Conference Transcript - STVN 2026-06-02

David, Analyst — Conference Host

Thank you for joining us here on day three of our Global Health Care Conference for 2026. Also want to thank Stevanotto, the Stevanotto Group, for being here with us. Franco Stevanotto, the company's CEO, is here to talk with us about the company, and Lisa Miles, the company's lead IR. I think Franco has a couple of slides that he'd like to share as an overview, so I'll turn it over to you first, Franco, and then we'll talk Q&A.

Franco Moro, CEO

Thank you, David. And good morning, everybody. And thank you to you, David, and Jeffrey, to host Stevanato Group at this important event. I would like to use these two slides in order to show at a higher level who is Stevanato, which are the origin, and even more, which are our ambition in the next years. Stevanato Group is a company that was founded in 1949. We started after the Second World War by my grandfather, Giovanni Stevanato. in particular in the last starting from 1980 we have started to focalize our competence in order to serve the pharmaceutical industry because it's a market that even more in Europe United States and today in Asia is continued to grow because the number of opportunity in the pharmaceutical space is continuing to grow so in the last 30 years that you can see through this slide we try to build a very sophisticated value proposition in order to meet the requirement of our clients so if you see from the title we say global leading provider mission critical solution what does it mean our glass product that now we are going to propose to our clients in what we call easy fill configuration is one of the product that is going to enter in contact with the molecule so on all the industry of the supplier of a primary packaging is the most critical product this is going to require a lot of scientific chemical characteristic in order to don't make any changement or any risk to the molecule. This is why we call mission critical. All our glass product is going to be filed and registered in the FDA of the drugs. So it's very important, it's fundamental, the quality of the product we serve. I'm going to underline this because today's Temerato Group produce several billions of products through our 13th site in nine different countries. And the characteristic number one fundamental that our clients are going to request is the quality of the product in the last years what we see our clients move more and more in what we call injectable injectable space and self-medication so this is why we start from the glass product like via cartridges ranges but we try to enlarge more and more our value proposition in order really to become the true scientific technological partner for our customer we today we convert most of our bulk product in what we call ready-to-fill product. We don't sell anymore the bulk product. We sell through washing, siliconization, sterilization, pre-assembly. In fact, if you look on the left, we produce a billion of syringes, vial, and cartridges in the ready-to-fill configuration. Then more and more our clients were giving us the opportunity to say, okay, Stefanato, now you do the glass product, but more and more we are going to use some product like the drug delivery system. So we try to develop our proprietary product platform in order to serve together with the glass product also the device like the auto injector and the pen in the different configuration through our IP also in a selective way we sell our in the CMOS space. Then in 1970 we have decided to also to develop what we call our engineering division for two big goals. First because at that time in Europe there were 200 competitors in 1960 and only in Italy were close to 60 competitors. So we didn't have at that time real competitive advantage so we decided to develop all the glass forming technology vision inspection and dimensional control all the different type of coating in order to build an internal competitive advantage in fact after 50 years today the result that we are always competing with one maximum two players worldwide we are competing with backdoor dickson syringes we are competing with shotgun via into cartridges second this division I started to better develop also our competency inspection machine and assembling technology in order to don't only serve the internal group, but to sell this machine to the pharma company, the same clients that are using our glass product. Why we do this? Because this helps even more to enter the full intimacy to our clients. In fact, today we are able to build what we call end-to-end integrated offering. When a client is coming to us, we start to serve when the product is in phase 2 and phase 3 through our tech center. We have a tax center in Padova and we have another tax center in Boston that we start to engage our collaboration when the molecule is in phase 2 and phase 3. Then when they go commercial, we are starting to use all hub, our operations that we have split through the different parts of the world. The goal is to become very specialized. The biologic market is growing. There are thousands of molecules that will go through injection, self-medication in the next five, eight years. We want to be always number one and number two in what we do. In fact, today we are market leader worldwide on buy rate to fill, we are market leader worldwide on cartridges bulk rate to fill, and we are second player worldwide on ranges. And then where we are looking to be focused and build capacity, competence next year to come. If you look at the next slide, just to summarize, we have a powerful track record of growth. of the company around 98 sorry we were around 20 million euro company before the IPO we were a little bit more than half a billion company today at the end of the year 2026 we guide that will be in the upper part close to 1.3 billion euro why because we always invest through organic growth to reinforce more our research and development in order to serve to our clients most sophisticated product why because the biologic market is requiring very sophisticated primary packaging for their complex molecule today we have with this wide product portfolio in order to be able to continue with them in 2021 we have decided to list the company in new york why because we were facing a lot of growth opportunity from our big pharma customer but they want to say okay stevenato i want you heavily increasing the capacity for our easy field product, but also even more, we want to become domestic in the United States because the biologic market is growing. And this is why we have decided to list the company. We raised between the IPO and the offering close to $1.2 billion, practically 70% of this procedure. We are totally reinvested in order to build capacity. We approach a heavy cycle of investment from 21 to today in order to build a huge capacity. And today we are executing, we are ramping up these plans between Europe and United States in order to execute all our commitment that we have today we are facing some strong tailwinds that the biologic market is giving to us but even more our big focus really to become the real partner of the biologic space q1 2026 we have delivered another strong quarter the bds segment grows in double digit we achieve close to 60 percent or 16 percent of growth in the bds segment and Stevanato Group grows around 10%. Even more, we have a good signal that are represented that are confirming that our strategy is good. We continue to grow in high-value product. This is where we are heavily invested since the last year. So overall, I want to summarize. We are in a very nice environment. Biologic industry is growing. There are also additional strong tailwind like GLP-1 inside of the growth. Growth at Stevanato is laser-focused just to execute it to continue to be partner. We are actively serving more than 23 top global customers, and we have a portfolio in total of 700 customers worldwide.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

Great. Thank you for that, Franco. So I promise I won't spend the whole time on GLP-1s, but I am going to start on GLP-1s. So for you, I think GLP-1 was about 21% to 22% of revenue in the first quarter, grew greater than 20% year over year. we're seeing GLP-1 products in some cases transitioning to multi-dose pens and therefore the cartridges that would be inside those pens. Is that shifting the mix of demand that you are seeing for your products toward cartridges, say, away from syringe or vial? Related to GLP-1,

Franco Moro, CEO

we started today, the majority of our revenue that we do on GLP-1 is through our next syringes. David. It's also true that today our two big originator clients that have started to engage Stevanato also with an incremental opportunity in order to serve what through our cartridges rate of feed. So based on picture of 2026, syringes, still the dominant primary packaging configuration that our clients is asking for JLP1, are starting to engage. This would be more one, two, three, four years program to have also a big engagement in order to build heavy capacity for cartridges, say, to fill. This is to be incremental capacity that we put in place, starting from we already have existing capacity in the plants of Padova that we have increased this year because we have converted one of our vial ready-to-fill line into cartridges, say, to fill. And now starting from June, July of this year, we are going to have the first high-speed line for cartridges, say, to fill in our plants in Latina Cisterna.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

Okay. Ready to fill. So, easy fill cartridge in Latina is the last point. Okay. And Dave, you may remember as far back as our

Lisa Miles, Head of Investor Relations

Capital Markets Day, we had been discussing the expansion on ready-to-use cartridges. So this has been a project that has been in play for many years as customers moving from bulk to

David, Analyst — Conference Host

ready-to-use configuration on cartridges. Okay. And Franco, you mentioned kind of a one to four year timeframe, Lisa, you just said, you know, a project that has been in flight for a while. So you've got some capacity that's already moving to cartridges. And you are also, I'm asking, are you also starting new investment, new capacity programs for cartridge that will

Franco Moro, CEO

then be several years out to come in? Correct. Today, if you, if you take our approach for on cartridges. We serve cartridges since 1990 in the bar configuration. Since a few years through the plants of Padova, we have more and more programmed on cartridges, not only related to GLP-1, but also related to many other programs on biologic. Today, we are increasing capacity in the plants of Piuminodesium. Even more, there is a program to heavily invest capacity in the next year to come in the plants of Latina. Why? Because if you look at our outlook, including the GLP-1, The fact that somehow our big client is converting their platform from bulk cartridges to ready-to-fill, and the number, the tens of hundreds of programs that biologics require on cartridges ready-to-fill from 1 ml, 3 ml, 5 ml, 10 ml, it will represent a big tailwind for Stevanato in the next five, eight years to come.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

Okay. Are those, I didn't have this on my list, but in that regard, the bulk to ready-to-fill conversions,

Franco Moro, CEO

are those annex one prompted? There is also a big, there is two elements, David. One is that annex one is going to require a more sophisticated quality requirement than certain process, certain pharmaceutical company where they're starting to be a little bit older, it's better to buy the new flexible technology like Syntego, Mauscher-Strauber, Optima in order to have this more clean technology. It's also true that in term of total cost of ownership, there is the tendency of the pharmaceutical company to source water for injection, complex clean room, washing, synchronization, and crimping. Because most of the time, the process of this pharma company is strictly connected to the process of filling. So it's not efficient because this work may be one shift because it's linked to connect to the filling. When they are going to source to the supplier we work at 24 hours seven working day. So from total cost point of view is much more convenient to source to the supplier because we can have more productivity, better cost, better quality. So this is going to become a trend on the market, not only related to the next one, because the customer is going to

David, Analyst — Conference Host

source one non-core competence. Okay. Sticking with GLP-1s, the other thing that another driver that's happening in the market is some early biosimilar launches for GLP-1s, are those launching, coming to market in multi-dose pen cartridge formats, single-dose auto-injector formats, and how does that vary by geography?

Franco Moro, CEO

Today, since a couple of years, we are actively in a program of validation with potential clients, both the United States, Europe, and Asia, that they are launching in their GLP-1 product in both configuration, David, into the syringes, into the cartridges, say, to fill. I see all these clients that are practically trying to mirror the same packaging configuration that the originator are doing. Stevanato is actually working practically. This is also a strategy that we always done this. Our goal is to maximize the penetration in the therapeutic area, maximize the validation to originator, but cover all the biosimilar in order to don't have any risk of fluctuation in the next year to come. Today we're active in program syringes, cartridges ready to fill, and also in biosimilar we have also active program in order to serve not only the cartridges ready to fill, but also our Alina pen.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

Got it. From a price point, thinking about cartridges, price point standpoint, and this comment that you made about kind of the total cost of ownership evolution toward ready to fill, what – how how much higher value or average selling price is your ready to fill cartridge versus a bulk cartridge? How much lift do you get out of that?

Franco Moro, CEO

The fact that we are going to take care about this huge investment, automatically we enter it with a cartridge you say to fill immediately on the category of high value product. When is the range of gross margin between 40 to 70%. When the client is more in the concept of high runner, we are more in the range of 40% gross margin. When there are certain biologic clients that have a program between 5, 10, 20 million cartridges, maybe large format, we are more in the category of 70% gross margin with also active CAPES contribution. So overall, we can easily go above 10 times the value compared to bulk.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

And that 10 times is price point or margin or both?

Franco Moro, CEO

For price point.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So you have this, I think, relative to your point about transitioning from bulk to ready to use, you have a particular customer that is in that transition process right now. Is that right? And where does that stand and how long until they'll be fully converted and ready to use?

Franco Moro, CEO

By the way, these clients have a huge platform worldwide. We started already many years ago to develop the configuration between process, between primary packaging, the type of sterilization, because outsourcing, washing, siliconization, and crimping was accomplished. Today, we are starting to introduce the first high-speed line this year, and next year, there will be the first ramp-up of the line number one. If you project the next five, six years, I think the goal is from these clients to convert all their platform. David, this is a long process. Only for us to install a line like this can be 24 months, including validation. For them, it's exactly the same. So I think this is a program that if you stay in schedule, it will be easy five, six year program. But the volume behind is very big. And then what is important? This is setting a new standard. exactly what's happening in the beginning of 2000 syringes. At certain point, certain big pharmaceutical customers they decide for their total cost of ownership were much better to outsource everything ready to fill. Today, close to 98% of the syringes market isn't ready to fill. Now we are starting to see the same trend on cartridges.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

You're setting the standard point. I was definitely going to go there before I do. So your five- to six-year program, you're installing the first line, I think you said it goes live next year. Can you give us a sense of how many lines, so six years out, when that program is done, how many lines would you have in place for ready-to-fill for this client?

Franco Moro, CEO

Today, we have already spare part in-house to go immediately with the second line in order to be fast into the assembly, the second RATU 400. For sure, we want to close the validation program to be sure that everything's set, but in order to be fast and flexible, the engineering individual have all the spare parts in-house. Then our BDS segment is already ready to expand the capacity in Latina or expand capacity into Pumbino Dese in order to be able to add also line number three, number four, number five, number six in the next year to come. There is not approved when to approve the line number three and number four, but at the end of the game, like I mentioned to you, it's a six-year program, a year before, a year later is where we need to execute this investment. Also because, David, there is another element. We are always talking about this client, but in parallel, there are many other clients that are entering the market with a smaller quantity, maybe different format. They are not only talking about 3ML, some of them are on 5ML or 10ML. So we need also to take care and proactively build the capacity, not only for these anchor clients, but for many other clients that are coming on board.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

Got it. That's the question I was going to come back to. So let's, as promised, move away from GLP-1s. Outside of that, in the injectable space, what is driving your high-value demand? You've seen that mix continue to shift. What are your drivers for high-value?

Franco Moro, CEO

We see today strong traction from our ALBA syringes, in particular for what is related to ophthalmic product or monoclonal antibody. And it's also true that today in terms of number are not huge because more our program are in phase two or phase three or going commercial. But if you combine all this program that we have, we talk about several tens of program, it will represent a nice double-digit gross revenue generation incremental for Stevanato in the next year to come. We are building capacity into our plants in Padova. Now we are really kick off the new industrial line. And also we are going to heavily add capacity to the next year to come in Fisher. Then on cartridges A2 field, we have other custom biologics, always in monoclonal antibody, ophthalmic product, rare disease, that are going to use what we call cartridges configuration up to 10 ml because the self-medication, the cartridges is very functional for this. on the top of this we have many big clients that are asking to move the syringes traditionally for example the customer is using the standard one ml long syringes they are moving to the 225 3 ml and 5 ml since years ago the auto injector usually is going to stop at 220 25 because there was not sufficient assurancy of the injection of the dose today there are a lot of clinical study at the pharmaceutical companies they are pushing to move up to 3 to 5 ml so there is another incremental opportunity for stevanato to serve the next year 3 ml syringe 5 ml syringe where the value is very accretive because a small in terms of total quantity but the value is very high

David, Analyst — Conference Host

so do i interpret correctly that the price um for a 3 or 5 ml syringe is materially is is

Franco Moro, CEO

non-linearly higher than your 1ml? It's going the upper part of our target of high-value product. Wow, okay. Okay. Because of the complexity is that I'm not client that we never order maybe 100 million syringes, maybe they're in the range of 5 to 10, 20 million syringes. They will require customized technology, maybe also some campus contribution, is exactly the same track record

David, Analyst — Conference Host

of Alba syringes. In this non-GLP-1, we've covered GLP-1, non-GLP-1 complex biologic space that, you know, those products that are the drivers of demand for your high-value products, is your participation rate steady, increasing, decreasing? How would you describe your hit rate

Franco Moro, CEO

We established 10 years ago a tech center in Padova and in 2020 a tech center in Boston with a clear goal to maximize our penetration by the molecule in phase 2 and phase 3. And today, more and more, we are enforcing our scientific people, our technical account manager, product manager, in order with a clear goal. In biologic, we want to be number one or number two when there is an injection, certain medication. So, our win rate is high for practically three reasons. One, because the tech center is supporting them with a very strong product. Second, because our product, our coating, our IP and EasyFill platform, are fitting for the requirement why Alba is having this strong traction. Because with this plasma coating, it's really perfect fit for this high-spotent drug. Even more, the fact that we are proactively building this big factory in Europe and United States It's helping to give the confidence to the customer. Okay, I go to Stevanato, have strong technical background, but when we go to commercial, they already have a huge capacity to serve. So to your question, our win rate is very high today.

Lisa Miles, Head of Investor Relations

And just to add a little more color, Dave, that I think we discussed at the end of the year call, in 25 relative to 2024, we had a 40% increase in customer projects tied to pre-fillable syringes, both the Nexa and Alba. And so these are future programs. These will seed the future growth of the business. So I think that's an important statistic that we see the broadening of those clients within the biologics business, XGLP.

Franco Moro, CEO

Also, last point, in the organization, the focus today is growth on high-value products in biologic. In fact, if you look, we have a nice growth in high-value product. In non-high-value product, we are a little bit more stable because we don't put attention, but we prefer to maximize the opportunity in the new molecule.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

So, Lisa, that number was 25 over 24, project growth of?

Lisa Miles, Head of Investor Relations

40%.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

40%. Okay. Let's move to margins. So the mix shift that high-value product adoption drives is a natural margin expansion lever for the business. What is your expectation for margin expansion over time?

Franco Moro, CEO

So today, last year, we have delivered 25% of EBITDA. This year, we are in a high part of 2026. Our goal is to drive the company at 30% of EBITDA, plus, minus 1.0. Because still, we have a lot of opportunity to grow in high-value product. We still have opportunity to bring in full potential Latina between syringes and cartridges. We are starting to add additional revenue with our Alba technology in Padova, in Piumino Desima, even more. The huge investment in Fisher have a lot of space to growth because today we have launched a big cycle of investment syringes. There will be opportunity to do another cycle of syringes investment. We are starting to validate the high-speed line for Vi-Ray to fill. There will be a second line for Vi-Ray to fill. We will add also Alba technology and also in the second part of the year we are starting to ramp up the department for devices. So taking into consideration all these elements, our goal is to drive the company in 12 to 24 months to 30% of EBITDA.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

Yeah, and so I know that that 30% goal, as I remember, is your long-range plan target. Yes. And you still believe that you can get there in that time frame?

Franco Moro, CEO

Firmly committed, yes, to stay on this target. Maybe it will be not a full year 2027, but the goal is going to go in this direction. In parallel, also in the company, that now we have a lot of also capacity in place. We have more and more boosting, strong program, what we call operational excellence efficiency.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

In terms of Fishers and your journey there and building out, I guess if one were to see that facility, How full is it?

Franco Moro, CEO

I think we are in the range of 60% of space occupancy. We need still 26, 27, 28, and 28 to bring full capacity. In terms of stabilization, productivity, efficiency, the existing capacity, we have other 12 months to bring full capacity. If I mirror Latina, Latina in 2025 increased. we're running full capacity close to the end of 25 to dc this year in term also oaa rejection rate is performing same performance of padua in fact the marginality of latina is in line i think that this is where we see space capacity is a is a 60 percent but if you combine with also productivity improve i think we have a lot of way to go so we have a very high expectation from these plants in

David, Analyst — Conference Host

next few years. So you had talked, you gave us an easy rule of thumb that a dollar or a euro, I should say, of capex should equal about a euro of revenue. That capex total is targeted at, what,

Franco Moro, CEO

500, 550 million? For high value product, the goal is one euro capex, one euro revenue. The plants of Fisher, I think 75-80% it would be with high-value product. The goal is to be more or less in this range. Consider that it will be also bulk viral production and the device are not high-value product

David, Analyst — Conference Host

but the goal is to be

Franco Moro, CEO

in this range.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

So you're 60% occupied. I'm guessing you're not yet at 60% of the revenue target yet. Is that right?

Franco Moro, CEO

Because the line is there, but the high-speed line era you will see next week is there, but it's not generated revenue yet.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

Yeah, so you're more like 40% or 50%?

Lisa Miles, Head of Investor Relations

That's not a statistic that we've provided, Dave.

Franco Moro, CEO

Also, I ask many times to our controller, I have difficulty to have the information. So this is my own stand, I want to check personally.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

Right, he wants you to check after you talk to Dave.

Franco Moro, CEO

I want to check with the chronometer, what's the real revenue?

Lisa Miles, Head of Investor Relations

I mean, it's fair to say it's a multi-year investment with a multi-year ramp-up. And so, you know, as we continue to bring more lines into commercial production, revenue will continue to ramp. Even if you just look at what we're doing on the contract manufacturing on devices, I mean, we're not yet at commercial volumes. We just started running performance qualifications for one of the device projects. So we still have quite a ways to go.

Franco Moro, CEO

If you allow me to explain what is our approach, David. In 2025, we were not making stress to our plants in Latina to focus the EBITDA. We were really putting a lot of attention on training and stabilization on the process. This has helped our people to focalize, to bring a maximum of efficiency. In fact, this year we are seeing the result. We are doing exactly the same. If you have close to 100 people starting to do the kickoff of the department for route injector, we don't want to put stress on economics. is we want to put a lot of pressure in order really to make the stabilization of the process. Then automatically the margin will arrive. So this is why our goal is to have the validation, stabilize the process, perform the right training, and then you can take off with the marginality.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

So we're running close on time. Let me try to hit on two things real quickly. So has the Middle East conflict had any impact on customer behavior or supply chain?

Franco Moro, CEO

Not really.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

Not at all. And then you had mentioned, I think, some slower decision-making on CapEx projects by customers that would, I think, influence some amount of engineering orders, might also influence conversion to high-value products. But those CapEx projects by customers, how would you describe those today?

Franco Moro, CEO

So I have two examples. We have two big U.S. clients that have ordered the first assembling technology for their devices, and they give already the verbal commitment for the line number two, number three. There are two implications. First, they want to be sure that in the first plans that they have running our syringe with our device, with our line, everything is perfect in order to confirm that the second line, the third line, must have the same user requirement. Also, there are other clients that they have not fully understood if they want maybe to order two, three lines for each format or to order from ISO combined. All these technical questions are unfortunately postponing one or two quarters the order. So the pipeline is there, it's healthy. The conversion into order is taking a little bit more time. This is why in our guidance in 2026, we are soft in revenue, but we are increasing the marginality.

David, Analyst — Conference Host

Okay. I think we're at time. We better call it there. Franco and Lisa, thank you for being with us. And thanks to the investor audience for being here. Enjoy the rest of your day.