industry, with end-to-end solutions across all major therapeutic modalities and an innovation engine geared towards helping customers bring life-saving therapies to market faster and more efficiently. A great example is the Xcellerex X-platform bioreactor Cytiva launched in the second quarter. This new bioreactor is optimized to enhance cell culture productivity and increase process intensity to improve manufacturing yields.

The X platform's modular design also enables customers to more predictably scale from the lab to production across all modalities, including monoclonal antibodies and cell and gene therapies, helping reduce time and cost in biologic drug production. Turning to our life sciences segment, reported revenue grew 5.5%, and core revenue was also up 5.5%, including high single-digit growth in our base business. Our life sciences instrument businesses collectively delivered mid-single-digit core revenue growth, led by nearly 10% growth at Leica Microsystems and high single-digit growth at SCIEX. Healthy demand across our life science, research, academic, and applied markets, particularly for our more advanced instrumentation, helped offset softness at pharma and biopharma customers. Our genomics consumables base business was up low single digits in the quarter.

Growth in plasmids, proteins, and gene writing and editing solutions, which are primarily used in projects that are commercialized or in later stages of the drug development pipeline, remained robust. This strength was partially offset by declines in next-generation sequencing and basic research. Our life sciences businesses continue to deliver innovative solutions that are helping accelerate the discovery and development of biologic medicines. IDBS recently released Polar Insight, a biopharma data management platform that is leveraging artificial intelligence to help researchers more quickly analyze datasets to accelerate drug discovery, regulatory filings, and technology transfer in the therapeutic development process. SCIEX launched the Intabio ZT, a front end to the ZenoTOF 7600 that enables researchers to more quickly and more securely identify and validate drug candidates, improving development workflows and pipeline yields. Now moving to our Diagnostics segment.

Reported revenue declined 13%, and core revenue declined 11.5%, with high single-digit growth in our base business, more than offset by lower COVID-related respiratory testing volumes at Cepheid. Our clinical diagnostics businesses collectively delivered mid-single-digit core revenue growth. Leica Biosystems led the way with high single-digit core growth, driven by strength in core histology and advanced staining. Beckman Coulter Diagnostics was up mid-single digits again this quarter, with solid performance across both instruments and consumables, and notable strength in immunoassay. In May, Beckman Coulter launched the DxI 9000, their next-generation immunoassay analyzer that automates up to 90% of standard daily maintenance routines while delivering best-in-class throughput.

In addition to significantly improving laboratory workflows, and efficiency, the DxI 9000 will enable Beckman to provide a full menu of blood virus assays over time, closing an important menu gap and further enhancing the breadth and clinical value of our test menu. Now, this is just one example of how the Beckman team is improving their competitive positioning through innovation, which is helping drive consistent mid-single-digit growth rates. In molecular diagnostics, broad-based strength across Cepheid's test menu drove another quarter of more than 30% core growth in non-respiratory testing. Customers who benefited from the workflow advantages Cepheid's GeneXpert delivered for COVID-related testing are increasingly adding additional assays from our leading test menu, most notably group A strep and hospital-acquired infection assays. Strong momentum for our recently introduced multiplex vaginitis panel, the Xpert Express MVP, contributed to mid-teens growth in sexual health testing.

In COVID-related testing, Cepheid's respiratory testing revenue of approximately $300 million in the quarter exceeded our expectation of $175 million. This was driven both by higher volumes and a preference for our 4-in-1 test for COVID-19, flu A, flu B, and RSV. We continue to expect approximately $1.2 billion of respiratory testing revenue for the full year. With COVID now an endemic state, we believe Cepheid is continuing to take share as many customers look to consolidate their point-of-care PCR testing platforms onto the GeneXpert for both respiratory and non-respiratory testing. Their preference for the GeneXpert within their labs and across their healthcare networks is a testament to the significant value, the unique combination of fast, accurate, lab-quality results, and a best-in-class workflow provides clinicians. Moving to our Environmental and Applied Solutions segment.

Reported revenue grew 2%, and core revenue was up 1.5%. Water Quality core revenue grew mid-single digits, and Product Identification was down mid-single digits. In Water Quality, DBS-led execution drove solid growth on top of a double-digit prior year comparison. Strong performance at ChemTreat and Hach was balanced across industrial and applied end markets. At Trojan, equipment sales and order rates remained strong as customers are continuing to invest in larger municipal projects. At Product Identification, Videojet declined low single digits against a high single-digit prior year comparison. We're also seeing lower activity levels at our industrial and consumer packaged goods customers, who are aligning their production schedules with end user demand. The Videojet team continued their strong cadence of new product innovation this quarter with the release of the 3350 Laser Marking System.

This impressive addition to Videojet's portfolio enables users to mark different sized products and multiple levels of the same product without adjusting the laser, resulting in increased uptime and higher throughput. This is one of several product introductions planned for the year that are helping position the product identification platform for success as they begin their journey as part of Veralto. Speaking of Veralto, we remain on track for a fourth quarter 2023 separation. Veralto will be well-positioned in some of the most attractive areas of water quality and product identification. Their portfolio will be comprised of leading companies with durable, high-margin business models, supporting customers' mission-critical operations. The Veralto team is looking forward to hosting an Analyst Day in Chicago on September 6, and we hope many of you will attend. Now let's briefly look ahead at expectations for the third quarter and the full year.

In the third quarter, we expect core revenue in our base business to be down low single digits year-over-year. We also expect total core revenue to decline in the low to mid-teens % range, primarily as a result of lower demand for COVID-19 testing, vaccines, and therapeutics. Additionally, we expect a third quarter adjusted operating profit margin of approximately 26%, which includes the impact of efforts to adjust our cost structure and capacity in response to COVID transitioning to an endemic state, particularly within our diagnostics and biotechnology businesses. Now, turning to the full year 2023, due to the near-term challenges within bioprocessing, we now anticipate low single-digit core revenue growth in our base business. We also expect total core revenue to decline high single to low double digits for the year as a result of lower demand for COVID-19 testing, vaccines, and therapeutics.

Additionally, we expect a full year adjusted operating profit margin of approximately 29%. To wrap up, our team remains focused on consistent execution in the face of a challenging and more dynamic macroeconomic environment. We're confident about the bright future ahead for Danaher. Our talented associates are innovative and passionate about their work and committed to our culture of continuous improvement. Across our portfolio, we're helping customers solve some of the world's biggest healthcare challenges, including faster, more accurate disease diagnosis and accelerating the discovery, development, and manufacture of therapies. Our solutions are at the forefront of improving patient outcomes and ensuring more patients around the world have access to quality care.

Financially, we've got a great lineup of leading franchises and attractive end markets with durable, high, recurring revenue business models, and our strong free cash flow generation positions us well to further enhance our portfolio going forward. The unique combination of our talented team, differentiated portfolio, and balance sheet optionality, all powered by the Danaher Business System, provide a strong foundation for creating shareholder value while helping to meaningfully improve human health. With that, I'll turn the call back over to John.

John Bedford (VP of Investor Relations)

Thanks, Rainer. That concludes our formal comments. Operator, we're now ready for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your touchtone phone. You may withdraw your question at any time by pressing star two. Once again, that is star one, and we will take our first question from Mike Ryskin with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Morning, Mike.

Mike Ryskin (Managing Director)

Thanks. Morning, Rainer. Thanks for taking the question. I'll start on bioprocess, the obvious one. You provided a lot of comments during the prepared remarks, but I'm just wondering if you could, you know, talk a little bit about order trends, anything that you're seeing from customers to give you a sense of when that destocking could continue? As part of that, you also talked a little bit about actively managing inventory with the larger customers. Could you just walk us through what that means exactly, and just sort of how you see the rest of the year playing out? You know, you gave the total percent number, but qualitatively, what are your thoughts on bioprocess as you go through the year?

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Sure. Let's start with orders. In, you know, the first half of the year, our orders were essentially down 20%. As we look forward here to the second half of the year, we think that our orders will be down modestly. That's a combination of, you know, various factors, one being that our large customers, CDMOs, continue to work through inventories. We also see that China continues to deteriorate here from what we saw in the first quarter, and certainly saw that deterioration in the second half of the second quarter, and we see that continuing. Then we are actively managing inventories down. While that is not new, we've intensified our efforts there, really in order to get as much as possible of this stocking topic behind us here in 2023.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Mike, maybe just let me give you a little color on some numbers here, too. I think if you think about the first half, like Rainer said, we were sort of down 20% from an order perspective. Like he also said, I think we'll be down modestly in the second half. I think it's important to remember, too, this is largely driven by the comps that we've got. If you think last year, you know, the first half, we had kind of a low double-digit comp, and the second half was more like 20%. Step up, get a little easier here in the second half.

I think the important thing, that Rainer just said is, you know, we have not seen in the order book enough to call an inflection in the market, but I think we, you know, we will see a step up to a more modestly down number here in the second half. I would really characterize that, as very much, comp-driven, not some sort of market inflection, that we're seeing.

Mike Ryskin (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks. appreciate that. If I could squeeze in a follow-up on China specifically. You talked a lot about China in Q2 deteriorated, particularly as it touched on biopharma, you know, biopharma market correction. Could you expand on that? Just how significant and how protracted do you believe that'll be? It seems like it's really mostly contained to bioprocess. You know, you called out instrumentation in China actually holding in pretty well. What's the difference there? You know, why is it so specific to just that one part of your business?

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

We saw that continued deterioration in the second half of the second quarter. To give you a sense, China orders were down, you know, 20% in the first quarter, 40% in the second quarter, but really 50% in June. Frankly, we don't, we don't see that getting better here in the, in the second half. That's really related to, you know, two or three factors. One, the funding environment continued to deteriorate. You know, the foreign investment in projects and capacity has dissipated. It has not returned. There are, you know, fewer projects there that are being funded. Also, over the last two, three years, a great deal of capacity has been built, particularly CDMO capacity, but also some with the smaller biopharmas there.

There's not a lot of additional hardware required here in the, in the short term, in the second half, nor are there that many molecules that are being worked on by the CDMOs, meaning that the consumables requirements of that capacity are also lower than we saw here in the first half of the year. Lastly, and part of this is related to our aggressively managing with our customers to get them to their target inventories. There are a fair number of order cancellations there. When you put all that together here, for China, that is a different picture here in the second half than we saw in the first half.

Once again, we're working here, if you aggregate this to the total global biopharma business, to get as much of this as possible behind us in 2023. Just to give you a sense here, our China business in 2022 was about $1.3 billion, slightly over that. We expect that to be about $800 million business by the end of 2023, which would be about 10% of the total bioprocessing business at Danaher.

Mike Ryskin (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks so much. Appreciate the color.

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Thanks, Mike.

Operator (participant)

We will take our next question from Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Morning, Vijay.

Vijay Kumar (Senior Managing Director of Equity Research)

Hi, Rainer. Good morning to you, and thanks for taking my question. I guess, on the bioprocessing commentary, Rainer, if you just simplify the various moving parts, it seems like large pharma was in line-ish, early stage was in line-ish. What changed incrementally in Q2 was China. If that is correct, you know, I think you mentioned China, was that down 50% in June? Is the second half assuming in a down 50% for China bioprocessing? I think you also mentioned, Danaher's actively managing customer inventory levels. What does that mean, and what is the implication for fiscal 2024? Should any of these issues spill over into 2024?

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Vijay, it's Matt. Let me give you. I just want to kind of set the numbers for everybody so we've got what we're looking at for China. As you said, from a revenue perspective, in the first half, we were down, call it, you know, 30%. We did see May and June sort of get down into the more like 45%, 50% down. As we sort of think about what we're thinking about for China going forward for the second half, we are kind of contemplating, if you will, for Q3 and Q4, both of those quarters to look like May and June at, call it, 50% plus down. With that, maybe, Reiner, you want to give some color on the commentary?

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Sure. Vijay, as it relates to 2024, we have a lot to work through here still. I think as an industry, in the second half of 2023, we talked about the various puts and takes of the destock- restocking that I think you correctly summarized with pharma and emerging biotech. You see the China piece that we're flagging here, and then, of course, actively managing those inventories with our customers here, in order to get as much as possible behind us in 2023. You know, we think 2023 probably is the bottom. Having said all that, it is a little early to be talking about 2024.

As always, as we get closer here to the end of the year, we'll continue to update as we work through the second half here.

Vijay Kumar (Senior Managing Director of Equity Research)

Understood, Rainer. Matt, maybe one for you on margins here. I think, you know, your second quarter came in slightly about guidance, but the sequential step down from Q1, that's 450 basis points. Can you bridge us on, you know, what drove that 450 basis point step down sequentially? I think some of this is cost actions Danaher undertook.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Yeah.

Vijay Kumar (Senior Managing Director of Equity Research)

Again, when I look at the annual guidance, I think you implied Q4 is perhaps 30%-ish.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Thirty-one.

Vijay Kumar (Senior Managing Director of Equity Research)

What drives that, thirty-oneish? What drives the Q4 step up? Does it assume your bioprocessing inventory levels to step up? you know, bioprocessing orders exiting Q4, is that assuming, like, a normalized trend? Thank you.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. No, I think that's right. You got that right. Q1, we were kind of call it 31% margin, step down to 26.5% in Q2. I think we're gonna be more like 26% in Q3, and then a step up to 31% in Q4. If you remember, last quarter, we sort of talked about, there's a bunch of capacity adjustment, you know, if you will, measures, not only at Summit Biotech, but remember, significantly at Cepheid, as the volumes there ramp down, we are, you know, being pretty proactive about taking down that capacity as we talked about. Really, the step down in Q2, Q3 is largely due to, 1, lower volumes, but 2, remember, we had those big capacity reduction costs.

Those are primarily Q2, Q3, and then they sort of go away here in Q4. Combined with higher volume in Q4 is how we get to kind of a 31%. That really has no bearing or impact on, you know, on anything to do with the bioproduction inventory, et cetera. I mean, it just incorporates our guide of kind of bioproduction ex COVID down 10%. Really all about the higher volume and the capacity reduction stuff that we're working on, kind of heading out of the P&L in Q2 and Q3.

Operator (participant)

Thanks, guys. Thank you. We'll take our next question from Scott Davis with Melius Research. Please go ahead.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Morning, Scott.

Scott Davis (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning, fellas, Rainer and Matt and John. Guys, I was hoping you could put a little bit more teeth into this cost out and just a little bit more color, even if you, I mean, in a perfect world, I'd love to see what the actual, you know, what tailwinds might be for 2024, what the benefit is. If, if you're not willing to go down that path, at least help us understand what's perhaps more rooftop versus labor versus... I know when times are tougher like this, maybe your comp accruals are down, but maybe you guys can give us a little detail, it'd be helpful. Thanks.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Scott, the capacity reduction, we talked last quarter that we had about $350 million of costs that was gonna come through in Q2 and Q3. We said probably about $250 of that was gonna be at Cepheid, that is a rooftop effort, right? During the pandemic, we added some rooftops to kind of meet demand. Now we're kind of scaling that back. That is a little bit of a rooftop dynamic as well as a people dynamic, as we scale down to where we are. About $100 million of that $250 is over the same concept, but at BTG, given some of the lower demand there.

I would characterize that less as rooftops and more sort of, you know, sort of, other actions around kind of demand levels, if you will, at BTG. That's sort of the $350 million we talked about last quarter. You know, some of that $350 million is gonna be sort of, you know, one time, if you will, right? And probably something in the range of $200 million of it will be a bit of a one-time cost that we are hitting and taking P&L in this year, that probably, you know, should come back to us here next year, as well as the savings that we have moving forward. We haven't really talked about the savings, Scott.

That's gonna be a little bit dependent on how much we can get done here in Q4 or Q3 and Q2, and then what gets done, in Q4 as well. It'll be a little bit dependent on how much we can get done on, as to what the savings, the annualized savings will be. We sort of, you know, told people last quarter that we'd kind of update that as we get, you know, towards the guide, for next year to kind of bake in some of the savings numbers. Haven't really gotten that yet.

I have a sense or an idea, but I do want to see if we can get everything done and kind of where we end up before we talk about how much is coming. I do think we've talked last quarter about that sort of one-time benefit of, call it, $200 million.

Scott Davis (Chairman and CEO)

All right. That's helpful, Matt. Okay, guys, it wasn't clear to me why the EAS margins were down. Is it like kind of price cost? Just because I'm, I'm assuming you had maybe negative actual unit volumes with core up 1.5%. Is it mix, price, cost? Is there anything, I know there's probably some prep into the spin that may add some near-term costs as well, but some color there would help too. Thanks.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Yeah, I'd say yes to probably all of the above, Scott. I think you're right. You know, it was a little bit of a price cost. I think they are starting to see an environment where, you know, they had really good price actions as some of the supply chain issues and supplies and logistics issues, they were able to kind of cover with price. I think you're right. We're starting to see a little bit of that come down, probably not terribly unusual. You know, some of it, they were able to offset with other measures. You're right. I think when you kind of look at what happened there in the quarter, there was a little bit of it.

Volumes were on the margin, you know, sort of down, but the price side did hold us up, but that price is coming down, you know, a little bit from where it was. That, that was, you know, kind of what happened in the quarter. Like you said, also, you know, ramping up into the spin here, probably had an impact as well.

Scott Davis (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for the color, and best of luck the rest of your guys.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Scott.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, and we'll take our next question from Dan Brennan with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Dan Brennan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Great, thanks. thanks. Good morning, Rainer. How are you doing? Thanks, thanks for the questions here. Maybe the first one, just on, you know, listen, the company is obviously a superior executor. DBS is at your core, so the string of bioprocess guide downs is, you know, pretty uncharacteristic, but it's also a situation that has plagued many peers. I'm sure you're always doing forensic reviews, so you go, you know, your future forecasting improves in terms of what you've learned. Can you just give us a sense of, you know, the latest bioprocess guide and, you know, what will provide confidence that the factors that surprise you here and led to the latest cuts won't surprise you again?

Now the guide incorporates enough cushion so that investors can have confidence that the bottom of the bioprocess guidance has been reached.

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Thanks, Dan. appreciate that question. As you can imagine, as you suggested, we are constantly, continuously improving our forecasting processes, even when we get into these unusual circumstances. You know, I think one of the aspects here is that the demand situation, the production planning of our customers around the world in the short term is very dynamic, in the sense that production plans are being changed as our customers manage their own inventories, as they deal with the demand patterns that they're exposed to. What we have learned out of that is a more frequent touch point pattern that we have to have with our customers in order to ensure that we keep our finger on the pulse of what's going on there.

We think that in the discussions that we've had, that taking the approach of aggressively helping our customers manage their inventories to their target levels, in order to find what the true demand signal is, as well as thinking about the second half here with some degree of conservatism, positions us well in what has been a very dynamic environment with a number of new factors influencing demand. We think we're well positioned here for the remainder of the year in terms of the bioprocessing guide.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Maybe Dan.

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Yeah.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Maybe just my thoughts on that topic. I think like Rainer said, I think given what we saw in Q2, I think we feel like we've got sort of, you know, China in a pretty good place from a, from a guide's perspective, given what we saw. Given the fact that we began that active management in earnest in kind of the back half of Q2, and are gonna be pretty aggressive with that to get everything possible behind us that we can here in 2023, I think this guide puts us in a pretty good place for the rest of the year.

Dan Brennan (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Great. Maybe just thinking about, you know, the exit rates that are implied in the guidance. I know you already commented, Rainer, you know, 2024 official guidance will come later. It'd be really helpful just to get some frame of reference about key inputs. We're coming out somewhere in $9.30 this year on earnings, and maybe, or, you know, a little below $10, maybe $9.80 for 2024. I know consensus is still, you know, $10.23 as of this morning.

Is any help about how we think about the trajectory in 2024, either from an earnings basis and also even, you know, given the low single-digit base guide for this year, how we think about that comp and what that could translate into, you know, a starting point for base organic growth in 2024?

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Dan, I do think that it's early to talk about 2024 because we still have an entire half of the year in front of us here with a number of factors to work through. We talked about the destocking dynamic in China, as well as our efforts to actively get the stocking situation behind us here in 2023. We think that ultimately, you know, we're probably seeing in 2023 the bottom here and what is the bioprocessing stocking dynamic. We also, and I talked about this in the prepared comments, you know, are positive about, you know, the long-term growth of this business and this industry.

It's just too early to be putting down a marker, here, in July on how we think about 2024, and do promise to come back here, later in the year, to update, and then, of course, as always, provide our guide in January for 2024.

Operator (participant)

Okay, we'll take our next question from Puneet Souda with Leerink Partners. Please go ahead.

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Good morning, Puneet.

Puneet Souda (Senior Managing Director)

Yeah, good morning, Rainer, and Matt. Thanks for taking the question. First one, you know, on China, you know, beyond the comments you made and the 50% expectation down for the rest of the year, orders being down, I'm wondering if there is anything fundamental in terms of the shift on the product portfolio. We heard one of your bioprocess peers talk about competition on the less technology-heavy products. Wondering if you're seeing any of that and any share shift there that is also happening in this market.

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Puneet, our point of view on China is that the continued deterioration is far more about demand and funding than it is about local competition. The local competition has always been there. No question during the pandemic, local competition became more relevant as lead times extended. And where we do see that local competition, it tends to be more for local China, for China, therapeutics, than for products that find global application. For us, this is really a topic at the margin, and the real story here is that the funding environment, as well as the stocking situation in China, requires further mediation here in the second half.

That's exactly what we're doing in order to get as much of this as possible behind us, in 2023.

Puneet Souda (Senior Managing Director)

Okay, that's super helpful. Then on one on capital deployment, if I may. How are you thinking about capital deployment now with the EAS spin and the backdrop of a somewhat of a rather, you know, weak end market in the near term? I know historically, you've pursued leading assets that are usually gross margin accretive. Wondering if any of that has changed, and if you think, you know, services has gained more significance in your framework for capital deployment now? Thank you.

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Sure. Puneet, for us, M&A continues to be the primary form of capital deployment, and we do that when we see the end market, the asset, and the model, the financial model, align with our requirements. And that is relevant for any end market or adjacency that we might be thinking about, and we maintain a consistent perspective there. Now, having said that, you've likely noted that our balance sheet is in great shape, and we are in a market that, you know, provides opportunity, and we continue, as we always do, to work our M&A funnels to find those opportunities where all three lights flip to green, if you will, market, company, as well as the business model.

Puneet Souda (Senior Managing Director)

Got it. Okay. Thank you, guys.

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

We'll take the next question from Rachel Vatnsdal with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Morning, Rachel.

Rachel Vatnsdal (VP of Equity Research)

Great. Morning. Thank you for taking the questions. First up, just kind of shifting gears over to the life sciences business, that was much better than expected this quarter, and notably, instrument strength was pretty strong, with high single-digit growth at SCIEX and 10% growth at Leica. Could you just walk us through really what drove that strength in instruments this quarter? Some of your peers have called out a meaningful slowdown when it comes to CapEx spending and some of their customer segments for instrumentation. Are you seeing any of those same dynamics, and how are you thinking about instrument growth for the full year?

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Thanks for the question, Rachel. As you suggested, our Q2 life sciences business finished, as expected, up mid-single digits. We've been talking about a normalization process for some time now, and that's also what we're expecting going forward, and I'll come back to that in a minute. If we look at the strength here of mid-single digits, geographically, the U.S. was okay. I would exclude large pharma there and sort of small biotech, where that's relevant. The EU, Europe, was solid, and we also saw a good level of activity in China on the remainder of the stimulus or the subsidized loan program that China had in place. Now, from an end market perspective, we see the academic end market holding up well.

We see the applied markets, if you think of food testing, environmental testing, with some strength, but as I mentioned, we see biotech and pharma softer. If you think about this from a product category perspective, we think lower end, so less expensive, perhaps even operating cost versus capital expenditure type of equipment, is impacted more severely than the higher end, which we still see holding up, and you saw that with Leica Microsystems and SCIEX as well. As we think about the second half here, we continue to be cautious for a couple of reasons. We mentioned that, you know, the China market, while strong, the subsidies there have come sunset at the end of the first quarter, and we'll have to see how that continues. There's no news on that front going forward.

We think really the second half ends up being flat for life science instrumentation, putting the full year at low single digits as the normalization process, if you will, from what has been over several years now, very elevated growth rate, continues.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Rachel, that's sort of on the back, too, if you think about the bookings here. I mean, our book-to-bill in, you know, life sciences and into the instruments businesses was a little bit less than one in the quarter. I think to Rainer's point, you know, we look at the first half here in China for life sciences instruments, that was largely a backlog play from the stimulus. As we sort of head into the second half, I think our assumption is that we're gonna be flat in those businesses as China stimulus backlog kind of rolls off. Does not have the impact that it had in the first half, we, you know, we just don't see a real step-up here in stimulus in the second half.

Rachel Vatnsdal (VP of Equity Research)

Great. Thank you for all the color there. Maybe just a follow-up on pricing. Can you walk us through how much was pricing an impact for instruments in the quarter, and what are you assuming for pricing on instruments in the back half of the year? As a follow-up, just pricing on bioprocessing. You know, for bioprocessing, it sounds like you took 350 basis points of pricing in 1Q. What was that pricing contribution in 2Q? How are you thinking about pricing evolving within bioprocessing in the back half of this year, and also just heading into 2024? You know, last year you guys took 400 basis points of price in bioprocessing. Obviously, the industry is pretty dynamic right now, so any color there would be appreciated. Thank you.

Rainer Blair (President and CEO)

Rachel, overall, our pricing for the quarter, so overall Danaher was up 350 basis points, with all four segments remaining above the historical average. Specifically, you were talking about life science instruments. There we saw in the quarter 450 basis points of price. Now as we look forward for the remainder of 2023, we do see that and expect that to moderate somewhat, but we do expect to be above our historical averages here for the remainder of the year. As it relates to 2024, I think we'll come back to you on that as we get closer here to the end of the year.

Operator (participant)

Okay, we'll take our final question from Luke Sergott with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

Morning, Luke.

Luke Sergott (Director of Healthcare Equity Research)

Great, thanks. Warren, thanks for squeezing me in here. This is just kind of to follow up on Danny Brennan. I know you guys aren't going to give 2024, given how everything's dynamic, but I think that, you know, the destocking is what it is, right? That's rolling off. That shouldn't be 2024, but that sets up an easy comp. Everybody's just trying to figure out right now what the industry demand is to support the type of overall industry growth. You know, typically the market growth, you know, the bioprocessing markets, like, high doubles to mid-teens, and that's in a normalized market. How quickly do you think we can get back to that level? Then on top of that, you have the comps, which would take you over that.

Do you think that we're going to be in a period of subdued contraction from a demand and capacity perspective, given COVID rolling off, you have China, the headwinds there's several other things, you know, the lack of biotech funding? Give us a sense what that normalized market looks like for you guys right now.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

I, Luke, I mean, I just keep coming back to it's July.

Luke Sergott (Director of Healthcare Equity Research)

Yeah.

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

We're in a pretty dynamic market, you know, where we are within the industry. Like you said, there's a number of dynamics that still need to be worked through. You mentioned some of them, destocking China, the fact that we're sort of actively managing through this inventory situation. I know why people are trying to get to a 24 number, but I just think it's too early. We just need to get through the second half. We'll get a better sense of how those dynamics play out, which will give us a lot better, you know, sense as we get later in the year and into when we normally guide, of what that looks like.

I just think that there's so many parts right now that, you know, unfortunately, I think we just we really do need to get through the second half here.

Luke Sergott (Director of Healthcare Equity Research)

Yeah, I understand. Then I guess, like, can you quantify how much destocking was in the quarter for you guys and kind of year-to-date?

Matt McGrew (EVP and CFO)

I mean, I could probably come up with some number, but it would be imprecise. I think the reality is that it's going to be very customer dependent. It's going to be manufacturing site dependent. It's going to be, you know, drug dependent. I mean, we don't really spend a lot of time trying to figure out how much was destocking, as much as spending time with the customers in a pretty proactive way these days, to understand what's on hand, what's the real need that you've got site by site by site, so that we can help them manage down to an inventory level they're comfortable with. Some are comfortable with getting down to where they were pre-pandemic. Some are trying to get below that, and some are trying to be above that, actually.

It's, you know, it's not one number that we manage to. We're really doing it on a kind of individual basis. I don't know that I've got a great answer for for a number, but we are actively managing it in probably a way that was more active than we have been.

Luke Sergott (Director of Healthcare Equity Research)

Gotcha. All right, fair enough. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. John Bedford for closing remarks.

John Bedford (VP of Investor Relations)

Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We'll be around the rest of the day and week for follow-up questions. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, and this does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.