Conference Transcript - QDEL 2026-03-03

Andrew Cooper, Analyst — Raymond James

bringing us at the Raymond James Institutional Investor Conference. I'm Andrew Cooper. I cover diagnostics and life science tools here for Raymond James. Happy to be joined by the Quidel Ortho team. We have CEO Brian Blazer, CFO Joe Buskey, and Juliet Cunningham, and I are in the audience as well. Brian is going to give us a presentation, and then we'll head downstairs for a breakout in Amarante 1 once we're done. With that, thanks, Brian.

Brian Blaser, CEO

All right. Thanks, Andrew, and good afternoon to all of you here in Orlando, and as well, those of you who are joining us via the webcast. Go to the next slide. Before I get started, I want to point out that during our presentation, we'll be discussing forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures. We encourage you to review our SEC filings for detailed information about potential risks. Okay, so let me, I'd like to quickly outline what I'd like to cover today. I'll begin with why we hold differentiated positions in some of the most attractive segments in diagnostics, as well as how we are well positioned to generate sustainable long-term growth through innovation, execution, and disciplined capital management. Our portfolio spans the full continuum of care, servicing reference labs, hospitals, physicians' offices, and clinics, and this diversification provides stability while also giving us exposure to a broad set of testing environments and demand drivers. We also have one of the largest installed bases in the industry with over 145,000 instruments placed in 140 countries across 75,000 customers. We have five commercial regions with North America being our largest at 55 percent of our revenue and we have good solid growth across all of our geographies. Our business is united by a shared durable operating model. These are all razor razor blade platforms focused on high value patient critical testing that generates consistent consumables demand and in fact roughly 96 percent of our revenue today is recurring and that level of recurring revenue provides meaningful visibility predictability and a strong foundation for strong margin expansion and cash generation next slide so stepping back to the macro environment growth in diagnostic testing is underpinned by a number of important long-term secular drivers that are impacting all of us. We're all getting older. We have an aging population, continued decentralization of health care, expanding investment in emerging markets, and a rising focus on wellness and preventative care. And those forces together are reshaping health care demand and driving steady long-term utilization of diagnostic solutions. And our products are positioned to benefit from these trends. We support customers across the full patient journey from virtually every care setting around the world. And so with that context in mind, I'm going to turn to the specific market segments that we're targeting and why we believe they offer compelling opportunities for sustained growth. Next slide. Oh, you're there. Within the broader IVD market, we're focused on roughly $50 billion of highly attractive market segments. Our portfolio spans four key areas, and what makes it so compelling is the strength and quality of each of the businesses within those markets. Our labs business, which was 55% of our total revenue last year, is a highly stable, predictable growth driver. It's built on long five- to seven-year contracts, renewal rates in the mid-90s, strong win ratios on new business, and consistently high customer satisfaction. And importantly, our net promoter score in that business, which is a measure of customer satisfaction, is very high. And this business consistently grows in the mid-single digits growth range. our immunohematology business is number one globally and while it's a smaller market at 2 billion it's a steady low single digit growth business with an opportunity to grow in the mid single digits with some further investment over time and in point of care which is a 9 billion dollar market segment we offer a full menu of near patient tests in respiratory as well as cardiac immunoassays. We have a leading position in U.S. respiratory for flu, RSV, strep, and COVID testing, and we are a leader in point-of-care cardiac testing. And lastly, the adoption of new technologies is an important long-term driver. The molecular diagnostics market today is two and a half times what it was in 2019, and it continues to expand, which is why we want to capture that growth opportunity and we're very excited about expanding our presence in the molecular market which again is roughly nine billion in size and growing in the high single digits. And as we previously announced we're in the process of acquiring Lex Diagnostics based in the UK and I'll cover Lex and that platform in more detail shortly. But for now I'd like to go a little deeper and touch on the key platforms that are driving our growth today. So in the labs business our Vitros product line offers scalable and integrated systems to meet the needs of our customers primarily in reference and hospital labs and our sweet spot is the small to mid-size hospitals and I would say that while it shows up there that we're fifth overall behind a lot of the higher throughput competitors our share is much higher in the mid-size hospital segment and we have more than 15,000 systems installed worldwide. Among several planned product launches this year, we expect to launch the VITROS 450, which is the first new VITROS platform since 2019, and the successor to the VITROS 350. It's built on our waterless dry slide chemistry, and the 450 is a fully modernized system designed primarily for key OUS markets. And we expect to launch that product later in the first half of this year. early customer feedback on this system has been very positive and impressive. We're also partnering to provide new innovative immunoassay platforms for OUS markets that will expand our menu with more than 25 new assays on these systems not currently available on our vitros platform today for a total menu of over 70 assays on these new partner systems. And together with the 450, this creates a combined offering that provides us with an opportunity to compete for additional full menu tenders in attractive OUS segments. In our immunohematology business, our Vision Swift and Vision Max platforms continue their leadership for blood typing and antibody screening worldwide. Go to the next one. In point of care, our SOFIA platform has more than 100,000 global cumulative placements and continues to be our workforce platform for flu, RSV, strep, COVID, and a number of other tests. We continue to have the leading respiratory position in the U.S. and our flu COVID combo test consistently represents greater than 50% of flu revenue during the respiratory season. In Molecular, we're pleased that Lex Diagnostics received its 510K and CLIA waiver clearances, and we are in the process of currently working through the acquisition process there. Lex is designed to deliver speed and sensitivity with true PCR chemistry in a fully automated swab-to-result system at the point of care. It's going to make it one of the fastest and most intuitive PCR platforms on the market. it. Once the acquisition is complete, we expect to commercialize the platform with an initial launch in time for the 26-27 respiratory season and then scale into 2027. And we're really excited about this growth opportunity here. I believe this offers us one of our best, greatest opportunities for near-term growth on the top line, as well as being a strong margin contributor. The next slide. So 2025 was a critical year for us. We made real progress with innovation in 2025. And a great example of that is the recent clearance and launch of our high sensitivity troponin assay on the Vitros platform. It adds an important capability to our menu that supports faster, more confident decision-making in emergency and acute care settings. And looking ahead, this year will be an important product year for us with multiple platform launches and meaningful menu expansion. And these are driven by a mix of organic R&D, strategic partnerships, and our pending acquisition of Lex Diagnostics. And together, you know, these new products from systems to informatics and automation are designed to deliver strong customer value and drive meaningful pull-through across our install base. So looking ahead, our strategy is anchored in four pillars, delivering an exceptional customer experience, executing with discipline, and driving profitable, sustainable growth with one unified QO team. And we start from a very strong foundation. Our labs and immunohematology business provide stable, predictable growth supported by long contracts and deep customer relationships. You add to that our increased focus on commercial execution with a global team that's committed to driving profitable growth and lifetime customer value. We've also started work on a series of next generation platforms and incremental menu expansion, while at the same time continuing to strengthen our cost structure and enhance operational efficiency. And finally, we'll continue to grow organically and also with targeted partnerships and tuck in M&A where possible. So taken together, these initiatives give us multiple levers to deliver sustainable long-term growth and above the mid-single digits. I do want to mention we've made a number of changes to our leadership team this year. We have an almost entirely new team in place, and I'm very grateful for the leadership that they are bringing to our organization. Each one of our team here brings exceptional expertise from their field to help me shape our strategy, strengthen our culture of discipline, accountability, process rigor, and teamwork. And, you know, together we really are building a new QO team that is focused on delivering our results and achieving our objectives. So I'll spend a few minutes with our full year 2025 results and 2026 financial guidance. We had solid execution by the team in 2025, delivering on our financial guidance with $2.73 billion in reported revenue, which was 5% growth, excluding COVID and donor screening revenue. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $597 million with 22% margin, which was a 240 basis point increase compared to the prior year. And adjusted diluted EPS was $2.12 for the full year, representing growth of 15% year-over-year. In addition, we strengthened the balance sheet by refinancing our debt. We also achieved $140 million in cost savings by the end of 2025. And you can see here our full year 2026 guidance, which shows our continued expectations for growth and margin expansion of around 130 basis points, reflecting our cost discipline and business efficiency initiatives. And I would say that we introduced a free cash flow metric to our guidance this year, which reflects our intense focus on generating higher cash flow and reducing our debt. Speaking of which, in 2026, we expect to generate significantly more cash, notably moving from a negative $77 million last year to a positive $140 million at the midpoint of our guidance. And this is a $217 million increase at the midpoint. And this positions us to achieve our goal of a 50% run rate for free cash flow conversion in the second half of 2027. Our continued focus on profitable growth includes commercial execution in profitable markets, additional cost savings in facility consolidation and direct procurement with a goal of expanding adjusted EBITDA to the mid to high 20s by mid-2027. And I've already discussed the importance of increasing cash flow, but I would add that we have added a significant cash flow goal to our company-wide incentive plan in 2026. So there's a lot of focus on achievement with that in place across our team. And the ultimate goal here is for us to reduce our net debt leverage to our targeted two and a half to three and a half times by 2027. So I'll sort of wrap things up here and kind of bring it all together. On the right, you can see how we are thinking about positioning our market position and our long-term growth profile. Last year, we delivered 5% revenue, excluding COVID and donor screening revenue, and we expect to continue growing in the mid-single digits. We're operating in the right market, supported by strong underlying fundamentals and an expanding global product portfolio. Importantly, we're seeing clear progress in profitability, cash flow conversion, and net debt leverage. And over the long term, we believe we are well positioned to grow beyond the mid-sigital digits with multiple opportunities still ahead of us. So with that, I'll wrap things up. Thank you all for your attention and your interest in Quidel Ortho.